US AND THEM
The phone was ringing and his alarm was alarming, but both whispered into his ear so gently that it felt like the warning sounds were massaging his concern and inviting him to rest a little longer.
“Hi this is Theodore, I can’t come to the phone right now but if you’d like to leave a message after the beep, I’ll be sure to call you right back. Thanks ever so much.”
“Theodore it’s me. I’ve got great news. I’m coming right over. Are you there? Hunny bunny? Listen I don’t wanna spoil the surprise so, I’ll see you soon, ok?”
“Message erased.”
Theodore stood with his finger on the delete button and he was almost afraid to pull it off. For the moment, everything was a clear canvas; unspoiled and unsplintered.
His fever had resided, but his head felt like someone had filled it with hot sand. He looked around at the mess on the floor where clothes and old magazines were strewn about. It didn’t make sense to try and clean it now, maybe later when he had more zest.
He poured himself a coffee and buttered some stale toast and he stared out his window while the lights in the tunnel went from a dim hazy yellow to the bright luminescent of a new dawn. The television was still playing from the night before and the screen flickered off out of his sight, images of engineers and politicians shaking hands by a red ribbon with a crowd of rabbits shouting in a thousand tongues as the ribbon was being strung up. Some of them celebrated and praised and some of them cursed and protested and it was so hard to tell who was who and if at all they had something to say.
It was still very early, but he decided to leave for work before Florence arrived. He just couldn’t deal with her voice, not today. So he packed some carrots into a small brown bag and he made his way to the train station and on his way he passed through some of the unswept debris of the night.
“Hey buddy,” said an addled rabbit, lazing about on the ground with its mouths agape and its eyes gelled shut. “Hey, hey buddy, hey. Hey, buddy hey.”
The addled rabbit didn’t say much more than this. He stumbled through a poorly conceived introduction and just repeated himself over and over and then over again and he shouted loud and abrasive as Theodore stepped over his disheveled bed and made his way down through the luminary tunnel.
“Hey,” he shouted. “Hey buddy, hey.”
Theodore could see up ahead; The Sweepers, coming through with their brooms and truncheons and tazers and vociferating despotic accents, swinging and prodding their arms, flexing their disciplinary tongues and ushering; without much argument, the homeless and the wrecked debris of the night into shooing and to scattering and to moving along the dawning tunnel, away from the doorsteps of the good citizens and back into the minute begging shadows where they belonged.
Theodore watched silently and without much opinion. There was no room for him to pass so he backed against a neighbouring door and held his briefcase as The Sweepers made their way down the street, singing jovially whilst beating small defenseless rabbits with long barbed truncheons.
“Such armoury” Theodore thought, “for such little fight.”
The homeless and the addled banded together not in retaliation but in desperate flight. They scampered over one another and hopped away in disarray. There were a few though who turned and helped the smaller and more fragile rabbits from their stupors, but it was always too late.
By the time they managed to rouse the small and the elderly, The Sweepers were already upon them, beating down with their gloved fists and prodding with their stabbing and electrifying tools and if they hadn’t gotten up by now, they were swept into the gutters where they would be washed away somewhere where nobody ever really thought about, somewhere not terribly important.
“Please,” said one of the younger rabbits.
Her eyes were tuned unto Theodore’s and there was no adjective that he could use to describe how they seemed and in finding himself trapped in her stare, how he felt. He said nothing himself and just watched helplessly as several uniformed men picked her up by her broken back paw and tossed her around, laughing amongst themselves as her body fell onto the ground like a deflated football.
“Please,” she said again.
Theodore reached his paws into his pockets.
“Good morning sir,” said one of The Sweepers smiling and nodding to Theodore.
Theodore nodded back.
It was the polite thing to do.
Before she could mouth another word, the small rabbit was truncheoned and swept into the gutter and in just a second, The Sweepers passed and where the small pleading rabbit had been was now clean.
Still pressed against his neighbour’s door, Theodore watched as The Sweepers casually made their way down the dawning tunnel, some singing like drunken sailors, others whistling and humming Grieg’s Morning Mood and it was so loud that you couldn’t at all hear the sound of rabbit’s feet breaking and their quiet little pleas as their bodies were swept away into gutters that flushed them like old newspaper or dried leaves, in a river that ran under the tunnel road to somewhere not very important.
