Saturday, December 11, 2010

Rabbit puzzle



Last night Frank had a dream.
He crept into our bed, put his head against mine, and shared it with me while we both slept.

I saw him standing in a field of wild baby rabbits.
His coffee cake icing colours were complemented by pastel greens, grays and blues and we dreamt in soft focus.

He pranced deliriously, then ran and hundreds of bunnies scattered like a zip opening.
He stopped to look at me for a moment, both of us smiling.

To my knowledge he's never seen a rabbit. But I think he instinctively knows, like Shane Warne did when he was first flung a cricket ball.
Ah, I've been waiting for you. This is why I was made, I just know it.

Earlier in the week a part of the rabbit puzzle slotted into place when he discovered squirrels in Gildredge Park.

Initially there was confusion. Initially there is always confusion.

But where as cat encounters have variously ended in cuts to Frank's hard to miss nose, squirrels presented him with an entirely different instinctual conundrum.

I don't think I want to play with it, Frank pondered, head tilted in curiosity at the creature.
I don't want to sniff it's bottom.
I don't even want to frolic.

But I am suddenly quite hungry..?

It was written across Frank's expressive exterior about as enigmatically as graffiti.

Fuck me, I want to sodding kill it.
He looked at me for a split second, and we both knew there was nothing to be done.

He ran at the pea-brained rodent as fast as he'd ever run at anything, faster even than his favourite Frisbee Jess cack-handedly lobbed over a park-adjoining garden wall last week.

Squirrels can give a nasty nip, I'm told; and aren't prone to letting go either.
But there was little fear of success on Franks side, even when the squirrel put in the species' signature pause into its otherwise rapid departure, just to keep things interesting.



For all Frank's speed he is yet to learn anticipation, even to the extent where the lolloping Murphy (pictured), can corner him in the garden with ease. And the animal dropped its shoulder a couple of times, altered course and was up a tree for some just-out-of-reach taunting, lickerty split.

I'm just going to hang around by this tree for a bit, Dad.
No reason. You go on.

Maybe he thinks rabbits will be easier to catch.

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