The Quiet Life of a Pet Rabbit
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gwrThe Quiet Life of a Pet Rabbit
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gwrThe rabbit.
Animals speak too, of course with a more limited vocabulary. Some are noisier, others are quite quiet.
Rabbits are quiet. I remember a joke, the comedian was talking from the point of view of a hunter
explaining about the noises you need to make to attract the prey, usually the ones made in the mating
season. The punch line was after the question about how you must sound to attract a rabbit. You need to
sound like a carrot. I did not quite understood the joke, because it was about mating... but anyway, let go
back to my rabbit.
The story happened in the years when I was recovering, not quite able to walk around, so I was usually
watching TV and reading books. Somehow, maybe by boredom I took a rabbit as a pet. There was some
cats around the house, but a rabbit was a change. When my mother brought the rabbit to me she put it
on the bed next to me. One tomcat was in the house too. He was named Gavroche, after the little
scoundrel from the Les Miserables by Hugo. It was a slender, long, white tomcat with oval innocent
eyes. But the innocence was just an appearance. The name was not given to him without a reason.
And I got an idea.
"Bring Gavroche here, next to the rabbit to see how they will react. I did not expected for them to start
playing, but I was curios how Gavroche will study the rabbit. But he did not studied him at all. Gavroche
after a quick glance looked at me very surprised, next looked up to my mother who was sitting up next to
the bed, and looked back to me as he was asking me what the heck it was supposed to do. After a while
he just extended himself, with his long neck, and his mouth opened wide above the forehead of the
rabbit. I was frozen. Even the movement was quite slow, I was unable to move. I did not even realized
what he was doing. I understood only moments later, after he was blown out of the bed, an thrown away
by my mothers heavy hand. The poor Gavroche knew at once what the rabbit was. It was food, but
somehow interdicted food, that why he was so puzzled.
Later the rabbit had his own quarters in a cage I build it from sticks. It was a warm summer day when
every living creature was hidden somewhere in a shadow, and the village was quiet. The only sounds was
those of a few sparrows and of two women chattering somewhere in distance in other courtyard. I was
teasing my rabbit who became a little nasty beast. Well fed, and not too often let in the open, he was
quite active jumping around ruining the cage and fighting with my hand when I played with him. I think
he used to bite too, I do not remember well. But I remember that our play became a little too rough. This
happens all the time when cats or dogs are playing, and of course cats and dogs knows how to
communicate to the partner that the line was crossed. But what about the rabbit? He made almost no
noises.
Just the breathing or at most some soft grunts. And for the second time in that rabbits lifetime I was
took by surprise. The rabbit started to scream. It was almost as a human high pitched scream. His lungs
had no big capacity so the scream was no long, but he reloaded, and did it again, and once more. The
game was over, and while I was processing what just happened, I noticed other thing too. Now the
silence was complete. No chirping birds around, no women chattering. A minute later I heard them
wondering about screams. I am not sure if they ever solved the case of the mystery screams.
28 Apr 2013
Costel Pintilie