L'appel De Vide

On a summer day, the sky clear blue and the sun shining warmly, two rabbits sit together in a pasture. George and Linus. They watch other rabbits hop about the pasture, living their rabbit lives and eating the vegetation around them. George sits in front of a bed of flowers he’s plucked for himself, bending his fluffy head down and chewing the flowers. Linus looks off in the distance.

George swallows his flower. “Janice thinks I’m being a bit pushy, but I don’t know…”

“She thinks you’re pushy?” Linus asked in surprise.

“Yeah, she thinks I’m too nosey but I don’t think she even cares if the kids get eaten,” George stated plainly. “I mean, I don’t really, either, but it’s that bit of the survivalist in me, d’yaknowwhatimean?”

Linus nodded in agreement. “Yeah, mate, I know.”

“YOLO, d’yaknowwhatimean? Life is short. Six years come and go like that, mate.”

“Yeah.”

George twitches his pink nose. He bends down and chomps on another flower. “Anyways. D’you want a flower?” he asked with his mouthful.

“No, I don’t have an appetite,” Linus admitted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well I saw Diane crap by ‘em.”

“Where? By the flowers?”

“Yeah, mate, right next to ‘em.” Linus looks at the flower in George’s mouth. “I think that’s the flower it was on.”

“The one I’m eating?” George clarified.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” George continued to chew.

Linus perked up his ears in confusion. “What d’you mean, ‘oh’?”

“What d’you mean, ‘what d’you mean’?” George retorted.

Linus sighs, looking back up at the blue summer sky. “Isn’t it weird?”

“What?” George asked mindlessly.

“The whole circle of life.”

“How it all works?”

“Yeah,” Linus contemplated, “like how we go round eating plants with feces on ‘em, getting fat, hopping about with nothing on our minds, and at some point an owl will just swoop down and snatch me up ‘cuz he’s a bit hungry.”

“Linus, don’t say that,” George remarked disappointedly.

“It’s true, isn’t it? I’m not—I’m not being unreasonable. George, think of it. At some point our parents shagged, right?”

“Mate!” George shouted.

“It happened!” Linus protested. “It’s true, I can’t say it didn’t, I’m not an ignorant—”

“But I don’t want to think about ‘em shagging,” George interrupted.

“You’ve got nine siblings, mate,” Linus reminded him bluntly.

“From a litter! And it’s eight.”

“Eight? I thought it was nine.”

“Clark. Some hawk caught him in the woods about twenty minutes ago.”

“Aw, sorry, mate.”

“Yeah, it’s alright.”

“I liked him. He had that weird spot on his back. I liked that.”

“I did, too,” George reminisced. “Course that’s probably what made it easier to spot him up in the sky.”

“Ohhhh, yeah, you’re probably right,” Linus nodded understandably.

“That was like his hubris, d’yaknowwhatimean?”

“Yeah, I do. Sorry about him.”

“It happens,” George picked through the flowers with his nose to find his next snack.

“Right, ‘K,” Linus resumed nonchalantly, “you’ve got eight sib—” Just then they heard a hawk screech in the distance. A bunny squealed, crying for help. “Was that?—”

“Seven,” George acknowledged matter-of-factly.

“Point is,” Linus continued, “at some point your parents and mine shacked up during the summer – not together, of course – and they had us; and on the other side of the woods, years and years ago – ‘bout five, ten miles away – some hawk laid an egg and that egg hatched. And at some point that hawk will get hungry and spot you in the woods and snatch you up.”

“Linus!” George shouted.

“That’s all I’m saying! That’s just what happens, isn’t it?”

“But I don’t want to think about it.”

“Well I do,” Linus said firmly.

“Why?” George asked worriedly.

“I mean, I didn’t decide to be eaten by osprey.

“No one decides that, mate. You just are.”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it? What if I wasn’t?”

“What?” George asked bewildered.

“What if I was a fox or a toad or even an owl? Right? Then my mindset would be completely different, d’yaknowwhatimean? I wouldn’t get eaten by those things. I’ve escaped a few of ‘em before, you know that, but what for? I don’t know any of us that’ve died of old age. We don’t have a council of wise old rabbits in our nest.”

“Yeah, but with your mindset,” George started his rebuttal “I don’t think you’d even know it was different, d’yaknowwhatimean? You can’t, like, learn to be a frog.”

“Course I can. Watch.” Linus tried to ribbit. “See? I’m a frog. Give me a fly.”

“Linus,” George stopped him like a disappointed mother.

