True! Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am daffy?

I was not always like this. I was a happy hatchling, the pride of my mother's clutch. My siblings were ordinary, dun colored--drab, while I... Yes, I was graced with ebony feathers--first coal dust fluffy down, then glossy, inky-black blades that seemed made of smoothest satin. I know this is so, because my mother told me.

Ah, Mother. Perhaps she is to blame for my current nervous condition. Many have hinted that is so. They say she doted too much, she gave too much, she loved too much. But how can this be? I was her child. I am her child still. She would hold me to her bosom, beneath her wing, and whisper to me of how perfect I was, how much the world owed me. "It is yours," she would murmur. "Aaaaaall yours. No one else's. You should be rich. You should be wealthy. You should be faaaaaaabulously well-to-do."

I grew up with a sense of my own self-worth. Some say an over-inflated sense, but what do they know? They're just jealous.

When I entered the world I was surprised, nay--shocked to learn that not everyone shared my Mother's high opinion of me. I was ignored, sneered at, dismissed, even -choke- spurned. I think this is where my descent, if descent it was, began.

I knew that I deserved, if not their fawning affection, then at least their attention. If they would not give it freely, then I had to take it. I developed my techniques. I found that simply invading their houses worked well. These pale and squishy, squatty humans were easily provoked. I would eat their food or sleep in their beds, driving them to stuttering, lisping frenzies of irritation, but they noticed me, oh, yes.

Why, oh why did they always attempt to evict me? Why did they not, just once, climb under the snowy spreads with me? How could they ignore the delights that could have been theirs?

It always led to the same sort of reaction--violence. Baseball bats, bricks, knives, guns, even an occasional falling piano or safe. More than once I was bundled into a small, airless box and shipped to Siberia or Timbuktu (another sparkling facet to my character--I am a world traveler).

But always I returned. Somewhat the worse for wear, but I returned!

You can see now, of course, that I am God.

I am, after all, indestructable. A direct shotgun blast will spin my bill around to the back of my head. An axe or knife will split me cleanly in two, but no blood is spilled, no steaming innards exposed, just smooth, blackness. Then I turn my bill back to the front of my face, and literally 'pull myself together'. A cannonball will leave a round, clean hole in my belly. You may look through and watch television on the set that is placed behind me, but I will not die. Let me be caught beneath a boulder. I am flattened like a paper doily, but in a moment I peel myself up, shake myself out, and am whole. I can swallow dynamite, be reduced to smoking ashes, and seconds later be once again tormenting the one who would destroy me.

I am eternal. I am indestructable. None are more powerful than I.

None--save one.

Bugs--he of the long, cocked ears and cotton tail. He of the two glistening teeth which grace a smile that is at once wise and ancient, contemptuous of the vermin who would contest him, yet amused. I knew I had at last found someone truly worthy of me at his first words--"Eh, what's up, Doc?" The title seemed to indicate respect, but his tone said that he saw through the false certificate I had hanging in my den.

I thought I knew how it would go. After all, he was in drag the first time I saw him--A-line skirt, tight sweater, stilletto heels, a pageboy wig... He had painted his face, the hussy, and I was enticed by lush red lips and lashes so long that they seemed to curl, and becon me. I thought it was for my benifit, but then I realized that he was playing a prank on the same dullard hunter that I had often outwitted myself.

Fudd--the name says it all. He resembled nothing more than a huge, particularly ugly baby--bald and blobby. I think the man has no home, but merely wanders from place to place, dressed in his increasingly aromatic hunting togs, malfunctioning shotgun cradled in his arms like a child. His voice... Pardon me for the pause, but I still recoil in revulsion when I recall it. What was that speech defect--stutter, lisp? In any case, it made one wonder how he had been allowed on his own without a caregiver. Yes, I anticipated happy times tormenting this imbecile with Bugs, but...

Oh, God, the rank betrayal. Bugs claimed that it was duck season. He even altered a sign to that effect. What? Yes, I had changed it earlier from duck season to rabbit season, but what of it? Haven't I a right to protect myself? Then he changed it again, and I changed it, and...

How did it happen? I ended up declaring that it was, indeed, duck season, and the... the human blasted me. But I could have forgiven the hare even that if not for his final treachery.

Readers, Bugs married him. Dear lord, with tuxedo, boutinneer, a preacher, rice, and tin cans. Fudd had the nerve to wear white! Bugs, Bugs, Bugs. Can't you see? He'll only break your heart. So you see, I had to do it--I had to take my revenge. He couldn't be allowed to reject me and live.

I made the purchase from a mail order company. I crept to their honeymoon cottage in the dead of night. I stood beneath their bedroom window and listened to them as they consumated their love, my heart breaking at the final shout of, "That's all, folks!" And when it was silent, when they slept, sated, I hefted the box to the windowsill, and opened it.

In the morning they will be gone, but there will be no clue as to my involvement. There will be no hint as to my own fate, save for perhaps a few gleaming feathers. I like to think that some child will find them, and give them place of pride in their treasures. Once the whirring, grinding, snarling, spluttering sounds stop, I will go inside, close my eyes, and meet my fate. One final time I glance at the return address on the now empty box.

Tasmania...