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“The Rabbit” 

A FABLE

By Charles Moon

     Every day, it was the same thing.

     “Stay away from the lettuce growing in rows. Don’t go near the fence where the dogs can get you. Watch out for the traps down by the stream. And, don’t ever go into the woods where the lions live.”

     “Yes, mother. I promise,” Theodore would say on his way out the door.

     Theodore was an unhappy rabbit. Nibbling on bitter weeds when there was so much sweet lettuce on the other side of the fence seemed unfair. Sneaking through the high grass that his family had called their home for generations seemed unfair. Being hunted by the trappers who wanted his fur to make hats seemed unfair. But what seemed most unfair to Theodore was that as a rabbit, there was nothing he could do about it.

     All the rabbits gathered in the grass next to the lettuce patch to nibble the weeds that grew out of reach of the big dog on the other side of the farmer’s fence. Theodore could barely stomach the taste of the wild plants and stared longingly past the sharp wire and watched the farmer cultivate the sweet, green vegetables.

     One day, Theodore decided he no longer wanted to be a rabbit. He had watched the farmer grow lettuce and carrots and cabbages for so long, he believed he could do it, too.

     “I am now a farmer,” Theodore said, standing on his hind legs and thumping his chest. He waited until dark and then crept past the farmer’s sleeping dog to the barn where the farmer kept the vegetable seeds. Theodore gathered a sack full of lettuce and cabbage seeds and was almost out the door when the barn light came on. In the doorway stood a man in dirty overalls and a straw hat carrying a huge double-barreled shotgun pointed right at him. He scurried between the legs of the farmer and ran toward the open field. Just has he turned the corner, Theodore heard the blast from the shotgun and felt a cloud of pellets whiz past his head.

     The gunshot woke the sleeping dogs who bounded out into the darkness, barking wildly after the terrified rabbit. Theodore reached the wire fence just inches ahead of the dogs, whose hot, smelly breath seemed to saturate Theodore’s fluffy tail.

     “I hate being a rabbit,” Theodore panted to himself, safe on the weedy side of the farmer’s fence.

     Theodore planted his stolen seeds in a little plot of ground near the burrow where he lived with his mother and seven brothers. He chewed off the long stalks of grass by the stream and wove himself a very crude hat that he wore while working on his little farm, despite the other rabbits laughing at him.

     Theodore only thought about the sweet, tender vegetables he was growing when he would eat the bitter weeds, waiting for his own seeds to grow. When the sprouts poked up out of the ground, Theodore felt less like a rabbit and more like a farmer.

     “I like being a farmer,” he said.

     As the vegetables grew, Theodore acted less and less like a rabbit. He began standing on his back legs in his straw hat and leaned against a log holding two twigs tied together that he pretended was a shotgun. He would taunt the other rabbits as they nibbled in the weedy field, ignorant of their sorry condition.

     One morning, Theodore put on his straw hat, grabbed his twig shotgun and trotted out to his farm only to see every one of his tender vegetable plants chewed down to the ground. All through the dirt where his lettuce and cabbages used to be were rabbit tracks.

     “I hate rabbits!” cried out Theodore, pointing his fake gun in their direction.

     He pretended to shoot them, but, of course, nothing happened.

     “Perhaps being a farmer isn’t as great as I thought it would be,” Theodore thought. “Even the rabbits can ruin all your hard work, leaving you with nothing.”

     Theodore considered stealing more seed and replanting his farm, but the rabbits would only eat them again. He needed a fence around his farm and a dog to keep the rabbits out. Theodore remembered the night he stole the seeds and how frightened he was by the farmer’s dogs.

     “If I were a dog, the rabbits would leave my vegetables alone.”

     Theodore thought for a moment and then took off his hat, threw away his twig shotgun and got down on all four of his feet. Theodore crouched down, squinted his eyes and twitched his nose. Not the cute little rabbit twitch he used to have when he was hunting for sweet greens to eat, but the mean snarling twitch of an angry hound. He pulled back his lips, bared his flat, buck teeth and made a strange rabbit-bark sound.

     Theodore leapt into the air and bounded toward the group of nibbling rabbits.

     “I am a mean old dog and I am going to tear you to pieces for eating my vegetables!”

     Theodore continued to cry out his warnings as he jumped through the grass by the stream, ignoring his mother’s daily warnings about the trappers. He had nearly reached the other rabbits when his front paw landed on the cold steel edge of a rabbit trap. Theodore completely forgot about pretending to be a dog, when he heard the click of the trap being sprung. He pulled up on his leg as fast as he could, but the metal jaws closed so fast and so forcefully, that it pinched the tip of his toe before catapulting him head over tail into a clump of prickly weeds.

     Theodore laid there for a moment listening to the sound of his pounding heart and feeling the pain in his throbbing foot. He realized that the trap didn’t care if he was a rabbit, a dog, or a gazelle.

     “I hate being a rabbit. I’ll be a trap.”

     Theodore stayed in the weeds and waited. He listened intently for any approaching sound and had almost forgotten about his pinched toe when there was a rustling in the grass coming toward him. All his muscles tensed and when the foot of another rabbit came into sight, he jumped up and grabbed it.

     “What are you doing?” yelled the confused but uninjured rabbit.

     “I am a trap and I have caught you,” announced Theodore proudly.

     “You are an idiot,” replied the other rabbit and he punched Theodore right in the eye.

     Theodore limped home with a black eye, swollen foot and bruised ego.

     “If I weren’t a rabbit,” he thought, “I’d show them all a thing or two.”

     Theodore went to bed without any supper and imagined himself to be so big and so scary that any rabbit would tremble at the sight of him. When he woke up, Theodore knew what he wanted to be.

     “I am a lion.”

     Theodore practiced crouching and growling in the mirror. When he was sure he was scary enough, he went to the edge of the woods and waited for the other rabbits to pass by so he could show them how fierce and strong he was.

     The other rabbits were not unhappy being rabbits and had listened to their own mothers when they were warned never to go into the woods where the lions lived. Theodore waited all day long and didn’t see a single rabbit. He was ready to give up when he heard a noise in the brush behind him.

     Theodore crouched down and let out his practiced growl. When the leaves parted, he leapt forward right into the path of an approaching lion. He landed a few inches away from the big cat, stood on his hind legs and let out the best roar a rabbit could make.

     “What are you doing, little rabbit?” the lion asked.

     “I am not a rabbit,” Theodore argued. “I am a lion and YOU are the rabbit.”

     Theodore roared again.

     “Why are you pretending to be a lion?”

     “Because I hate being a rabbit. I tried being a farmer, but the rabbits ate my vegetables. I tried being a dog but I was almost caught by a trap. I tried being a trap, but I couldn’t hold on. I am a lion now, so I won’t have to be a rabbit.”

     “You don’t want to be a lion,” the lion responded. “Lions live alone in the woods and everybody is afraid of us. Rabbits live with their friends and don’t have to hunt the plants they eat, they just sit there and wait for you to eat them.”

     “But I am not happy being a rabbit. I would rather be something else. Are you happy being a lion?” Theodore asked the lion.

     “I am neither happy nor sad about being a lion. I am a lion and there is very little I can do about it.” The lion thought for a moment and then smiled at Theodore.

     “But, I’m very happy that you are a rabbit,” the lion said, “and not a farmer or a dog or a trap or even another lion.”

     “Why would you be happy that I am a Rabbit?” asked Theodore the rabbit.

     The lion lowered his head until his mouth was right next to the rabbit’s ear.

     “Because,” the lion whispered, “I’m hungry.”

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