Birth and rebirth
The doe rabbit lay on her side, her breath labored as she gasped
for each little breath of fresh air.
The pain in her tummy was such that her muscle contracted and
relaxed pushing whatever it was inside of her downward and out from
behind her. With a mighty contraction the first of 7 blobs of goop was
expelled from her body. She sat up and turned and looked at the
wriggling pinkish brownish mess that she had just expelled from her
body. She looked down at it and instinct took over and she leaned down
sniffed then licked the pinkish brownish wriggling mess. Then the pain
started again and she had to repeat the whole process 6 more times
before she was done. The tiny little pinkish brownish blobs nestled
their way into the straw.
It was not until dark that she pushed her nose back into the
straw to wake the tiny little rabbit kittens from their sleep and where
they had been hiding. They wriggled though the straw to her exposed
stomach to be fed. After 8 sleeps the 7 tiny pinkish brownish blobs
started to grow tiny fine fur all over their tiny little bodies. After
42 sleeps the eyes of the tiny rabbit kittens started to open their
eyes and they started to wriggle and half hop following their mother to
the bowl that special food had been placed in her hutch. It was over
126 sleeps when the doe rabbit noticed that there were less rabbit
kittens in fact there was only the one now.
The little rabbit kitten lay snuggled close to the doe rabbit
that was his mother. As far as the little rabbit kitten knew it had
always been just him and his mother and never any sisters or brothers.
The fact that three sleeps before there had been 3 sisters and 3
brothers was something the little rabbit kitten had forgotten after his
second sleep. The doe and the little rabbit kitten lived in a hutch in
a corner of a bright white room with long metal tables white cabinets
and very bright lights. But this did not matter to the does nor to the
little rabbit kitten. Well not much anyway.
The hutch itself was made of wood and looked very out of place
inside the room. That might have been the reason that it was in the
corner of the room where it was darkest. That is if there could be a
dark spot in a very well lit room. None the less the doe and the
little rabbit kitten were well taken care of and did not have to worry
about much other than the few days that their human was not around.
The little rabbit kitten was snuggled close to his mother and
was just barely awake after a nice sleep when a hand reached in wearing a
white hand cover. The hand grabbed the half asleep little rabbit
kitten and pulled him quickly yet gentle away from his mother. The
little rabbit kitten was so shaken with fear that his little fur covered
body shook so badly that a second hand appeared to hold him tight.
With such fear at the second hand the little rabbit kitten struggled to
break free from the fearful hands that held him so tight. Then gently
the second hand moved up and down his fur making him feel less fearful
and relaxing him. There was something about the feeling of the hand
covers that felt good on his fur and helped to make the little rabbit
kitten relax. After some moments the hand moved away and rabbit kitten
lay still in the one hand with the hand cover hold him firmly yet
gentle.
Then without warning there was a blinding pain in his right hind
rump. The pain was such that has much as he struggled it would not
stop or go way. In fact the pain was so great that his heart felt like
it would explode. Then the pain stopped and the little rabbit kitten
felt himself being moved though the air back to the safety of his hutch
and his mother. Once back in the hutch the hand let him go and the
opening that he had been pulled through and then returned through was
closed once again making hutch nice and dark.
The little rabbit kitten sniffed the air and smelt his mother.
Weakly he limped over and pushed his nose against her fur for comfort.
The doe turned and sniffed the little rabbit kitten and started to lick
his fur clean giving him a total tongue bath from head to toe to make
sure he was clean. Then she returned to her feeding from the round metal dish that
the human put their chunks of food in.
The little rabbit kitten awoke from a sleep and sniffed the air.
His mother was at the tube that the water came from and there was fresh
straw for bedding near by. It had been many sleeps since the human had
taken him away from his mother and hurt his right hind rump. In fact
it had been so many sleeps that the little rabbit kitten had forgotten
that he had ever been hurt by the human.
