Zao3 Zhi1 Dao4

It’s been bad weather the whole week. Lots of rain and cold cold cold.

Tuesday morning, I brave the rain to go feed the rabbits and goats. Their cages were flooded. So I scooped as much water out as possible, gave them plenty of dry grass and leave, drenched by the rain. For a fleeting moment, it occurred to me to change their bedding that very moment. But coz it was raining and even if I did it’d be wet all over again anyway, and besides, they’ve been in similar situations before.

You know how Oprah always says that before something happens, there is bound to be a voice or a sign which will come to you first. Well, apparently that was it... Wednesday morning, Unni decides that instead of waiting till the end of the month, we should bring the rabbits into the barn now. So we prepare the barn for the rabbit cages to go in. I go to the animal pen to check on the rabbits and to clean out their cages. And there lay the youngest black rabbit. Dead.

Dead! As in not breathing, gone, finished, not alive, no longer functioning!! It must have froze to death in the cold rainy weather. If only I had changed the bedding in the cage the day before, maybe it would have lived. Or maybe if I’d put in even more dried grass in, it could have something dry to sit on.

Well, there's no point mulling over what could have been. Coz there’s no zao3 zhi1 dao4. A dead rabbit’s a dead rabbit.

On the up side, at least all of its other rabbit friends are warm and toasty in the barn.