Think I Can Fly

Feintly Frightening - Part Two

(prompt: 'closed' - 25/10/2019)

For the next few nights we were ready. Kanute's 'you beaut' torch was on my bedside cupboard, his rifle propped on his side of the bed in a corner behind his wardrobe. Until now its use had been restricted to putting down a suffering animal a few times, and shots fired into the air to frighten away kangaroos without harming them. Never been used for hunting. Nor protection, either. Until now.

Now we were ready for anything . But nothing happened. Not the first night... or second... or third. And we relaxed, comforting ourselves that it must have been some strange 'one-off' type happening. Unexplainable, but... gone, it seemed.

On the fourth night we woke abruptly, our terror in full stampede mode as the dreaded huff-huff came once again. Our heavy breather was back! But there'd be no paralysis this time. We were prepared... and sprung into action to defend all we held dear.

We snuck up to the door, flung it open with me brandishing the torch furiously and Kanute lining up the target. Again, we were outwitted by our intruder. There was just a shaking of leaves of one bush. His hearing must have been phenomenal. Or was it his eyesight, able to detect our silent awakening and sneakiest movement from our bed? That wasn't a pleasant thought, imagining him lurking and watching us through our bedroom window... sleeping!

Undeterred by not arresting his escape instantly, we went after him with a vengeance, shouting our intention to GET him this time. Fear had been replaced by outrage, and now, at the sound of our raised voices, our dogs headed into the bushes too. Abruptly we realised the movement through the leaves was going ever upwards.

"The blighter's climbing the tree," Kanute shouted. "The dogs have cut off his escape. We've got him now."

I swung the torch backwards and forwards, at first only detecting ever upward leaf flutterings. Below, the dogs were barking insanely, one scratching his front claws against a tree trunk as he strained to climb higher, and the other jumping up and down in a valiant effort to achieve the same.

Suddenly, the piercing beam of our torch found its target and Kanute swung the rifle into position, his eye pressed against the weapon's magnifying sight. And all was revealed. Up as high as he could safely venture, our heavy breather had wedged himself on the junction of a sturdy tree branch. Kanute lowered the rifle as I battled to keep our intruder in its 'reveal-all' beam.

We gasped and then... "It's a possum! Our intruder is a possum," Kanute said, his tone echoing the astonishment of his face.

Huge eyes glinted from the most beautiful bundle of cream and fawn fur we'd ever seen; and a gorgeous bushy tail longer and more luxuriant than any possum I'd ever known. Unimaginable that just moments before we had been prepared to shoot him. Hearts melted and dogs were hastily called off, to their great reluctance.

Now we also knew who was responsible for all the picked, bitten and rejected unripe cherry plums littering the ground beneath that bountiful old tree. His nightly shenanigans were abruptly closed down when we located a possum trap and transported him far away to have another chance at life.

We never told our neighbours of his deliverance. No possum would have gotten out alive from their places.

But OUR heavy breather? Well-ll...