A hand reached in and gently grabbed the little rabbit kitten
and held him gently yet firmly.Once again he was pulled from his hutch and the second hand
placed over him to calm him. Then the second hand was removed and such
pain was sudden in his right hind rump. Oh such pain that the little
rabbit kitten kicked and struggled to get away from the pain. Yet the
hand held him firm.Then the pain stopped and gentle sounds could be heard that
helped to calm him. The second hand returned and gently slid up and down
his fur making him feel calm and relaxed. Then he felt himself being
lifted up and warm air being blown across his nose, mouth, eyes and
ears. He then felt the grip of the hand loosen yet he felt no fear.
Instead he rolled onto his back and looked up at the human.
The human looked down at the small little rabbit kitten and
smiled. Reaching down, the human rubbed the little rabbit kittens tummy
that had been fully exposed when he had rolled onto his back.Then he felt himself moving though the air and returned to his
hutch. His mother sniffed him again and started to give him a full
tongue bath from head to toe.
The little rabbit kitten woke from a sleep and found that there
was something about his neck. He lifted his head up to try and look but
could not see what it was as he could not turn his head due to the
thing around his neck. What was more his head hurt and itched. The
little rabbit kitten sat back and looked around as best as he could.
His head itched and he brought his hind leg up to scratch his head where
it itched but something was blocking his foot from reaching his head.
Again the little rabbit kitten looked around and his time he could not
see his mother.
Panic, fear fright!
The little rabbit kitten looked around again. He sniffed the air
and could smell his mother near by. Again he looked around and could
not see her. Again he sniffed the air and could smell her near by.
Again panic, fear, fright! His head itched and he brought his hind leg
up to scratch the itch but something blocked his leg from scratching
the itch.
The little rabbit kitten looked around again and noticed that
this was a new place. Like where he and his mother were but the ground
was harder and smelt different. He sniffed the air again and smelt his
mother. She was near and that is all that mattered. Alone and scared
the little kitten rabbit hopped around his hutch sniffing the new wood,
the water tube that the water came from, the bowl that his food was put
in and finally the straw that was his bedding.
He hopped over to where the opening was that the hand would come
through and the little rabbit kitten saw through the wire mesh his
mother looking at him from a small rabbits length. He pushed his face
as close to the wire mesh as he could and squealed so that his mother
would hear him. She looked up from her bowl that the food was in and
pushed her face against the wire mesh of her hutch. There was a strange
sound and the little rabbit kitten felt his hutch move towards his
mother so that now they were nose to nose. Mother and the little
rabbit kitten sniffed each other and the rabbit kitten felt much better.
The little rabbit kitten hopped over to the tube that water came
from and licked it. But there was no water coming from it. Again he
licked the tube and still nothing came from the tube. The little rabbit kitten looked around confused and then heard a
sound from outside his hutch that meant something was happening to the
tube that the water came from. He licked the tube again and this time
there was water. But the water did not taste like water but it tasted
nice.
Suddenly the little rabbit kitten felt tired so he hopped over
to the straw and tried lie down but the big white thing around his neck
made it hard to find a comfortable spot to lie down and sleep. In the
end he put his paw forward and rested the white thing on his paws.
After his sleep he hopped over to the bowl his food was in and
looked at it. He placed the huge white thing over the bowl and found
that he could eat from the bowl as long as he kept the huge white thing
in place. His head itched worse than it had the sleep before and he
tried to get his paw up to dig at the pain. But the huge white thing got
in the way of his paw. The little rabbit kitten hopped over to his
food bowl and placed his head over the bowl with the huge white thing
and ate his food then he hopped over to the water tube and took a drink.
The water from the tube tasted different than from the sleep before
and instead of feeling sleepy he felt like he could stay awake for a
long time. Maybe as long the bright lights outside his hutch were
bright?
He hopped over to where he could see his mother and sniffed
though the wire mesh. Then he made a soft squeal and his mother hopped
to the wire mesh and sniffed him. They sat there some time sniffing at
each other until his mother hopped away to sleep. But the little rabbit
kitten felt like he did not need sleep so he hopped around his hutch
until he heard a sound in the area outside of his hutch.
