Run Rabbit
‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run’
Heavy doors open and sunlight pours in. The speakers in the tops of the tunnels speak every minute, ‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run.’ But they don’t. Cautious by nature and blinded by the abundance of light they are slow to move. Slowly they are coaxed by the heat and possibility of freedom. Shielding their eyes under the sun’s full glare the more intrepid venture into the open air and find themselves in the gentle scrub of creosote and brittlebush. Heads and eyes and ears swivel for any sign of danger. The brave make signals and like a viscous liquid, the rest seep from the burrows. Some point to the south and gentle chatter breaks out. They know where they’re headed, at last.
Waist-high speakers in the scrub near the burrows crackle to life.
‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run.’
And still, they do not.
‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run.’
From on high, atop a distant hill, patience wanes and wet lips press close to a microphone.
‘Bang, bang, bang goes the farmer’s gun.’
Sand kicks up.
A rifle’s *CRACK* follows.
‘Run!’ Comes a cry from one of their own. And they run. From burrows across the desert floor, they spread this way and that.
To the border.
The border.
Border.
The border.
Fuck the border.
Fuc *CRACK*
Their convictions from moments before upend and they flee without direction. Their flight becomes ill-considered and feral, overcome by a primal desire to escape. They are driven by something their minds can no longer define. They only know that danger is danger, its form irrelevant the notion it takes a form at all, abstract. A state of reversion consumes them. Over scrub and sand, they flee, blazing white in the desert heat.
‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run’
A white body skips over taupe sand, a rifle's report brings time low.
Shorn from its moorings the world becomes unlike itself as the very tendrils of reality sublimate, separate, reorientate and mimic, scrub waves like coral in an ocean current and the disquiet of the world's passage through the void becomes a sensation so palpable it worms its way through skin and bone rupturing tendons and into the fabric of flesh rearranging the strands of what is know and what is material into new and untamed things.
A white body blooming red, a broken body skids through taupe sand, the desert bleeds; suckles at the gift of moisture.
‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run’
A blanket of tinnitus parachutes itself slowly coating the air in its ringing reprieve, its viscosity swaddles branches and shrouds creatures whose skittering becomes a visual distortion, and ringing, ringing, ringing finds the floor.
And time starts again.
‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run’
They run
*CRACK*
Tumble on
And
Run
*CRACK*
Tumble on
And
On
*CRACK*
‘Bang, bang, bang, goes the farmer’s gun.’
A promised land; ever promised, never delivered; never planned to be. A mile. A paltry mile. A mile too far. Crumpled dreams feed the desert and those who run on do so with animalistic purpose. How they run, embody run, are the very act of running and nothing else, to run becomes to live, to live to run until they are nothing but arms driving and legs pumping, running.
‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run’
From on high beneath domed parasols, time snaps along to the *CRACK* of rifles.
‘Funny isn’t it. How they turn to beasts.’
‘They were always beasts.’
*CRACK*
‘And yet they appear so much like ourselves… their bodies, their actions… So much like us that I never truly believed they could truly be what you always said.’
‘The proof is below you. They are inferior, animals all.’
*CRACK*
‘I see that now.’
‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run’
Keen eyes behind layers of glass miss little. Miss nothing.
‘Bang, bang, bang, goes the farmer’s gun.’
Miss one *CRACK* miss none.
‘No more rabbits left to run, run, run’
The desert lays still at last.
The sun sinks lower, desperate for the comfort of another hemisphere. From on high they descend. Walk among the wreckage, check burrows for any who might be hiding *CRACK* Check for fakers *CRACK* it happens.
‘And so the farmers had his fun, fun, fun.’
‘They’re an invasive species.’
‘Quite.’
‘Bringing disease.’
‘Certainly.’
‘Criminals all.’
‘Yes.’
‘Like cuckoos stealing our birthright.’
‘Look at this one.’
A white body crawls. One leg was blown out at the knee. Hands put down rifles and roll the rabbit to his back. His black eyes rove wildly, ‘Please.’
‘It speaks. You didn’t tell me they spoke.’
‘Would it change anything?’
‘No, well, I just didn’t expect it to speak.’
‘It won’t for long.’
‘No, no, too easy.’
Chairs are brought and tables with water, mint and lime. The rabbit's white chest rises - falls. The sudden halt to his forward progress stripped the animal drive that had overcome him, pinned him in place blood painting the sand.
‘A wager.’
‘Fifteen minutes.’
‘Twenty.’
‘Ho, so much faith in our little artist. You hear that Picasso. Twenty minutes!’
The rabbit speaks with a twisted smile. ‘Fuck you, you fucking animal.’
*CRACK*
Note from the author.
I wrote this in a pre-sleep state (something I’ve found liberates me from the thrall of the internal editor) and edited it this morning. I came across an image of a humanoid rabbit chasing two people through the desert and that served as a seed of inspiration. As I wrote the piece changed as all good things do and it took on (to me at least) a kind of commentary about immigration and nationalism. Theres a film (whose title escapes me) where people are dumped in the desert and hunted for sport. And a more recent film, the bad batch (not the star wars one, but the one with Jason Mamoa in it) sees criminals and neerdowells dumped in a desert inside the fence, and both of these pieces came to mind when I re-read it. Living in a country that has no desert, but rolling countryside has left me with a fascination over the magic that deserts seem to cast and hold in folklore and modern culture. Much like the oceans it seems to be a space of possibility, a canvas very accepting of whatever brush you use. Note to self-explore the desert more.
