The Rabbit in the Moon by Matt Padmore
The Rabbit in the Moon
The rabbit had been up on the moon since either of them had existed. He knew this was where he was supposed to be and he made the best of it. He spent years exploring the dunes and seas, decades constructing a mental map of the planet and centuries examining how moon dust behaved when tossed into the airless atmosphere. As the ages and epochs passed he kept busy and kept moving. There wasn’t a nook of the satellite he didn’t know. He knew the best places to sleep and the flattest plains to run on.
But now, epochs after he had appeared, he was lonely. As he scanned the universe his eyes were always drawn back to the nearest planet to him. He knew it was called “Earth” and he ached to go there and make a friend. He needed a friend. He would go to Earth and try to find one. He had to.
The day before he was due to set off he packed a bag full of rice balls and went to bed at a decent hour. He awoke early the next morning, shook the sleep off, gave himself a quick all over lick, grabbed his provisions and bounded off into the starry emptiness.
He ate through the miles with easy strides. A couple of times he stopped to eat a rice ball or two. As he ran he wondered what it would be like down there. He knew there were creatures there because he had seen them coming up from the Earth to his home. He’d tracked the trajectory of the little rocket as it had trundled towards him. His keen eyes had spotted it as soon as it had popped out of the Earth’s atmosphere and he’d followed it down to the surface. As the two strange shapes had emerged from the vehicle and begun to lope around his home he had longed to approach them but fear had paralysed him and he’d stayed hidden behind a mountain cursing his shyness. The moving shapes had seemed somehow familiar. They resembled him but seemed to somehow be vertical while he felt more horizontal. Those 21 hours were the most exciting of the 4½ billion years he had been up there.
After days of running he was getting close. The Earth was full on the horizon now. Things were getting warmer and he saw a ring of debris wrapped around the planet. Discarded stages of rockets, charred debris and random chunks of metal seemed to make up most of it. As he raced towards it he could see gaps but there were also huge unbroken streams of the stuff orbiting round. It moved fast too. He was just going to have to chance it. Stuttering his stride as he approached. He waited for a gap to appear and rushed into it. Not quick enough! THWACK! A chunk of discarded satellite smashed into his head and knocked him out cold.
The rabbit came to as he was tumbling towards the Earth. The green trees grew closer with every millisecond. Down, down he went. This would be the end now. Nothing could survive a fall like this. Impact any second. The rabbit closed his eyes in resignation. Here it comes. SMASH! CRASH! And then unexpectedly BOING! PING! The rabbit could hardly believe what was happening – branches from hundreds of trees overlapped in criss-cross patterns and as he fell into them they cradled his weight. There was a woody snap here and the ache of straining sap there but soon the rabbit was safe on the forest floor. A little scratched up but all in one piece. Exhaustion and relief flooded his muscles and as much as he wanted to explore he had little choice but to sleep.
CLUNK! CLANG! CLICK! Sounds invaded the rabbit’s peaceful sleep and he opened one eye lazily to peer about him. Fifty machine guns were aimed at him, brandished by scared-looking, green-clad men. They were…TINY! Just like the men the rabbit had seen up on the moon. Up there he’d just assumed they were a special breed made smaller so as to cope with the rigours of space travel but perhaps not? These little people were just the same and the bullets they were raining into him now itched. The rabbit meant no harm. It wasn’t his fault he was so big. All the same, those bullets were starting to hurt so he swatted the nearest few men away as gently as he could and lolloped off into the woods.
He ran and soon left the men far behind but what was the use? The men had machine guns now but soon it would be something bigger. As careful as he was, wherever he ran through the forest he sent tree and branches flying in all directions and this gave his position away. Helicopters were on his tail now. Searchlights criss-crossed the ground around him.
Suddenly through a gap in the trees he saw it. The mountain loomed above the trees. A comforting sight, it reminded him of the moon so he lengthened his leaps towards its direction. As he neared the grey of the mountain he was able to see a large, dark hole in the middle of it. He had no idea where it led but he had no time to care. On a nearby rocky outcrop was a giant motorised rocket launcher pointed threateningly at him. This was no comical machine gun. It looked big enough to tear him apart. It was a straight race. Could the rabbit get in the tunnel before the rocket could fire at him? As his cantilevered legs pounded the moss and soil beneath him he could see the massive launcher making fine adjustments as the operator made sure that his one shot would be true.
Almost there now. The tunnel grew in front of him, dark and welcoming. A Laser sight scarred his fur. He dove… BOOM! A smell of cordite rent the air as the missile flew from its tracks. The ground shook with the huge force.
He must have passed out for a moment but quickly came to in darkness. Disorientated, he sniffed the air in confusion. He could feel stone dust caking his skin. Realising he must have made it into the tunnel he looked back towards where he thought the entrance had been but there was nothing but gloom. The rocket had caused a rock fall that had closed up the way in. Not knowing what else to do he ran, deeper and deeper into the tunnel. Movement was comforting. On and on he ran even as the dark scared him and shards of rock hurt his feet. Then…it couldn’t be, could it? Rubbing his eyes to check they were working OK in the dark. He blinked and refocused but still it was there. A tiny patch of light in the distance now but it got bigger and bigger as he raced towards it.
As he got nearer he slowed and sniffed the fresh air cautiously. As scrupulously as he tried to work out what was out in the light he couldn’t smell anything unnatural. It all seemed safe and he inched out of the tunnel into the sunlight. The sight that greeted him was blissful. Before him lay lush meadows as far as he could see. A brook tinkled away somewhere out of sight. He pushed himself a little further, foot by foot, metre by metre until he was fully in the sunshine and he feel moist grass under his paws.
He started to explore, hopping slowly round the pasture. After a minute or two he bent down and tentatively nibbled some grass. It was pretty good. He’d left his last few rice balls behind when he’d run from the soldiers. He realised he was very hungry and ate with gusto. As he chomped away a little shape darted through his field of vision. Then, a moment later something else popped up in the corner of his eye. Tiny, fast-moving brown blurs. They looked too small to do him harm and anyway the warm sun beating on his neck was making him a bit dozy. He stretched out on the cool grass and closed his eyes.
A while later he woke with a start. Opening his eyes he was surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of little rabbits. Tiny little versions of himself staring curiously and twitching their noses. Amazed, he jumped to his feet and instantaneously the little ones fled, gone in the blink of an eye, protecting themselves in burrows or deep in hedgerows. The rabbit was alone, saddened he hung his head in despair. Animals like him were here and he had scared them off. He wept. His sobs wracked his body but eventually they subsided to a gentle melancholy snorting.
So consumed by his own sadness was he that he didn’t notice the first little rabbit approaching until it squeezed under the knee of one of his front legs. Then another rubbed onto his side, then another on his haunches, then another and another. Eventually the ground around him became covered and the little rabbits had to clamber all over him to find an empty spot, roosting on his back and clinging to his tail. Soon he was covered in a warm, gently moving, lapin blanket. This time he was careful not to move too quickly. This is what he had wanted all those endless solitary millennia – some warmth and love from something like him. He was at a different scale to his new brothers and sisters but they were similar as well. The same but different. Despite their fear they had sensed his loneliness and responded the only way they knew how. This was where he was meant to be now. This was where he was going to stay.
Artist's Comments
I used to live in Japan. The Japanese tradition is that there is a rabbit in the moon rather than a man. This is his story.
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