Theodore always liked waking to the sound of Morning Mood and he had always wondered where it came from. It always sounded so jovial and raucous and it was such a wonderful way to retreat from slumber and open one’s eyes.
And now he knew.
When he arrived at the train, he was almost the first rabbit.
“How strange,” he thought.
The Pretty Rabbit was there, standing in front of him with her little paws and her unpainted sandaled feet standing just at the tip of the yellow cautionary line and her tiny toes wriggled like wriggly worms as they played the cold morning air like a piano.
Theodore was so nervous.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” he said, in his head.
The Pretty Rabbit stared at Theodore funny and then turned away; looking back down the tunnel uncomfortably and Theodore joined her, hoping to himself that the sound of the rattling train might quieten the awkwardness in the back of his mind.
“I just love Morning Mood,” she said.
“Me too,” said Theodore, thinking to himself, “what a stupid rabbit thing to say.”
He squinted his eyes and scrunched his fists.
“Where do you think they go?” asked The Pretty Rabbit.
She was still staring down the tunnel and she was leaning forwards so that the slightest breeze might knock her forwards off onto the tracks and by the look of her, she didn’t at all seem to care and it puzzled Theodore so much that it played on attraction.
“I like to wake up early and catch the first train. I don’t like the rush and all the rabbits. I don’t really like all the sex either” she said, still looking down the tunnel and now reaching out over the edge of the platform on the tips of her scruffy and dirtied toes.
She was the opposite of every girl he had ever known. Florence would have stayed promptly behind the yellow line and her toes would be patient on the soles of her well-presented shoes and she would never look away from someone as she was speaking to them.
“It just seems like you have to do it. It’s all very boring” she said.
Theodore couldn’t have agreed more, and he didn’t.
He said nothing.
“Are you rude or just nervous?”
His mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out. His tongue was dry and stuck to the roof of his mouth. He made a gurgling sound that was like a bath’s drain swallowing air with the last gulps of soapy water.
“I see you every morning. You’re with that prissy girl, the one with the coloured bobbins. What’s her name?”
“Florence,” said Theodore.
“Very prissy name. Are you in love?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why are you with her?”
“I don’t know. We dated once, ten years ago.”
“And you’re still together?”
“I guess so.”
“Why are you still w
ith her?”
“I don’t like change all that much.”
“That makes sense I guess.”
Theodore too, assumed that it did, though what he felt was contrary, but without definition.
“Do you think it’s fair?”
She turned away from the tunnel and turned to him.
She was so simple.
She was so plain.
And yet she was so beautiful.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I don’t think,” she said. “I feel.”
“You feel? What do mean? You make decisions on how you feel? What does that feel like? How do you know what you feel?”
“It doesn’t need a name to be real or affecting and it doesn’t need a definition to be acted upon and it definitely doesn’t need an explanation when it’s been done. You should try it. You might lose your fear of change.”
Looking into her eyes, Theodore felt an urge to kiss her.
“What do you feel like doing?” she asked.
He wanted to take her in his arms.
He wanted to feel her beating heart against his nervous chest.
He wanted to kiss her and to hold her forever.
“Run,” he said.
“What?” she said giggling.
“Run. I mean, I feel like running.”
“Where to?”
“Away.”
“That sounds delightful.”
“Do you have dreams?” he asked.
“I dream all the time,” she said.
“The other rabbits; my friends, Florence, they don’t dream, none of them dream. I saw The Guru yesterday.”
“Oh and how was that?”
“He told me all I needed to do was to breathe and then everything would be ok.”
“Did you? Is it?”
“No. It’s not ok.”
“You speak a lot, with your eyes. Did you know?”
“No. Do I?”
“You said hello to me every morning and you asked me to save you. But your legs, they carried you like your tongue, away from what your heart truly wanted.”
Theodore blushed.
“Do you think there is a sun?” she asked.
“I think there has to be, at least something. It can’t all be dark. Something has to be casting this shadow.”
“You know what I really hate?”
“What?”
“Coming to an end of a good book. I don’t like it when things end and I can’t stop myself rom rushing through.”
“I think I might quit my job today,” said Theodore.
“What do you do?”
“I burrow.”
“Do you like burrowing?”
“It’s not what I’d like to do.”
“What would you like to do then?”
“I don’t know really. I don’t know anything outside of what I do, but I have this feeling that there might be something else, something more fulfilling. It’s like an itch in my stomach and in the back of my mind.”
