Throughout history, rabbits have been the instigators of millions of adventures. Many a famous tale has begun with a rabbit and a quest springing from chasing one. This adventure is no different. This story has a tan rabbit and a long, drawn-out chase to catch him. The only difference in this particular story is this rabbit is neither fluffy nor cute. It has no nose to twitch and no watch to tell time by. What it does have is three balding tires, a full tank of unleaded gasoline and ten million dollars in gemstones in the back seat. Also, instead of a cute child pursuing it, this particular rabbit has six knights riding angry steeds with flashing red eyes. Each knight will not rest until this rabbit is apprehended and tossed into a cage.
With most stories, the rabbit manages to trick his pursuer and flee to safety. This one underestimates the curves of the winding road he traveled up and suddenly has to learn to fly. Unfortunately, rabbits may be fast, but they have never had the ability of flight. Not quite willing to accept the gravity of the situation, he continues to try in vain. Sadly, he is soon bested by the dense foliage of the pine trees far, far below.
Now here we are, in the forest, with a rabbit on his back, gasping his last breaths. The sound of two spinning bald tires whosh, whosh, whoshed as they slowly came to a stop. Was it also mentioned… there’s a small lake of gasoline quickly gathering around the poor creature as if it had wet himself? Not that he should be ashamed. But another unfortunate problem is just now stirring. You see, small sparks from the creature’s own heart were zizizipping just a tad too close. It’s just a matter of… BOOM… time.
If you’ve never seen ten million dollars in gemstones fly through the air, it is quite the sight; a diamond here… a ruby there. The toad that lives under the quartz stone, next to the bramble bush, grew rather fond of the emerald that had bounced off his head and down his hole. And the old crow in the burned out oak took a shining to the sapphire that rolled next to the roots of his tree. One by one the gemstones disappear down holes, into dens, between cracks in the rocks and down, down, and yet even further down into the valley below.
This leaves the knights in a rather unusual predicament. They bested the rabbit, but at what cost? Six squirrels alone divvied up the diamonds and we won’t go into what happened in the bear’s den. You may begin to wonder why any wild forest creature would bother with something as trivial as a shiny rock? One can’t eat a gemstone for substance. One can’t use it for protection nor build a home out of it. So what use would a diamond, a ruby or an emerald be to a wild animal? How about we ask the rabbit?
