Re: Practice Bits: Bunny 2
Henri was aghast at the audacity of the rodent treating his private, front-yard garden as a buffet table when he noted the red collar about its neck. And then the McMacs rat terrier burst under the fence, in a weak spot, the homeowner had continually reinforced. Like a streak of a spear tossed at leaf level it plowed through incipient green beans, turnips, and a squash plant straight toward the pet bunny.
Henri found himself moving, even as the bunny did not. But he was too slow on his feet, and the rat terrier closed. Something happened, and the small dog flipped through the air, twitching to land insensate among the morning glory stands near the back fence of the small garden.
Henri stared. Stopped.
The bunny went back to eat another single leaf of lettuce sprouted directly from the soil, unlike the more typical balled Iceberg.
The Chester's Rott, which they kept because Mrs. Chester was nervous, but did not properly discipline because Mrs. Chester was nervous cleared the low front fence in one bound, and came galloping over rows of vegetables toward the bunny.
Henri stopped, not willing to go unarmed into a fight with an eighty pound dog, instead he looked about for his hoe he had been using a few hours before after he got off from work overseeing eight robots on the assembly line. And then the bunny turned, bared its teeth, and Henri saw glittering lines extending from the paws of the the odd rabbit.
The Rott closed, the bunny leapt, and the head of the dog went down to bite. And sparkling, very thin lines went into the dog, and it fell, stumbling away, like a drunk, its whole body trembling. But the bunny fell, knocked back by the brute kinetic force, and it did not rise.
Dashing around the odd acting dog, Henri examined the bunny quickly. With sucked in breath, he noted the finely groomed fur spoiled by a gaping slash in its left flank, which he noticed after it was turned on its belly. A searching of the wound got a prick in his finger, which he figured must be the broken end of a bone. Given that, its near comatose state, and the open wound, Henri felt overcome by pity for the strangely valiant warrior. It must soon die, but Henri could take it inside, and let it pass in a peaceful setting, not out here, where both dogs seemed to be recovering.
Thus he tenderly scooped it up, noting that shimmering lines were no where in existence so perhaps he had seen something not there by the harsh light of the front porch lamp with the encroaching darkness so near making things strange. Regardless, he marched back up, tenderly holding the bunny, and using one hand to open the front door, and then to brace himself against the white painted doorway lintel as his back held the door open until his fingers passed by the lampswitch.
A sudden surge, an internal fire, and he seemed surrounded by white fury, and then he knew no more.
Upon waking, he sat up, dazed and bewildered, hearing murmurs that he classified as embarrassingly intimate. The bunny hopped up to him, grass from the unkempt lawn in its mouth, which it then began to chew as it surveyed him.
"I can't keep calling you 'it'." He whispered. "I'll call you 'Fluffy'." The rabbit twitched its ears, and hopped up to nuzzle Henri's knee. Thus comforted, and adopted, Henri looked further about finding only oddness. To his right loomed a chain link fence of some height, and to his left was a pile of bushes from which noises had come, but no longer.
Ahead of him, a lit skyscraper of perhaps thirty stories in height assailed him with its mere existence, for Henri had lived in St. Helens, pop. 23,478, and the tallest building had been the Chester (rich relations) Office Building at five stories in height. The nearest city of consequence was over two hundred miles away, so someone had dragged him and Fluffy far, and then dumped him and it. This presented a serious conundrum for Henri was well aware that he was strictly normal, even white bread, and there was no cause other than malicious whimsy for his treatment that he could think of, unless perhaps he had been mistaken for someone important, and then dumped when his true identity was realized. This theory made such sense that he smiled in relief.
"Hey buddy." The rough male voice from the left disturbed him from his semi-happy cogitations. Henri turned, and beheld a well-muscled man, clad in jeans and a button up striped white shirt, just recently donned if Henri was any judge.
"Look, you can do what you want with the rabbit, but not here, you know." He paused. "We're busy."
Henri was naturally appalled. He was not about to eat such a pet rabbit, even if his stomach did cry out in mild anxiety for food at that moment.
"Look, I'm not going..."
"Pal, I don't care how you get your jollies on..." And behind the first man, another came out, clad in underwear and a sash of red velvet. Henri blinked, and started to his feet. While he did not know any homosexuals, he was properly acculturated. He did not know any because most lived in San Fran or other enclaves, which meant that the 1.5% of St. Helens that might be expected to live there (or about 351) had already moved by seventy-five percent to San Fran or other such places, or died, leaving a mere sixteen active homosexuals in the whole town, none of whom Henri knew.
But he knew that they were easily offended by insults or slights of any kind, and that they were in the right to be so angered. But still, when the third, a much younger man, dressed in a purple prom dress and high heels stumbled out of the bush, he found himself at a loss for words. And then the real meaning of what the large, gay man had said to him came through to him, and he started to babble that he of course was not interested in sex with a rabbit, but then he realized that saying such was probably an insult, and petrified with fear, he froze, clutching the bunny hard between his fingers as he stood there.
With eyes bulging, shoulders twisted into an unnatural position, his fear radiant across his face, he presented an irresistible target. And so the large, gay man leaned forward to give him a kiss, and then a hard shove, but before he could make contact there was a small, very small sigh noise, and a snap, and then the man twitched and fell over like in a seizure.
Taking his good luck, Henri fled bolting through the trees and bushes, past other engaged couples, and menage a trois, and alongside the fence which turned out to be the outer edge of a baseball field, and out into a paved street where a man in a car swerved toward him, almost hitting Henri but his adrenaline fueled panic served him well, and so Henri dove madly out of the way, sprawling out onto the concrete roadway while listening to departing curses doppler away from the retreating car. The street was otherwise empty, and the rabbit, Fluffy, had already escaped from the too tight confinement of his hands.
Henri followed it across the street, and up a dark alley.