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| Bear and His Bunnies and the Coming of the Beast |
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| Sure, they're cute. That's what they want us to think. |
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This is Dark Cloud on Wednesday, July 22, 1998. North of Boulder, this year, on Neva Road there are way too many rabbits. Way too many. It is not normal for that species to have seven or eight members on a swath of ground less than twenty feet square outside of a pen. And not only are they overpopulated, they’re obnoxious about it. You do not know the meaning of the word “snobby” till you see a gaggle of bunnies stretched out on the grass, chewing their clover with their feet stretched out behind them, crossed at the ankles. This is wrong. Rabbits are designed to be timid and run away at the approach of anything. But around Neva Road this year, they’ve taken over. I walk a lot across the Open Space between Rt. 36 and the neighborhood where I live with friends. Even a year ago, the rabbits would still run at my, or anyone’s, approach. Then they stopped running and just backed up a few feet. Now, they stay on the trail and view me as the Cabots must have viewed another boatload of Irish immigrants disembarking in Boston. I stomp my feet, growl, wave, yell, nothing. They don’t even break their chewing cycle. I am just an amusement to them. They’re rabbits. Coming in behind the Ridge Subdivision last week, I took my stand against a fat and clearly young rabbit directly in front of me. I looked like Homer Simpson having a gran mal, but the damned rodent wouldn’t move. He finally nudged to the side of the trail only far enough to let me by. I reached down and – although I could have grabbed him by the ears and slung him like a bolo into the cow pond – scratched him behind the ears. I mean, he was a little bunny. He did not flinch. He kept chewing. He moved East three inches. He did not look up. I am quite certain his nose crinkled in disgust. It’s not just me. My landlords have a dog, a sort of dwarf Akita they optimistically named Bear when they thought he’d weigh a hundred pounds at this point. But Bear grew in weird spurts, one body section at a time. His head at one point seemed to compose 50% of his body, like a soldier ant. He stopped at around thirty five pounds, and hasn’t adjusted well to the derision caused by his name. He likes to take it out on animals smaller than himself, and since the house is surrounded by a constant herd of cud chewing rabbits, you’d think he’d found therapy heaven. But no. He goes out connected to a long rope fastened to the back porch.. It gives him enough to describe about 30 feet of radius. Starting at, oh, the 34 foot mark, the rabbits have learned to gather. They used to run, at least, when Bear was released from the house, racing to the end of his leash and snapping the line so tight it achieved a high b flat. No longer. They don’t even look up as Bear snaps to the full extent of his restraint, snapping and boiling with rage. The rabbits simply watch him, like they would at a rabbit zoo. Not only can he not chase them, they show every indication of deliberately teasing him, lying in the grass, facing him, feet out behind, ankles crossed, chewing clover, periodically shaking off their ennui by stretching and scratching behind the ear, which, I now realize, they can successfully train humans to do for them. Bear gets so furious he can’t even bark and just sputters out a series of squeaks and strangled yelps while seeming to levitate upwards off the ground at the full extension of the leash. It has been tempting – very tempting – to accidentally on purpose release him to reinstate order to Nature’s World, where a man can walk our trails and only worry about snakes or meeting old girl friends named Maria Theresa Antiviagra in the middle of a forty acre meadow and not worry about gangs of teenage rabbits someday not moving off the trail at all and using their ears to give gang signs at your approach. You mark the Millennium as you wish. I tell you, the beast turns out to be a rabbit, he numbers 666 on the front yard alone, and they’re organizing. Contribute to the rattlesnake welfare fund, wave to all raptors, reintroduce the wolf to Boulder County. Hurry. |
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