“So scratch it.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That the itch isn’t really there. That’s it’s just my head playing tricks on me.”
Theodore could see; in the corner of the tunnel, peering through the darkness, a black and white face and its eyes were sneering and its licking tongue was basting its cutting teeth.
“I’m afraid it’s not real. That it’s all in my head. That I’m going mad. Do you ever feel like this?”
“We’re all mad. It’s just some are better at playing their role.”
“What do you do?” he asked.
“Shhh,” she said. “This is the best part.”
A rumble roared through the tunnel and the air was filled with a bee-like buzz as morning burst through the thousands of bulbs above their heads and light burst through the tunnel and blinded both of the rabbits.
“My eyes” yelled Theodore.
“Keep them open” yelled The Pretty Rabbit.
Theodore did as she said, looking up into the buzzing light.
“Ok now shut them,” she said.
He closed his eyes and when he did he saw bright flashing worlds cascading around his closed eyes and they were all different sizes and one of them was so bright. Theodore imagined that it was the sun and he reached out with his paws trying to grasp it between his claws but he cut straight through it every time and it stayed, blinding his sight but invisible to his touch and when he opened them again, the doors of the dawn train had just closed and The Pretty Rabbit was sitting by herself and scratched into the window; just by her face, was the word ‘breathe’.
No sooner had the train parted then another arrived and Theodore jumped aboard quickly finding himself a seat and staring transiently out of the window, seeing for the first time, the small holes that had been made on the far end of the tracks where the homeless rabbits probably scurried and made their absence during the day.
“Is anyone sitting here?”
Theodore looked to his left and there was a large rabbit hovering above the seat beside him. The rest of the train was empty. It was just the two of them. He looked at the other seats and then back at the large rabbit and tried not to wince as he smiled.
“No,” he said. “That’s fine.”
The large rabbit sat down and his arm pushed into Theodore’s ribs and he was reading a newspaper and insisted on shaking it thoroughly as he unfolded it and cleared his sickly throat and ground his teeth as he skimmed his way through every headline, shaking out the nonsense rigorously with every turn of the page and it all seemed so important and grown up like.
When the train stopped, Theodore exited onto the ramp and he looked quickly to all sides on the will of chance that he may see The Pretty Rabbit again and if he did, he would tell her what he felt and he would kiss her and he would make up for every mistake he had ever made.
She wasn’t there.
Instead, as he walked along the brightly lit morning tunnel, he passed a crowd of rabbits standing in a circle and some cheered and jeered while others looked on in such a state of shock that they couldn’t turn away or lift their finger to stop whatever was happening.
Theodore approached the circle and peered over a rabbit’s shoulder. Therein the middle were two rabbits, striking and biting and slashing and gashing one another; their paws thrusting forwards and their large sharpened claws digging and cutting into one another’s flesh.
There was so much blood.
“What’s happening?” asked Theodore.
“The bum started it He was asking for money. Other guy lost it and just started punching him then the bum got in on it, got some good punches in and well it’s been like this for a good ten minutes or so.”
“Was he in the right?”
“Who, the bum?”
“No, the other one.”
“Yes, absolutely in the right.”
“Which is which?” asked Theodore.
“What?” said the rabbit confused.
“Who is who?” he asked again.
The rabbit looked at the two feuding rabbits in the centre of the circle and both of them were bleeding horrendously and both were beaten black and blue. The rabbit looked back at Theodore with a blank expression.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Theodore left the pack and continued walking along the tunnel, watching the cracks in the ground and ensuring his every step never touched a single one.
“I’ll go in and quit, right now. Just march straight up to HR and quit, then and there” he said in his mind.
It was only a minute or so before he arrived at work and when he arrived, the main gate was slightly ajar. He pushed his way through and headed up the hallway towards administration. He passed several janitors who were almost slow dancing with their mops as they drudged along the floor.
Theodore thought about The Pretty Rabbit and how morose she looked, sitting aboard the train and “life,” he thought, “shouldn’
t at all feel this way.”
He stormed down the hall expecting to see that haughty HR analyst seated behind her desk drinking her steaming coffee and stretching her untethered paws as if her trial had at all been any kind of a burden. He grunted to himself as his fists clenched and a fiery rage built within his pent voice, waiting to explode at her stupid smiling face.
He reached her office.
It was locked.
A sign on the door said ‘Use the other door’.
Dark Side of the Moon Page 7
