Occasional Scribbles

The nostrils of her black moist nose flared as she breathed in cool air, allowing the powerful sense to pick up the crucial information from invisible thermals. Catching a mixture of smells she stood dead still, frozen, while her brain translated the information. At lightening speed, too small to be measured, she quickly discarded the smell of the domestic animals in the far off farm yard and focused on a tantalisingly brief hint of the one she was seeking. Homing in on its phantom frailness she surveyed with blue black eyes narrowed to pin pricks the direction from whence it came. Her intensely sharp hearing picked up the distant sound of movement ahead. In one fluid moment, her senses came together as one, muscles spasmed and rippled along the sleek lines of her flank galvanising the powerful legs into action. With agile speed, barely touching the ground, she flew towards the unsuspecting hare.

The Hare lifted his head heavily from under the shallow ledge of earth where he had been fitfully sleeping. He sniffed the air briefly with a wiggle of his short little nose and listened with his long brown ears; the black feather tips blew in a light wisp of a breeze. He sensed no danger. A weak sun began to melt the stiffness of the cold spring night out of his old bones. He was glad that winter had receded and that now the sun began to warm the hard earth and allow the sweet young shoots to make their frail way out from the darkness.
He felt weary despite the onset of warmer weather. He had not thought he would survive the cold winter, the frozen ice turning the ground to stone and making what little food there was, impossible to dig out. He was old now and had lived through many hard years. Where once he was agile and possessed of an innate knowledge of the land and how to avoid all its dangers, he now felt forgetful and surprised that he had not already been killed by the thunder like bang that stemmed from his most feared enemy. Many times he had escaped the thunder which felled others of his kind; racing away from the fearful noise of cries and dogs and foot falls, hoping he could reach safety his heart bursting in his chest, the blood pounding in his ears and the ever present fear. Once safe, he would listen with heavy sadness to the sound of others not so lucky; their unique, eerie cries of agony as they struggled against death that would surely end their pain.

On this watery thin morning he knew in his heart that his time was near. He knew he no longer had the will to fight for his survival. His wits were dulled with age as well as his body and he felt a sense of cruelty that the very senses he needed to keep alive were deserting him. His beautiful long ears no longer had the range of hearing so necessary and his nose seemed always to be running blocking this vital sense which identified the vile odour of danger. He picked listlessly at the bright new grass and found he could no longer taste the pure sweetness of its young growth. With heavy heart he lay a while resting and felt the earth yield a little and enfold his soft form.
He saw the beauty of a single dew drop atop a blade of grass glisten in the morning light, in soft focus because of its nearness; he heard the comforting sound of the awakening birds and felt a certain safety at the earliness of the hour.

The dog saw the old buck come into view ahead and was thankful that this would be an easy kill. She was too hungry to chase far and wide after a younger animal. She sped in a circuitous route her hind legs springing the knee joints up to her flanks, front legs outstretched ready to break, before in a swift fluid movement she turned with accurate precision to catch the old hare in her strong jaws. With a quick flick of her head the hare rose up and over the dog’s nose until its own weight snapped its neck. Instantly it was over. The dog sat down to her meal.

The hare’s eyes closed as he dozed and all at once he felt himself lifted into the air, he looked directly upwards to the blinding warm light of the sun which enveloped him kindly into its peacefulness. He was finally at rest.

Inspired by Skinny three’s predecessor.