“Come on now,” Linus demanded. “I’m a frog. Fetch me a fly.”

“You’ll do all the fetching yourself with your extra-long tongue, yeah?” George mocked.

“Haven’t got it yet,” Linus corrected him.

“Oh and why not?”

“I just started being a frog. Do you think flies taste good?” Linus asked genuinely. “I’ve always thought they’d be a bit nutty.”

Another rabbit hopped up to their conversation. Laura. She scratched her massive ear rapidly. “George?” she called out to him.

“Hey, Laura,” George replied endearingly. “How are you, love?”

“Peachy keen, thanks, love. George, come shack up with me after you’re done.”

George sighed, “Ah, I just did with Janice about fifteen minutes ago. Sorry, love. I mean, I would, if I hadn’t—”

“Oh. I get it,” Laura remained respectful. “It’s okay. Sorry to bother you, gents.”

“No, it’s fine,” George changed his tone. “Just give me a quick minute and I’ll be ready, ‘K?”

“Alright…” Laura smiled bashfully.

“You look good, Laura,” George charmed her.

“Thank you, it’s all the hopping I’ve been doing. Getting exercise. I’m slimming down, aren’t I?”

“That’s great,” George said proudly.

Laura smiled at him. “Right, cheers then. Bye, George. Bye, Linus.” Laura hopped away.

George looked down at the rest of his flowers and decided he was full. Linus stared at him indignantly. “What?” George asked innocently.

“Fifteen minutes ago?” Linus questioned.

“What about it?”

“You said twenty minutes ago Clark got eaten. And you screwed Janice not even five minutes after?”

George thrust his bunny head back in annoyance, “What? That’s not my fault—”

“Did you even mourn? Geez!”

“What?! I don’t have time—what do you mean mourn?

“That’s what I mean, George,” Linus circled back to his point, “all this circle of life stuff, and we’re just going at it with all the girls like it’s all we’re made to be.”

“Pretty nice, isn’t it?” George smirked.

“No,” Linus said seriously. “I want to know why that’s all we do.”

“All you do?” George asked, trying to keep up.

“Yeah, all I do is eat plants and make babies.”

“Doesn’t sound bad,” George proposed.

“But why do other animals do other things? I don’t get a choice, I suppose,” Linus’s inflection saddened.

“A choice for what?” George did his best to track Linus’s thoughts.

“What I eat or where I live or how I live or where I go, d’yaknowwhatimean? I like the water, what if I lived there?”

“You wouldn’t be a fast swimmer, you’ve got too much hair, it’ll sink you.”

“What if I get rid of it?”

“What?”

“Gnaw it off one day, go over to an ocean and became a water animal? What if I started eating other things? I don’t even like plants anymore.” Linus took his giant front teeth and tried picking at his fur.

“But we eat plants, mate,” George reminded him. “What else d’youwantta eat?”

“There’s so many foods in the world!” Linus exclaimed with wonder. “I like fruit. But what about meat?”

“Meat?” George repeatedly nervously.

“What’s stopping me? I mean, why don’t I have that impulse like a wolf or something else does to eat another animal? Why don’t I just eat you now, d’yaknowwhatimean?”

“What?!”

“I’m not gonna!” Linus aggressively affirmed. “I’m just saying, why don’t I just eat you, d’yaknowwhatimean? Why do I not have that impulse? I don’t feel made to eat a tomato.”

George stared at Linus. “Have you gone rabid?”

“No! Geez, no!” Linus denied. “No, I haven’t gone rabid, no! I’m just saying, why don’t I feel like—like I see veggies and think they look great, but I didn’t decide that by eating everything and comparing it, making a chart, d'youknow; oh this one I like, oh this is rancid oh it makes me sick, no I don’t like peas.”

George stared at Linus with bug eyes. “You don’t want to eat me, do you?”

“No—George! No! Course I’m not gonna eat you! I like you too much. I mean, you know the old saying,” Linus asked hypothetically, “everything’ll eat meat if given the chance. What chance do I need, d’yaknowwhatimean? Am I that close for going cannibal or something?”

Linus sighed despondently, looking down at the grass. George suddenly had a revalation. “Mate,” he said in a hushed yet positive tone, “I think I know what this is about.”

“You do?” Linus said hopefully.

“Yeah, yeah, I do. There’s a French phrase for whatchyou’re thinking right now.”

“What’s that?”

“L’appel de vide.”

“L’appel de vide,” Linus repeated slowly. “What’s it mean?”

