這週我帶我已步入老年的寵物兔去做例行體檢，
去年我曾在學生前演示如何做這條 GCSE creative writing 題目 – “Alone. Use this as the title for a story.” 我用了 third person point of view 講述我上隻兔子的死給我帶了的悲痛。
Alone
After she returned home from the vet’s clinic, even though every piece of Chinese furniture in her living room remained in its precise position, and every porcelain teapot on her shelf remained strategically placed to show off its hand-painted peonies to best effect, she felt like a tornado survivor whose house had been uprooted. For with Peach now dead, the linchpin that had held her life together was gone, and not only did her apartment feel empty. It might as well have been reduced to rubble.
Of course she knew this day would come when she brought Peach home eight years ago. But it was only now, when her black and white Dutch rabbit companion had to be put down due to old age, that she realized how much she had taken his presence for granted. When she walked to the kitchen to grab a cup of tea, she still half-expected him to be lying outstretched in his favourite corner near the fridge. When she woke up the next morning, for a moment, she was convinced he was waiting for her right outside her bedroom door, perching on the cool marble floor in the all-knowing manner of an Ancient Egyptian cat.
She would never forget the way Peach looked at her in the eye before the vet injected the needle that would put him to sleep forever. It was a look that said “I’m scared! Save me!” The only other time she had seen this expression on his face was several years prior, when she had to relocate from Beijing to Shanghai, and the pet movers came to their apartment on the morning of the move to take him away. Though she had assured Peach many times that they were going to be reunited in the evening, he became convinced he was being abandoned. As the van was being driven away, he kept turning back to shoot her that look.
In the days and weeks that followed Peach’s passing, she kept hoping she would see him in her dreams. She kept thinking of this mainland Chinese mother she once read about who had just learned her small son had been killed in a train crash. “Let me hold him one more time” she pleaded with the police as they carried his body away. If Peach were to appear in a dream, she could hold him one more time. But he never did.
The hole Peach left in her life was only filled when she adopted a new rabbit one month later. As she signed his adoption papers at the SPCA’s Wanchai headquarters, she knew she was also signing up for another worst day of her life – there would also come a day when this rabbit, too, would reach the end of his lifespan. She put her signature on the dotted line anyway, making a mental note to hold him each time as if it were the last.
Michelle Ng
英國牛津大學畢業，前《蘋果日報》和《眾新聞》專欄作家，現在身在楓葉國，心繫中國大陸和香港。
聯絡方式： michelleng.coach@proton.me
個人網站： https://michellengwritings.com
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