The door opened and the hand reached in and gently pulled him
out of his hutch. He felt himself gently float though the air and then
cradled gently in the crook of a humans arm. The little rabbit kitten
looked up and he could see a face with long brownish blond hair,
greenish blue eyes with long beautiful eye lashes and a wicked playful
smile. The little rabbit kitten looked up and felt safe, relaxed and
very comfortable enfolded in the crook of her arm.
“Safe” the little rabbit kitten thought.
“Thought” he thought. “Strange” he thought.
The young woman’s hand reached down and gently rubbed his belly
making him feel even more relaxed in her arm. He looked up and felt
that she was kind gentle and loving. But he did not understand what was
happening to him? He tried to think again put all he could do was look
up at her and feel safe relaxed and happy. An odor drifted past his
nose and he smelt his mother near by. He turned his head to look for her
and he noticed that he could see more of where he was.
He could see across to the other side of the room. He could see
the tables, the hutches the windows and the door. Through the window he
could see green growing things and huge green growing things with long
things that looked like the same stuff as his hutch was made from. And
things in the huge blue thing that had white fluff things moving
around.
The young woman made a sound that felt soothing that made him
look up at her. He could see her mouth moving yet what was coming from
her mouth he could not understand. So he just looked up at her and
watched her mouth moving and forming strange sounds that he just could
not understand. After that she sat him down on one of the tables and
gently removed the huge white thing around his neck. It felt strange
and he brought his right hind leg up to scratch the itch on his head.
But before he could she reached down and held him so that he
could not bring his paw up to scratch the itch. The young woman made a
loud sound from her mouth that startled him so badly that he started to
shake from head to toe. She looked down at the poor scared little
rabbit kitten and started to slide her hand up and down his fur until he
felt relaxed again. Then she picked him up and put him back in the
crook of her arm so that he was safe and relaxed again.
She gently rocked him back and forth. Again the soft gentle sound
came from her mouth. The sound made him even more relaxed and if he
could of he would have fallen asleep but the water he had drunk from
before she had taken him out of his hutch would not let him sleep.
A second human moved into his view and he noticed that the
second human looked like the female human but taller with hair under his
nose. He also had funny things in front of his eyes that were like
round things that he could see the human’s eyes though. Sounds were
made between the two humans and he felt himself being turned onto his
side while the female human held him tightly. He knew that she would
not drop him and that what ever she was having done to him, it was safe,
and that she would not let harm befall him.
Again he heard sounds coming from the female human but this time
they went up in sound and down in sound in a musical way. To the little
rabbit kitten it was like the sound of his mother when she would be
happy when he was snuggled next to her, feeding. The musical sound
stopped and sound went back and forth between the female human and the
male human.
He then felt something on his head that stopped the itch. Then
there was blinding pain which stopped as sudden as it started. He felt
strange for a moment and then he could see even better than he had
before. Things were much clearer than they had been before. He could
make out things better and he turned his head to look at both humans.
He could hear the sounds they were making and their lips were moving yet
he could not understand what the sounds meant if they meant anything at
all.
The young woman placed him down on the cold metal table and he
just sat there for a moment trying to understand what this new surface
was? It was totally new to him and he did not like the cold feeling on
his paws. He tried to hop and all his paws slid out from under him so
that he landed hard on his tail. This made him slide across the table
top. And it was so much fun.
The little rabbit kitten tried to pull himself forward by his
front paws and he found that he could slide with great ease. In fact he
could slide very fast down the length of the table. Then he noticed that
there was no more table and that if he did not stop soon he would fall
off into nothing and that scared him. He tried to use his front paws
to push himself backward but nothing happened and he continued to slide
across the cold surface.
Just as he was about to slip totally off the end of the table
the male human reached out and caught him so that he would not fall.
He looked up at the male human and saw the same smile that he had seen
on the human female. A smile of amusement and kindness. The male
human handed him back to the female human and again there was sound that
passed backwards and forwards between them. The female held him
safely in the crook of her arm and rubbed his tummy as her lips moved
and she looked at the male human.
