Distance | Leah-Cassandra Oneshot

Distance

"You need to go help your mother with the animals. There's a raccoon down there who got injured real badly. Don't leave her on her own to deal with that." Papa said to me when I came into the main room of the house this morning after I got up.

"Yes, Papa. I will." I told him, while retrieving a slice of bread from the loaf in the cupboard so I had it to snack on while I made my way over to our animal rehabilitation clinic.

We run the clinic out of our own barn, and we have about five to a dozen animals in there at any given time, sick, injured or otherwise incapable of helping themselves. Therefore, my family has started taking them in, and Mama and I nurse them back to health. I could never see myself killing a sweet and innocent animal for food. Perhaps that's why I'm a vegetarian. I've always been that way, as long as I can remember, since I've been working with animals so much throughout my life.

I gradually took bites from the slice of bread I had with me as I walked down our large plot of land from the house to the barn. When I finally arrived there, I had completely consumed my slice of bread, and Mama was inside waiting for me. I entered to find her working on dressing a raccoon's wound, as it looked like it had been burned rather badly. Unsure of what it could have been from, at first, I then concluded that it must have tried to pass through or climb the electrified fence. Many animals in the District died or harmed themselves that way. The District boundary was a high-traffic spot for injured animals, so that is often where we would go look for ones to help out.

"Leah dear, good morning." Mama said when she heard me walk in. She hadn't even looked up from what she was doing, but knew it had to be me.

"Good morning, Mama." I replied. I gave her a smile, even though she didn't see it while she was working away on the raccoon. Walking over towards her, I then asked her what I could do to help.

"How about you ready some food for the raccoon. He should be all fixed up rather soon, and be itchin' for some nice, healthy food." Mama told me. I nodded.

"Yes, Mama." I said with a smile. Then, I journeyed over toward where the food was stored in the barn, and retrieved some in a dish for the injured creature. I brought that, as well as a bowl of water, over to Mama and the raccoon. Setting them on the table where Mama was working on the poor animal, Mama helped the raccoon stand up and it then limped its way over to the dishes I had set out, lapped up some water and then began eating.

Mama looked up at me for the first time this morning, and she smiled widely.

"Thank you, Leah." she said kindly.

"You're welcome. Do you have anything else I can help you with?" I questioned. Of course, there was always more I could help with around the clinic, and Mama told me how I could help out the injured fox she would be working on next.

Throughout the day, Mama and I worked on more animals. Once all the ones in the barn were fixed up, I was told that Papa and I were going to be going to go search for any more injured animals around the District.

We wandered for a while, looking out for animals, until I came across a small bird that appeared to have a broken wing. It was chirping faintly, clearly in pain, and I called Papa over. He came over with a pair of gloves on and gently picked up the bird, placing it in the basket we were carrying. We headed back to the barn and Mama and I started to fix it up. It appeared to have been shot down intentionally, which broke its wing.

Once the bird was as good as it was going to be that night, we put it in a cage where it couldn't get hurt. When I went to bed, I had realized something that I had never thought about before. There was such a distance between humans and animals, and my family was helping to bring us closer by helping them out and caring for them. We were making a difference. We weren't cruel like the ones who hurt the animals. We were helpful, and we shortened that distance.

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