On occasion, I feel the need to update the general public about the rabbit.
Back in the den with him today (he claims the laundry room in cool weather) we had a discussion about a recent tragedy in the neighborhood. I had discovered that one of his fellow Rabbit Association members died in a reckless attempt to cross the street. Horrified that such a fine beast should be left in a most undignified manner, I pulled the car over, emptied groceries from two bags in the trunk, removed him with the help of the bags, and put him to rest elsewhere.
My own rabbit, wearing his black arm band and sniffing gently with loss, told me there had been a private service, and that there had been much talk of the short lives of city rabbits.
“There is no guarantee,” he said, “of longevity in any case, but the city rabbit faces much adversity in regard to automobile traffic.” He suggested a kind of campaign and asked my help with using the computer to design a flyer. (If you haven’t read Click, Clack, Moo you can do so here, as the local fauna have found this most inspiring: http://pbskids.org/lions/cornerstones/click/story/hypertext/.) I suggested road-caution education classes for little bunnies with refresher lectures for the older set.
He chewed on this briefly, nosed around the cedar chips in his house, and said he would inform me as to the progress of the association. I’ll keep you posted, as I have promised to support his cause with my continued work in the biped arena, but do me a favor. Don’t tell him I had to bag his pal and put him in the garbage can. I can’t afford another set-back in our relationship.
Tell him to get over it or you'll ship him to Oklahoma where there's a friend who would love to try out a fricassee of rabbit in his creole cookbook.
ReplyDeleteBaby! I've been behind in reading, but now that I'm catching up, I understand a message I was told to deliver the other day. Walking Syd last week, a large black bird accosted me from his perch on the discarded top half of a manikin behind the cleaners. "We got a message for da dame you live with," he said. "You tell her she's worried about the wrong neighborhood association. Yeah. You tell her dis. You tell her me and da boys had been watching that busted bunny carcass for hours. She owes us."
ReplyDeleteAnd while much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
And though its message little meaning - little relevancy bore; now all is clear.
As it departed it added one ominous warning more: "You tell her we ain't just called a 'murder' of crows for nuttin. Who does she think pushed da bunny in da road to start wit? She thinks Hitchcock is make believe mebbe? You tell her think again." And off it flew.
I was still standing in shocked silence, to have heard a bird discourse so plainly when Syd herself spoke up. Through that smug Husky grin of hers she muttered, "Don't you worry, boss. If that overblown bag of black comes around our back yard I'll teach him and 'da boys' what we mean in Siberia by a Poe-boy sandwich."
OHHHHhhhh DOC! You had me...right up to the Poe boy...that was sick.
ReplyDelete