The male human moved out of view and he could feel something
between his ears and the feeling was nice and he felt relaxed even more
than he had before. Then he felt himself moving though the air as the
female human moved. He looked around watching what was going on as he
moved towards his hutch. Then there was a loud banging sound that made
him scared yet at the same time he had to see what that sound was. He
wriggled in the females arm and moved so that he could see what was
happening.
He saw that something large was being put between his hutch and
his mother’s hutch. The male human was between the hutches with a long
thing that had a wire mesh frame. Inside the wire mesh frame was this
long patch of what looked like straw but was finer and a different
color. As he looked at the long thing with the strange unlike straw he
noticed that there was a hole in the side of his hutch that had not
been there before and something that looked like it could cover the new
hole.
He looked at it and again he thought “an opening for me to go
through. Strange things in my head. What is happening”? As he looked
at the long thing with the unlike straw on the bottom he felt himself
being lowered down so that he could go back into his hutch. Once
inside his hutch he hopped over to the new opening and looked through.
He could see the unlike straw and it looked like something he should
investigate closely so that he could know what it was.
Placing one front paw on the unlike straw carefully he felt it
through the pad of the paw. Then he placed his other paw on the unlike
straw and it felt so good that he just had to hop out and feel it on his
hind paws too. He sat on the short unlike straw and it felt good on
his rump too. He then laid down on it and that felt good too. Then he
just gave up on all control and rolled in it and wriggled and sniffed it
and looked at it.
He then heard more sounds come from the female and male humans
who were looking at him he noticed that their heads were thrown back and
their whole body seemed to be shaking for some reason. But he did not
care what the two humans did as the unlike straw felt so nice. He
stopped wriggling and rolling in the unlike straw and started to hop up
and down on it. In fact he found that he could get going very fast
before he had to stop and turn around.
As he hopped as fast as he could he noticed that at the far end
of the long thing there was another door that slid up like the one at
the end where his hutch was. He stopped and sniffed it and he could
smell his mother though the closed off opening. So he touched the closed
off opening with his paw. He pushed it and then tried to push it up as
he knew his mother was on the other side and he wanted to see her and
sniff her and snuggle next to her.
But as hard as he tried he could not get the thing that blocked
the opening to move. But he knew that his mother was on the other side
and he so wanted to see her. He ran down to the other end of the long
thing and raced back up and throw himself against the closed off
opening. But that did not make it open either. So he sat down outside
the closed off opening. Then his head started to itch again and he
brought his hind paw up and scratched. At first it stopped the itching
then it made it itch more and then it hurt. In fact it hurt so much
that it made him squeal in pain.
The female human came over and opened the top of the long thing
and reached down and picked him up. She held him in her arm and with
her other hand she did something that took away the pain and itch. Then
he saw the huge white thing and he tried to move away from it to get a
better look but the female human was putting it around his neck. He was
then put back down on the unlike straw and the top was closed. Looking
around he noticed that the huge thing around his neck was not as huge
as it seemed before. He still could not get his paw up to his head but
with his front paws he could touch his nose and mouth.
Slowly he hopped up and down the long thing with the unlike
straw under his paws and it was fun. He could hop slowly or he could hop
fast but he could hop and hop where as in his hutch he could not do
much as it was not that big. So he hopped up and down it fast. Then not
so fast. Then he hopped slowly up and down a few times. Then he hopped
slowly and half way up the long thing he hopped as fast as he could.
Then he started to feel sleepy and the unlike straw felt good
and he could of slept there but there was no dark and he could not sleep
without the dark and the smell of the straw. “Hmm” he thought to
himself “the unlike straw does not smell like straw. It must be
something like the straw but is not”. So he hopped back to his hutch
and went and looked at the straw. He sat in the straw and then, resting
his head on his paws as the thing around his neck was in the way, he
went to sleep.
Once in his sleep he started to dream. But there was something
odd about the dream as it felt real. Not just real but like it was
happening to him. He could feel being moved, he could feel something
being put between his ears he could feel the thing being stuck into his
skin. And it all felt real in his dream. He awoke from his dream and
it felt as if he had not slept at all. But now things felt different.
