The Passing

Flash Fiction: A brief essay - usually a thousand words or less - that illuminates in a quick flash of light.

Late March, 1969. Under an Appalachian sky, Poppa and I fed the rabbits that he had bought me for my birthday. He built special cages for them alongside the north wall of our barn, just high enough off the ground for my seven-year-old eyes to gaze into. I could reach past the trap doors and stroke the animal’s lovely fur. Their coats dazzled against the sun in dew-drop colors and the many pairs of round eyes often spoke to me.

I took the tin cup and dug it deep into the feed sack and the dust filled my nostrils. It always made me smile, the way the dissipation rose up from the burlap in a miniature mushroom cloud. The rabbits were happy to see me, coming on those late spring afternoons to appease their hunger. I was content to pass time in their presence, with quiet conversations and keepers of fine secrets.

The Saturday after Easter weekend, long after my friends had multiplied five times over, I heard my grandfather leave our farmhouse just as the sun was rising. I struggled to pull on my jeans in the faint window light and followed him through the wooded glen between our house and the barn. I was surprised to see my uncle waiting for him by a band of river rocks, sharply piercing and strutting above the ground like hard turtle backs.

My uncle held the rabbits’ heads against the largest of the rocks while Poppa brought down the axe. I watched from a grove of walnut trees. The sound of them screaming under death’s door invaded my soul forever. “Simple mathematics,” my grandfather would tell me later, “Too many mouths to feed.”

It is the only time I ever felt anything but love for him.

Early March, 1989. Poppa and I talked on a phone, separated by thousands of miles and nations and ocean. The connection was horrid. In-between the crackling wires and popping satellite ride, I painted him a sunrise portrait of a different countryside. The rice paddies were flowering in the distance, breathing alongside occasional water buffalo. I could see families from my window, planting shoots in knee-high water, a farm near the Philippine Sea.

I asked him if he received my Easter package. He laughed and said, “Yes, I got your bunnies. The chocolate was very fine. But I don’t know where in the world I am ever going to put another one of your stuffed rabbits. I am running out of room in the house. I built a special shelf for them right next to my bed so I could count them all and think of you, running around in the world. I am proud of you.”

Cecil Duff Richards 12/18/09 ~ 3/08/89

When I hung up the phone, I so wanted to be home with my grandfather. I watched the sun move from its low place over the hills and climb to the highest point in the sky. I sat unmoving and missed the man who was a farmer, the man who taught me much about the mysteries of life.

Poppa died a few hours later that day, his heart ruptured and bleeding.

I would feel nothing but love for him the rest of my life.