There are tricksters and there is hunger, and where the tale ends and the brutal truth begins there was Fox, serviette tucked in, belt sinched tight in Mobius strips, russet shadow at rabbits steps. Ah Rabbit weary of time, long eared embers flicker from these faded phonographs of memory, hop hesitant onto the path – hunter and prey – neon bright satellite – the last to be devoured.

When fox was hungriest she found Rabbit dreaming still. His paw an aphrodisiac, amnesiac relay race through the vacant parkades of Alzheimers. Once wily, all his coyotes now wizened by old age. Back in the day he dreamt of sunflowers, nose twitching in the aftermath – tar in the tar sands – babies in the underbrush – oh raging mess of exponential growth.

“What? Who?” Rabbit woke a lonely record broken in hotels and foreign territories where friends and strangers change faces, doldrums dealt in shuffled suits. Woke to Fox at the far end of a veiled kaleidoscope, frustrating familiar unremembered foe. To Fox starving, yet unwilling to eat the worst of him. Fox who offered:

“Turtle? Slipped by while you slept. Something about a race.”

Poor turtle, thought Fox, long since shipped off into that global soup pot shelf life shell game. Impotent infinitesimal road kill by the trade deficit death toll both. Nothing left of turtle now but polished fragments in Rabbit’s memory, a seventy-eight stuck in the key of shame.

“Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late.” reaching for his walker, one lucky foot before the other, fearing neither Ausla nor Hatters more than this ticker tape photo finish of a failure. America loves a winner, runners up sell themselves to Warner Brothers, another terrorist in the cartoon graveyard.

“It’s me Rabbit” Fox’s sharp teeth smiled, “Never mind, no time for talk.  Flee on fleet feet old cotton tail!” From morning’s meadow clearing clear cut to strip mall, spinning in infinity – there are angels in the stadium – hot dogs and heroin – all the steroids and Ritalin a generation can consume.

“It’s me Rabbit.” Was that a flicker of recognition? Burning oil wells in the desert.  Incest in the oval office.  Another bright red death on the shopping network. Sound-bites slash savings on the emperor’s new clothes.  From the self imposed solitary confinement of an armchair holocaust comes the mantra:

“It’s a dog eat dog world, and from where I’m standing there just ain’t enough damn channels.”

“It’s me Rabbit.” Bright eyes, bushy tale, told in beauty products which say “But not beautiful enough.” Told in high definition, more real than reality. Sold in modern fables free from morality. The choice to choose whichever channel defines them. One opiate to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

I watched the best media of my generation shuffle off into reruns – waylaid in rest stops – relegated to rest homes – forgotten – forgetting – penniless in palliative care.

“It’s me Rabbit.” Once upon a time wolves danced in the night, sleek and beautiful, while the world trembled. Then the woodsman took chainsaw to rain forest, till there was nowhere for wolves to run. Keeping their hides for his own, from that day forwards he never hungered, howling in the spotlight, sleek and slanderous:

“Give me my desire, I will keep the country free of wolves.”

“It’s me Rabbit.” sister to wolf, cousin to coyote, trickster, spinster, watcher at the edge of the fires of industry. Weaned off table scraps and soot and misery, on the wrong side of the tracks, on the wrong edge of suburbia.  From garbage cans and hubcaps, from a land filled with hubris, shrink wrapped in sheep’s clothing – bought and sold and bought again – from sea to shining sea – cash on the barrel-head – cash on delivery.

“It’s me Rabbit.” Who went to the strip mall, who went to the box store, who got marked down on the way to the warehouse discount wholesale outlet.  Who went at last to the whore house and hoarded in vain. Look upon my works, ye mighty and despair.

Rabbit, coming down the stairs of the morning after, his stars aligned in this neverwhere inertial infinity, finish line fine embers, wake up call in the wilderness, with wonder, wonder in his eyes. “Fox, oh fox!” His frail paws pull her close, wrapping her in this – this bliss – this tearful blinking cherished treasure – this most rapturous momentary awakening! “Oh fox, I remember!”

“When did we forget? We are all beautiful wolves inside, and you Foxglove, sleek and wondrous! How long long lullaby? What fools we have been – drunkards in the ale house of old age – final fatal canaries in the birdcage.”

“Take it from this old rascal, this meniscus of simple truth: no cock has crowed who didn’t later adorn your dinner plate, my dearest oldest enemy. Yet behold, these listless limbs barely bear me. I am a failure even as a feast.  Both of us, abandoned by all we clung to.  Even our children, when did they last visit? Their disinheritance crying for the future squandered. It’s easier to change a light bulb than a lifetime. Easier to accuse than accept. Even easier still to forget. Besides those were someone else’s children. No child could be so cruel.”

“But we were, weren’t we? And you are, aren’t you?”

“Rest now brother Rabbit,” whispered Fox, holding Rabbits frail form close, heartbeat flutter against her hollow chest, “I will carry you from here.” and with that she snapped his neck.

Fading Forest Fables
Short stories for other people’s children.
Chapter 1 – Horses

Fox found it, but Bear loved it best. Crooked and half submerged in a lagoon, where saltwater ate ancient trees and rusted iron girders. Fox named them “merry-go-round-horses” and said long ago they danced, and that children would ride in circles upon them.

Bear liked children. He lifted the horse which looked like it could still dance from the water, scrapping the barnacles off, and polishing it with his fur. They planted it upon a stump overlooking the brackish water, and waited.

Many nights passed, but no children came. One night Fox saw its gaze reflected in the water and realized that it was mad. She said its eyes scared the children away, so Bear crushed its head with a rock and it sank back below the water.

Later Bear said “Is my coat not fine Fox, and are my teeth not sharp? My eyes are clear. When the children come I shall dance in circles just like the horses.”

For many nights after that Bear woke to the sound of Fox crying. Great long sobs from the deep pit of her stomach. In the morning she said nothing, and they walked through the forest in silence.