As part of my work I’ve been contracted to control rabbits in a cemetery. No biggy, done it before.
But this cemetery is different. Not the cemetery itself. Usual stuff, headstones, flowers, extra green grass.
No it’s the amount of traffic it has day and night. People in at all hours. Why? I’m sure their relatives aren’t going anywhere. It’s like trying to catch rabbits in a tesco’s carpark.
I thought most people would be a bit wary about being in a graveyard after dark. Just in case something goes bump in the night. Or “bang” if I’m there.
Take last night. I’m working, dressed in the full gear. It’s dusk, just enough light to see. Everybody should have buggered off by now.
I get out of the landrover and start to creep about.
I peep round the corner of a wall, spy a big bunny. Slowly, slowly, get crouched down and take aim. Out of the corner of my eye I spot something coming towards me from my left. I freeze, I don’t even breathe.
I swivel my eyes to find a guy wearing two pieces of a three piece suit casually walking straight towards me. Now, I’m dressed like a wierd mating between a mouldy haystack and a yeti. If I move or say anything this guy is going to have a cardiac arrest. If he spots the rifle probably two.
He saunters right past me and deposits his bunch of dead flowers in the bins about six feet from me. Then he starts to fill his empty milk carton with water from the tap next to the bins.
This is getting worse. The longer I leave it the bigger the fright he’s going to get.
It just got worse. He turns round and steps to within three feet of me. He must have seen me!
No the running tap has got to him and he unzips his fly.
An evil little voice in my head says shout “Boo”
I resist. He finishes and puts it away. Some his flow heads towards my boots. I’m right at point of moving when he heads off the way he came.
I can breathe again and the rabbit has pissed of laughing.
The place is unreal. 04.30 people putting flowers down. Half past eight at night and a girl walks through the graveyard with what I thought was a small puppy on a lead. She gets closer and I see it’s not a puppy but a ferret.
Not a rabbit to be seen for the rest of the night.
Think I’ll buy a tie and get a job in a bank.