“It means, like, when you have that dark thought about jumping off a high place or running in a foxhole or wanting to eat your friends.”

“I don’t want to eat—”

“No, it’s fine, mate,” George encouraged him. “That’s what it is. L’appel de vide. I think the translation is ‘moment of void’ or something.”

“Chipper,” Linus said sarcastically.

“Well that’s the point, Linus. It’s just a thought.”

“It’s not—”

“No, it is, it’s alright,” George comforted him. “It’s normal we think these things. It’s that bit of good in us that separate us from rabid folk from actually doing it, d’yaknowwhatimean?”

“I’m not going to do it,” Linus reminded him.

“Exactly. It’s just a thought.”

Linus paused, letting his thought form. “But I don’t feel like a rabbit, George?”

“Whatddyamean?”

“Do you feel like a rabbit?”

George moved his limbs a little, as if to understand each part of his fluffy body. “I don’t really know what that feels like.”

“I don’t know—I didn’t decide to be a rabbit, d’yaknowwhatimean?” Linus looked over to right. “Geez, look at that,” he said aggravated.

“What?” George looked around.

“Look at him.” Linus watched a fellow rabbit walk into a bed of flowers and defecate. “Now he’s just shit in the flower bed.”

“Where?” George took a small hop towards Linus.

“Stewart, right over there. He just—that’s what I mean, see? Just mindlessly shitting pellets out on petunias. I didn’t decide I like doing that.”

“Where else’d you take a crap, Linus?” George asked genuinely. “That’s where you go?”

“No, that’s where rabbits go. I don’t feel like going there anymore, mate,” Linus said definitively.

“What?”

“No, I’m going—d’youknow what I want to do? I want to shit from the sky,” Linus declared.

“Shit from the sky?”

“Like a bird. I’ve always wanted to be free, I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be that high up and grow up on a branch, d’yaknowwhatimean? I don’t know… something tells me I’d like being a bird.” Linus looked up at the sky longingly.

“You’ve gone full rabid, you know that?” George said unapologetically.

“I’m not rabid, mate,” Linus said calmly. “In fact I feel great, George.” Linus thought for a moment, then nodded approvingly. “I’m going to be a bird.”

“Mate, you can’t be a bird.”

“I’ll adapt, can’t be that hard.”

“You can’t sprout wings, you’re too chubby.”

“No, I haven’t got wings yet, have I?” Linus admitted. “Figure I might need wings, yeah?”

“Yeah, that’s a bit principle to being a bird.”

“But I’ll get all the other bits about it,” Linus said confidently.

“You can’t lay eggs,” George proved.

“I’m a mammal bird.”

“What does that mean?”

“George, I feel like I’m supposed to be a bird, alright! I just—geez!” Linus confessed openly to his friend. “I didn’t’ ask for this life. I wanna choose something of my own.”

“Look atchyou! Do you hear yourself?” George questioned. “You’re talking about being what’s going to eat you one day!”

“No. Because I’ll be a bird.”

“Birds eat birds.”

“No they don’t.”

“Yes they do.”

“No they do not.”

“I’ve seen if before. Yeah, Selma said she saw it happen once.”

“Well what is it? D’you see it or did Selma tell you?”

“Both, mate.”

Linus exhaled deeply and shook his head with determination. “Right. Well I won’t be eaten, ‘K? I’ll be up on a wall in a human house, like a trophy.”

“What?!” George yelled.

“Yeah, that’s the way to go.”

“That’s it,” George started to hop away.

“George!” Linus called out.

“No, I’m going because this… this whole conversation is lunacy.”

“Lunacy?” Linus began to plea. “Mate, this whole life we’ve been living is lunacy! Don’t you want freedom? Where we get to live how we want? How we feel? Imagine getting to decide things for once, yeah? Where you live and how you look, none of this nature’s way nonsense. I’m gonna be happy for once. D’yaknowwhatimean?”

George looked back at his friend. “Yeah. I do.”

“Right. ‘K then.” Linus started flapping his paws. “I’ll get the hang of it,” he muttered to himself. “Maybe if I bounce a bit, get airborne first…”

“Promise one thing, mate,” George asked.

“Course.”

“If you become a bird, don’t eat me.”

Linus smiled. “Nah, I won’t eat—” Just then an owl swooped down and snatched up Linus. George stood motionless and stared at the empty space in the pasture where he used to be.

“George?” Laura called from afar.

“What is it, Laura”

“You done?”

“Yeah, coming.” George hopped away towards Laura.