… crunch.
Eyes closed, blood dripping from one of his nostrils, his tiny muscles seized with pain as he lay on his back. I could feel my face blanch and my hands grew clammy. The mania I felt disappeared and was replaced by shock and horror.
“Oh my god, I’ve killed it,” I thought. Hot angry tears welled up in my eyes. How could I have been so wicked to something so small and helpless?
I ran down the porch steps to get a closer look. He had rolled back over onto his stomach—with difficulty stumbled into the adjacent flower bed. His tiny ribs expanding and contracting so fast in time with his little lungs.
“Please don’t die,” I implored, as I knelt down on the sidewalk next to him.
Earlier, I was collecting nettle stems for fiber and was coming back inside when I opened the door to my apartment stairs and nearly stepped on the small taupe rodent.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” I shrieked! The little animal started scurrying around, trying to dig under the door leading to the basement, but got caught in the corner behind the door. Using a few of the stems I collected, I tried to poke the vole in the direction of the door but he wouldn’t go. Looking around for other options, I grabbed the broom from outside the door.
I began to sweep the vole from his corner, out the door toward the garden. Savagely, he grabbed, bit and clawed the bristles, his little paws held onto the broom. Matching his ferocity, I easily shot him out over the threshold. A manic force took hold of me. Sweep, sweep, sweep, it said. And so I swept, following the vole as he tried to run. Sweep, sweep, sweep. I caught him in the bristles and pushed, his body dragging along the concrete. I took another stroke with the broom, the vole on his back. Then with one, awfully final push, sweep, sweep, sweep, I launched the vole off of the porch and …
Crunch.
My angry tears turned to sadness. He was only a vole, but getting swept to death is no way to die. Sitting on my heels, I did all I knew to do and held vigil for the tiny creature. At least he wouldn’t be alone in his death. The bird song and sunshine seemed to mock me. Life is so fragile. It could've been me—swept away by some freak accident, a drunk driver or a tragically targeted series of bullets.
Fuck you, Rach, I thought to myself. I looked back down at the vole, and to my utter surprise and relief he was moving, using his tiny little hands to clean his face. His eyes definitely had the look of someone who had recently been concussed, but, now that he was clean, he looked unharmed. I watched as he dug a hole for himself, and gingerly moved away underground.
Every day when I come home, I pass the disturbed mound of dirt where the vole disappeared. Sometimes, I think that he probably dug his own grave, that he’s just out of sight, dead and unmoving. On better days, I like to hope that he dug his way through the garden and out to the fields where he and his vole-friends are feasting on potatoes and sunchokes.