Barry Clifford: Killing For Fun

Once, a long time ago, I bought a shotgun. I had gotten into my head to go hunting and thought this might be fun. As soon as it was in my possession it felt good, powerful, and when I fingered the beautiful French engraving on the steel and oakwood butt right down to the trigger finger, that feeling of power grew. The next day I found myself in Connemara on the hunt for a rabbit or anything else that was legal to shoot. I did not have to wait long.

In fact I hardly had to get out of my car for there he was, my prey, my rabbit, right in front and less than ten metres away. Surely he will at least make a run for it, give himself a sporting chance, though he may not have shared my point of view. As I reached for the gun clumsily and noisily, took precious agonizing seconds to load it, this rabbit did not move; when I slowly took aim at him he did not move even then. I was now looking at him lined up perfectly with the barrel of the shotgun with his heart still beating, his bright eyes and wide, standing on his hind legs, erect and paused, with a living breathing curiosity, when time seemed to stand still as I pressed down on the trigger. The gun kicked back, seeming to recoil at it’s own violence as thunder crashed into my ear. The rabbit was dead.

I walked up to him, or it, for I did not know if it was a male or a female and could not tell, and surely it did not matter now to the rabbit. There was hardly any blood on the fur and that is when it suddenly all mattered to me for what I had thought was fun had died with him. I had taken a life and wondered why. I had never eaten a rabbit before, and was quite sure if one was served up in front of me, I would not eat it then. This hunt cost more in fuel than the cost of any rabbit dish. 

To help assuage my guilt, I tried door to door farmers in the area to see if it was on their menu or possibly could be. They laughed at my puny conscience but then they were used to killing or rearing animals to be killed. Finally, I threw the rabbit into an abandoned quarry where the action only cemented my despondency. The following week I sold the gun at a loss sure in the knowledge that I could never go killing for fun anymore or ever kill again unless I need to.

Now and again I pass the exact spot where I threw the rabbit, who has long since disappeared into the ground becoming again part of the cycle of life, and I always think of these lyrics as I pause at this place: ‘Bright eyes, burning like fire; bright eyes, how can you close and fail; how can the light that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale.

Barry Clifford