Rabbit From a Hat

[Lightning Rod]

Rabbit From a Hat

Our big white cat Mingus was a top predator. He was the last white streak that many small animals in the neighborhood saw in their short lives. He could take a bird in flight right out of the air. I didn't know whether to blame or admire him for this.

One day Mingus darted into the house with something in his mouth. It was bigger than the usual bird or mouse. Mingus had bagged a young cottontail rabbit. The bunny was completely limp when I removed him from the jaws of death. Mingus was less than pleased because he obviously planned to torment the poor creature for entertainment. The rabbit was breathing. His eyes were open, but he was limp as a glove. At first I thought his back was broken or his neck. I held him in my palms for a few minutes. Rabbits have a reflex that causes them to freeze in a crisis, not unlike some people I know. This probably saved the bunny's life. The last thing you want to do when in the jaws of a predator is to panic and thrash about. Mingus loves his prey to have a little spunk. He likes to release them and catch them again to prolong the torment or the pleasure depending on your point of view. So, the rabbit broke the cycle by going limp, surrendering.

After a few moments the little bunny showed signs of life so I placed him in the grass. He just sat there for quite a long time. I watched and hoped that the little fellow had no internal injuries. Then I reached down and nudged his cotton tail. He glanced at me and in that moment a bit-torrent of information passed between us. It was ancestral information about predators and prey and survival and misinformation and tactics and odd alliances. It was the Bible uttered with no words. Then the bunny hopped away.

That was years ago and since then I think of that bunny from time to time. I guess its my Indian blood that I got from TV Westerns. Once you save a life, you are forever responsible for it etc. I wonder if the bunny made it to rabbit-hood. I wonder if he was smart and fast and survived. Most of all I wonder what he must think of cats and of humans? Were we monsters and gods. or just bigger critters to him? What did he think about instinct and compassion? Did he learn anything from the experience? Was there anything to be learned? Maybe he just went, "Whew! That was lucky," and moved on without a care. I didn't really expect gratitude other than I like to think that if I'm ever in a land of giants and am in the jaws of death that someone might have compassion and not let me get killed for sport by a well-fed monster.

[Arcadia]

good questions! I guess compassion can be sometimes amazingly multicornered...: some days ago I saw a guy surrounded with a little crowd. He was sitting in a plaza bench carrying a black & white pearl-like big lagarto as a little child. Of course everybody were making questions that he looked comfortable to answer in a very low voice, as if he didn´t want to disturb at all the lagarto sunbaño. In that mood, he told us, -among other things- that he had brought him from Madagascar, that his partner was pregnant and at that moment was in his all the year never below 30ºC apartment some metres from the plaza, that he has built cubicles for them, that he lived also with two boas that were borned also in captivity in India, that you never have to touch the lagarto´s tail or mouth (he shows us some scars in his arm) and that each four or five days he has to give the lagartos alive animals to eat. I was about to ask if he used to look at the eating process and have to clean after that but I waved to him, wish him good luck with his pets and prefered to continue walking...

[Lightning Rod]

yes Veronica,
it's hard to know when to interfere or intervene, especially where we try to apply our good intentions to a world we may not understand.

geez, suppost that rabbit grew up to be Hitler or something

[dadio]

I guess animals do what they are coded to do. The cat and the rabbit each acting out their roles. It is only we who claim to have the higher sense and wisdom that kill and torture for the most ludicrous reasons. I thought this a good prose story and will come back to it again and again.

[neologistic]

Confucius say never argue semantics with a homeless guy from Madagascar that keeps boas as watchdogs