O’ Tay, I’m in a really good mood this evening. As I write this, I can’t help but gaze out the window pane at the myriad of colours cascading off the brittle limbs of the oak tree in my cartilage. The grandeur of nature beckons me, like the innocuous whitetail deer that stood within lunging distance of me the other day at my mother’s house. She stood amongst parched fescue with ears erect, only halting her gaze on me, to munch on grasses. I observed her shadow cast a silhouette against the Eastern Cottontail Rabbit playfully pouncing across the seckel sunset dabbled meadow.

Sitting on a hilltop, I watched the doe observe me and glint at the ever-approaching rabbit. The rabbit, only stopping to view the deer and me, faded behind the grasses. Only its beady – swallowing black eyes could be seen though the filaments of fescue and alfalfa.

The deer rose from her grazing stance, because of the crepitation coming from the woods. She glanced at me with her ears twitching back and forth, I reverberated a lull sense of safety. She, with a dark golden winter coat, cautiously returned to browsing and sniffing the ground at her hooves.

Suddenly, the rabbit in the lower part of the pasture leaped through the air to the shelter of the woodlands a few feet away. But, it crouched just at the edge of the forest, ever vigilant of its surroundings.

A few moments later, the smell of dung drifted across my nose and the crunching of footsteps lightly patting across the grasslands. Quietly, I turned around to discover a family member kneeled about three feet diagonally behind me. He was fully adorned in camouflage regalia, and holding a Benelli R1 rifle. He leaned over, and whispered, “Shhhhhh”.

I, knowing the ending fate of this doe I now call Aquene, glared and squinted at her as if to warn the poor animal. Nevertheless, just as she rose to turn, a blasting crack resonated across the valley, as a light thump surd through the grasses and her glorious shadow melted into a bleak November night.

The rabbit sprang out of the woods, bounced up the hill, looked down at the lifeless Aquene, glowered at me for what seemed like an eternity, and sprang into the darkness. The man, with smoke still emitting from the moonlit muzzle of his rifle, leapt to his feat, screamed a tribal beat of victory, and called for an ATV to pick up him and the Queen of the spruce pine trees.

‘Nough Said!