And then there was none.

At first, Happy died in the gutter. We wrapped him up in a plastic bag and dad returned him to the ‘green, green grass of home.’

Then dad went on his Euro trip and came home with a grand proposal; after observing how the Europeans keep their rabbits, he announced that he would be letting the rabbits roam free in the garden, where food is in abundance and the cage would never require cleaning again. Part of me rejoiced. Another wondered if this hare-brained idea would work when all that’s left to protect the rabbits are the fact that they should be able to outrun any potential danger.

Then the dad announced that both dogs will be freely roaming the garden as well.

Sometime later, Miss Grey was found dead with her eyes close to popping out of her sockets.

I wasn’t there; I was at work, which is a thankful thing, because I would’ve had to wrap it up as well. Instead, the brother had to do it. That night, we mused to ourselves the possible assailants of Miss Grey, concluding with a consensus that it was one of the dogs.

A few days after, Lucky was killed and her head was missing. The crime happened in plain sight of the dad. It was Lanna ‘the bear cub’ Wolfenstein.

We never found the head. It was either devoured or buried as winter food.

Now we have no rabbits and the cage is an empty reflection of a home abandoned, and slowly claimed by time.

We’ve had two. Then it became three. And then there was none.

A thread of deafening silence hung in the air (now forgotten, for the rabbits were, well, rabbits…).

*********

I never blamed Lanna. It was instinct. The awakening of a dormant impulse, surged outwards in a single instant and wham; we have a wolf. A hunter. An urge formed by the German Sheppard within her, escalated by the blood of a hound-mongrel that was her father. No more rabbits.

We did punish her, though.

She’s still back to her playful, oblivious self. Maybe she will dream about it as the finest achievement of her life; the successful hunt. The bear cub, now closer to a bear.

*****************

I forgot to mention, what with the advent of work and the stuff that comes with it, that the brother is now back from the English shores and has comfortable reintegrated himself into Malaysian lifestyle and culture.

He hasn’t developed an accent, but has learned how to break an arm in various ways, and I am already the unwilling dummy.

He is, rather unfortunately (for me), still the same.

**************************************

While watching the blade of grass dance to the soft wind on a hill overlooking the world’s horizon, I suddenly came to a revelation.

It was the type of revelation in a form of a resolution. And I’m going to do it. But it being a resolution would mean I would eventually either forget about it, or give it up halfway.

Between the chirps of the passing sparrow and the early chorus of crickets, it felt as though the wind has bound a Japanese “YOSH!” headband over my forehead, not really ebbing even after dinner.

I cracked my knuckles.