Tag: rabbit

Wrong Town

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It was high noon. The two men faced each other from opposite ends of the long, dusty main road of the little makeshift town. Inside the buildings, the townspeople hid, watching from the edges of the windows and waiting for the outcome of the showdown.

Sheriff Bob narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think this is the right town for you,” he said at last.

Scott rolled his shoulders back and raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that for me to decide? I think I like it here.”

“And I think you need to find another place you like better. We don’t need your kind of trouble.” Bob’s hand hovered over his holstered gun.

“Everybody needs a little trouble.” Scott smirked and his hand darted to the handle of his pistol.

Bob grabbed his own gun and just as the guns were pointed at each other, there was a bang and a bright light and both men were thrown onto their backs in the dust a good distance away. They lay there blinking up at the sky as a tall pink rabbit dusted off her fur and looked around with a scrunched up nose.

“Am I dead yet?” Scott asked. “I didn’t think it hurt to be dead.”

“I still haven’t figured out where you shot me,” Bob said. He slowly patted down his arms.

“I didn’t shoot yet.”

“Me either.”

They sat up, only to face an annoyed pink rabbit, who was tapping a furry paw and scowling. Scott frantically started patting the dust around him, looking for his gun, but it had landed far away. Sheriff Bob kept blinking and rubbing his eyes.

“Where are all the flowers?” the rabbit asked.

“What flowers?” Sheriff Bob pinched his arm and winced. “There haven’t ever been flowers here this time of year. You need to come back in the spring to see flowers.”

Scott finally located his pistol and dove for it. Unfortunately, it had broken into pieces. Scott wailed as he tried to fit the pieces together and it became obvious it was unfixable. “My gun! What happened to my gun?”

Hearing this, Sheriff Bob ignored the rabbit and looked around for his own gun. He was relieved to find it nearby and in one piece. He hastily crawled over to retrieve it. Then he sat back on his heels with a groan.

“Your energy is low because of the lack of flowers. I don’t know who came and drained the color and life and flowers and glitter and rainbows from this town, but I promise you that I will bring them back, or my name isn’t Princess Isabella Longhair of the Fluffy Paws!” The rabbit raised a glowing paw in the air.

Scott dropped the worthless pieces of metal on the ground and backed away. “What…?”

The rabbit pointed her paw at the general store. In a burst of light, the previously sun-bleached storefront gleamed in a rainbow of colors, as though it had been made from some strange sort of neon mother of pearl. Vines burst from the ground and wrapped themselves around the edges of the boards. Brightly colored daisies the size of dinner plates bloomed in unison.

The bunny turned towards the saloon behind Scott. Eyes wide, Scott scrambled out of the way and hid behind Sheriff Bob. “What are you doing?” Bob hissed.

“Aren’t you the sheriff? Shouldn’t you be protecting the town or something? Shoot it!” Scott hissed back.

The bunny turned to look at him with narrowed eyes. Scott backed up a few steps. “Run!” he shouted.

They ran and hid in the sheriffs office. When all the townspeople finally felt safe enough to emerge from their hiding places hours later, the rabbit was gone. The town was now covered in color and flowers and glitter and rainbows. “I guess her name really was Princess Isabella Longhair of the Fluffy Paws,” the sheriff muttered.

“I guess you were right, sheriff,” Scott said, as he looked around with a grimace of disgust.

“About what?”

“This is not the right town for me. I’m leaving.” Scott took a step and then paused and looked back. “But before I go, could I ask a favor?”

Sheriff Bob folded his arms across his chest and raised an eyebrow.

Scott smiled sheepishly. “Could I borrow a gun?”

Sloth Picnic

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Finally, finally, one day the sloths all came together for a picnic. They’d been talking about it for maybe a hundred years or more. Someone brought it up every decade or so:

“Hey…what about that picnic idea?”

And a month or two later:

“I like picnics. It would be fun to invite everyone.”

Somehow, over time, this expanded at random times to include sloths volunteering a dish or suggesting a venue. And then, the sloths all started traveling in the same general direction.

When they all realized that somehow they were actually at the legendary picnic, it was all a bit confusing. They’d never even agreed on the games to play after lunch.

“I thought we had another decade to plan this,” some sloth said.

The other sloths all nodded. Slowly.

A little sloth looked around, clearly confused. “What kind of games do sloths play at picnics, anyway? I’ve never been to a picnic.”

An older sloth scratched her chin thoughtfully. “I saw a picnic once. They had a race. The winner got a prize.”

The sloths all nodded. “Of course. A race,” some sloth said. It was decided.

The lunch itself took a week, but eventually it was time to finish the meal and start the race. The older sloth directed a friend to watch the finish line. She stood at the other end of the dirt path in the rainforest clearing and waited.

The other sloths all lined up along the edges of the path. No one lined up along the starting line. “The racers need to come line up now,” the older sloth said.

There were no racers.

“Surely some sloth wants to win the fabulous prize,” she added.

“What’s the fabulous prize?” the littlest sloth asked.

“I haven’t thought of it yet,” the older sloth admitted.

They all waited and watched the starting line. Nothing happened, until suddenly it did. The bushes rustled and a turtle plodded over to the starting line. The sloths cheered.

“We need one more racer or there’s no point,” the older sloth said.

They waited. The next morning, a rabbit came bounding out of the jungle and stopped at the starting line. The sloths cheered.

“On your marks, get set, go!”

The rabbit hopped like a blur and disappeared somewhere. The sloths weren’t sure where it went. It was hard enough to keep track of the turtle, who was moving at a faster pace than the usual sloth.

They cheered on the turtle, shocked when he reached the finish line by mid-afternoon. The rabbit must have wandered off somewhere, because it wasn’t at the finish line. They declared it a forfeit, and awarded the turtle the leaves he found and was munching on near the finish line.

“Best picnic ever,” the littlest sloth said. “Can we do it again?”

Surprisingly, it took far less time to organize a second picnic. It happened when the littlest sloth was the oldest sloth, most likely hurried along by her fascinating descriptions of the original event. The second picnic followed the plan of the first, because it was now considered the traditional way that sloths arranged picnics.

And so, a week after they first sat down to eat, it was time to start the race. The oldest sloth calmly directed some sloth to wait at the finish line while she sat by the starting line. The other sloths stood along the path.

“So, who’s going to race?” the littlest sloth asked.

The oldest sloth smiled. “Someone will show up. They did last time after all. It was most exciting.”

They all knew the story, of course. Eagerly, they watched the nearby bushes. No sloth was surprised when a turtle plodded to the starting line. It was tradition now, after all.

What did surprise them, was the snail that slid in place next to the turtle at the starting line. Perhaps rabbits just weren’t good racers. The last one forfeited after all.

The racing snail was a clear match for the speedy turtle. The sloths couldn’t look away from the exciting match up between the former champion and the new challenger.

It was close, but the turtle won. He ate his victory clump of leaves, kindly sharing them with the snail.

“Will we ever have another picnic?” the littlest sloth asked.

“Of course we will,” the oldest sloth replied. “It’s tradition.”

“I hope the snail comes again,” the littlest sloth said. “Can that be a tradition too?”

“We’ll have to wait and see,” the oldest sloth said. But that was okay. Sloths are good at waiting.