He hopped over to his food bowl and ate slowly. The huge thing
around his neck did not get in his way as much as something was missing
from the underside of the huge thing. He then went to the new opening
and saw that there was a wire mesh in the way but on the other side was
his mother and she was looking into his hutch and sniffing the air. He
leaned into the mesh and sniffed his mother who was busy sniffing him.
She tried to lick him though the wire mesh and she just reach his nose
that was pressed hard against the mesh. His mother cleaned his face and
his ears as best she could but the mesh stopped most of the cleaning.
But he felt happy that he had smelt and seen his mother. And he knew
that she felt happy as she had smelt and seen him too.
His mother hopped away and half way down the long thing she
stopped and started to eat the unlike straw. She sat and cropped at the
unlike straw munching on it. Looking closer he saw that the unlike
straw was longer and that it covered his mothers paws, whereas before
his sleep it had been about half way up his paws. In fact it seemed much
longer than it had before his sleep.
“Odd” he thought.
“Sounds in my head where sounds were not before. I think instead
of doing. Something is happening to me” he thought.
As he sat thinking his mother hopped back up and placed her paws
on the wire mesh and started to sniff all around. She then suddenly
looked up and backed away from the wire mesh. The wire meshed moved up
and his mother hopped into his hutch and looked around. She then hopped
over and sniffed him before she started to give him a tongue bath. She
cleaned him from his neck down his body. The little rabbit kitten
felt so good and relaxed that he rolled on his back and kicked wildly in
the air with his paws. His mother placed a paw on his chest to stop
him wriggling while she cleaned the rest of his body.
Once she had finished cleaning him she hopped over to his bowl
and looked at the food in his bowl. Then she hopped over and sniffed the
water tube and she pulled away from the water tube as if it smelt bad.
Then she sniffed it again and pulled away again. He hopped over to the
water tube and sniffed it. It did not smell bad to him just different
and not like it had before his sleep.He licked at it and water came from it but it tasted different
yet again. He licked and licked until he had his fill.
Then he hopped out of his hutch and followed his mother to her
hutch. It looked just the same other than it had new straw and smelt
fresh. He looked around and liked his mother’s hutch better than his
own. But his hutch was his hutch. He then noticed that it seemed
smaller or the roof had been moved down. Or something had happened to
him and had made him bigger.
He then hopped back out to the long thing and started to hop as
fast as he could up and down the long thing.Then he remembered seeing his mother eating the unlike straw so
he tasted it. And it did taste good. So he ate some and then he ate some
more and liked how it felt in his mouth. He rolled it around in his
mouth and enjoyed its juices running down his throat. As he ate the
unlike straw he heard the humans near by. He could hear them making
sounds but he could not see them. He stood up on his hind legs and
could see the head of the female human and she was looking over at him.
The human female walked over and leaned down and looked at him.
Her mouth started to move and a soft gentle musical sound came from her
mouth. He looked up and watched and felt himself start to sway with
the musical sound that was coming from her mouth. He closed his eyes
and swayed back and forth as such a sweet sound coming from the human
female. He heard the top of the long thing being opened and then he
felt her hand around him and then being lifted gently out of the long
thing. Again he felt himself in the crook of her arm. So relaxed and
happy was he that he did not open his eyes. And then when he did he was
in a new place. He sat up in her arm and looked around.
The room was darker and had things that looked like tables but
lower to the ground and they had backs to them so the humans could rest
in them. Around the room there were what looked like small short long
tables that went along one wall and half way along another wall. There
was also an opening that was human size and from there came a bright
light. In one of the tables with a back to it sat the male human. His
head was to one side and his mouth was open and it seemed that his eyes
were closed. The little rabbit kitten looked at the male human and
knew that human males slept like rabbits slept.
The female human carried him across to another table with a back
to it and the human female sat down with him still in the crook of her
arm. She rubbed his tummy and stroked his ears and that made he feel
relaxed and happy. He thought for a moment and felt that he liked her a
lot. In fact he liked her as almost as much as he liked his mother.
The little rabbit kitten snuggled into the crook of her arm and
dozed off to sleep.
©6/1/2010 Mark Crocker
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