Today I ended a little life. A rat who was dying on the side of the road. His breath was fast, his big black eyes staring at nothing. I wonder if he knew he was dying--that he'd never move again. Did he still feel fear, even as his body no longer responded to his commands? His mouth was caked in blood and one of his legs was twisted and stained underneath him. I think he was hit by a bike.
I scooped him up in my shirt and took him into the alley behind the 7/11. I set him down onto a patch of sod and covered him. I stroked his fur a once or twice. He wasn't a pet; I don't know why I did that. He was so soft. All it could have done was make him more terrified. He continued his rapid breathing. I didn't want to kill him. I desperately didn't want to. All I could think of was how scared he was. What did he think I was doing to him, as he stared up at me? Did he see me as any different than the crow that had been pecking at him only a moment earlier? I suppose the crow and I both sought the same thing: to kill this dying creature. The difference between me and the bird was that I wanted the rat to die quick.
I took out the little buck knife I carry around with me. My brother always says that's a weird thing to do, that no one carries a knife and that it's just a macho move with no practical application. He's wrong, of course. I open package, beers, stubborn wrappers, and the throats of dying rodents. I covered the rat's face with my shirt and then placed my blade (which was too dull--what a lazy, careless fool I am) on his soft neck. I pressed and pulled. It didn't puncture--the rat just rolled over with the weight of it. I had been too cowardly, and didn't push enough. I went a second time and opened him up all the way to his glistening vertebrae.
Not as much blood as I'd thought there'd be. But he wasn't breathing anymore. His jaw moved and I went in again, nearly severing his head. My knife was speckled with what looked like droplets of red rain. I felt weeping coming. Such a little life--meaningless to me other than I shared something in common with this tiny mammal. Both me and the rat very much didn't want to die. But we both do eventually. His time had come, and he sat on the pavement breathing arrhythmically and staring up into a sunset wanting nothing more than to get up and move again. All I did was cease that desire. He'll never feel fear again. He'll never be hungry, or cold, or in pain. I gave him that.
