BUNNIES

 

We’re not supposed to be outside, let alone walking and talking like nothing is wrong. Purple Air says red dots red dots red dots everywhere in Richmond. This is bad. At least that’s what I’m told by the experts on the news. Yet….one expert, one of those sharp doctor women that are always being consulted, said that if you had to go outside for your Mental Health, then do so, but limit your exposure. The smoke particles in the air are in the hazardous range. It’s not safe outside.

            It’s not safe inside either. COVID still is ravaging the country, the state, the Bay Area, Richmond. I wonder what will happen to all the folks having to evacuate because of the fires tearing though their towns. If they’re in an evacuation center, then won’t the virus have more opportunity to spread?

            It’s all too much.

            Hence, the evening walk with Ian to just escape for a little while and pretend like all is okay even though the air says otherwise in its grey brown misty fog. Strolling up 32^nd street, Ian and I chat about this and that. Nothing of any consequence unless you count the constant whining about COVID, Bad Air, and Trump. As we march up the street, I spy a round chicken wire enclosure on someone’s green green lawn. And inside….?

Bunnies!

Three adorable little bunnies are chomping away at the lawn, their little noses wriggling, their little teeth busy, their little ears twitching back and forth, in bunny nervous mode (aren’t bunnies always nervous?)

“Ian!” I stop in front of the bunny show and point. “Look! Bunnies!”

He pauses with me, “Wow, that’s cute.”

I grin and stare at the bunnies as I notice a teenage kid preparing to climb onto some motorcycle bike contraption in the driveway, completely oblivious to our bunny rapture exclamations.

I call out to him, “Are those your bunnies?”

For a moment he doesn’t respond, yet then he begins to pull the ever-present plugs from his ears, “Sorry, just a minute, I was listening to music.”

“The bunnies?” I point at them, “Are they yours?”

He nods in seeming confusion, like I was asking him if he had a palm tree growing out of his head.

“Yeah,” he finally affirms.

“They’re so cute,” I exclaim.

He nods again in that teenage bored way that only teenagers can pull off with such aplomb.

“Are they safe out here?” Ian asks. “I mean, couldn’t a dog or cat or hawk get them?”

“Uh….I’m gonna take them on my bike back to their home,” The Teenager says, turning the bicycle contraption around to face the street.

I’m confused. What’s he gonna do? Take the bunnies in some sort of bunny carrier on the back of the motorbike and cart them off to their home? This isn’t their home? Or is it only a temporary holding cage for them? Yet, he doesn’t make any move to get a carrier or otherwise fulfill his assertion by gathering up the bunnies for their homeward journey;  instead he gets on his motorbike and putts away.

“That was strange,” I comment to Ian.

“Yeah,” he shakes his head. “I’m worried about the bunnies. Some other animal really could come and make a meal out of them.”

“Not to mention the Bad Air!” I joke, but it’s really not a joke. I also saw on the news how pets were supposed to be limited in the time spent outside in the fire caused smoke. One woman was interviewed who had to limit her chihuahua, Puddles, to 5 minute walks instead of their usual 45 minute walks twice a day. “He is confused,” she sighs. “He has his routine. But I tell him that we can’t walk as far in the bad air…..” She shakes her head, watching the dog sniff the dirt, and repeats,  “Yeah, I definitely think he’s confused.”

So the bunnies were vulnerable to all sorts of dangers out here on the lawn! Yet, they nibbled on, unfazed by these hazards. After all they were only bunnies and doing what bunnies do which is eat and chew and look cute.

We walk on, even though I can tell Ian is genuinely worried about the bunnies. I figure the teenager will be back. Maybe he just went to get the bunny carrier first and then will return to gather them up. Or maybe he will forget all about them and hangout at his friends’ house, expose himself to COVID (I noticed he wasn’t wearing a mask; this probably was too much with the earplugs), and then when he gathered up the bunnies, they’d not only be exposed to the bad air, but they might catch COVID too.

Can bunnies catch the Virus?

I sure hope not!

We don’t need a bunch of Covid Rabbits multiplying and spreading the virus throughout the bunny community.

Ian continues to talk about this and that, and I try to listen. Honest I do. But, as I glance back at the bunnies, still nibbling away, I wonder, what will become of them?

A crow caws above us, strident and loud. “You don’t think the crow will eat the bunnies?” I ask Ian.

“Nah, crows are scavengers. They only eat trash and dead animals.”

I shiver in the growing chill as the sky dims even more. No sunset. No sun. No light.

What world are we walking in today?

I try not to dwell on it as we cross Esmond and head up toward McBryde, putting one foot in front of the other to save my Mental Health.