A Handicap of the Devil? (7 page)

Jonathan sat miserably at the kitchen table in the boarding house.

Mrs. O'Reilly was at her self-righteous and indignant best. “Now, do you think I be running this boarding house for your sole benefit alone, Mr. Goodfellow. Is that what you be thinkin’ now?"

"No, Mrs. O'Reilly."

"Do you think you can just be coming in here at any time of the day or night, and there'll be a meal waiting for you, then?"

"Of course not, Mrs. O'Reilly."

"I've had some ungrateful boarders in me time, but you're by far the worst, Jonathan Goodfellow."

She opened the oven and pulled out a black and charcoaled meal of roast meat and limp vegetables. “You can be thinking yourself lucky that I'm a kind and considerate landlady.” She put the plate on the, greasy, stained, plastic table cover. “I kept your dinner hot for you. Sit down and eat. And mind you wash up after yourself. It's way past the hour when I should have knocked off for the day."

"Yes, Mrs. O'Reilly."

"Eat it all up, now. You need your nourishment.” Mrs. O'Reilly shuffled from the room, and as a parting shot, left him with, “Oh, if only the sainted Mr. O'Reilly, rest his soul, could see the way I'm treated by me boarders. He'd have a word or two to say, you mark my words.... And mind you clean up any mess those rabbits of yours have made.” She closed the door, retreating to the bottle of homemade poteen that would keep her company until the wee, small hours.

Jonathan did not feel in the least bit hungry. His head ached from the blow with the five iron, and he was discovering that being dead made you feel slightly nauseous.
Well, coming back from being dead does, anyway.
He looked at the mess on his plate and, for a second or two, thought about dumping the meal in the rubbish bin.
No, I've been caught before, and the consequences of being caught again are too horrendous to contemplate.
He thought briefly about sneaking out the back door and burying the remains of his meal in the compost heap, which he maintained for the soil in the boarding house gardens. No again. His rabbits, Bugs and Thumper, ate bits off the compost and took great delight in exploring it. The plate of food in front of him would poison an elephant.

He morosely dug his fork into the flowery, overdone potato and took the first dry mouthful. Mrs. O'Reilly had certain ideas about food ... and none of them were good. She began cooking the vegetables for the evening meal immediately after breakfast was finished. They were boiled on the stove in a large vat of water into which handfuls of salt were thrown at regular intervals during the day. Mrs. O'Reilly believed that people died from germs in underdone vegetables, and that lashings of salt were essential for the maintenance of the human condition.

"Have you seen the way the horses and the cows gather around the salt licks in the bush? That proves plenty of salt is essential for the welfare of the human body,” she was fond of preaching. Mrs. O'Reilly had never been in the bush, but she had seen the subject depicted and discussed on television. Not that the television program had suggested the salt-human correlation. Mrs. O'Reilly had extrapolated this from the fact that salt was apparently good for animals. Her husband had died of hardening of the arteries, and Mrs. O'Reilly's blood pressure was appallingly high. She did not make the connection, and no one of her acquaintance was brave enough to suggest it. So her boarders, as her late husband before them, suffered an excess of highly salted, overcooked food. She kept an eagle eye on them all while they ate, and on the contents of the rubbish bin—if she couldn't watch them masticate.

While Jonathan sat at the table and ate slowly, he thought about the events he had just undergone.
What was it all about? There was the dwarf, Cowley, Sampson and Old Crone. Who are they? Where did they come from and more importantly, where did they go? Why did the dwarf hit me on the head?
He assumed it was the dwarf, because he was the only one behind Jonathan just before everything went black ... and he was holding a five iron.
Did I see God or was it a sort of nightmare? Is Saint Peter a perfectionist housekeeper? Or was it all a dream? Am I supposed to become the Messiah? Was the charge to save mankind from itself real—or was it hallucination? I guess I need a sign to tell me what's what
.

As if on cue, Bugs and Thumper, Jonathan's two female, albino, Netherland-Dwarf rabbits hopped around the door. They were beautiful little bunnies who had slightly different markings, despite having been born in the same litter. Thumper had a black nose where Bugs did not, and Thumper's tail was grey where Bug's was white. Bugs was bigger than Thumper, who was the runt of the litter. Thumper made up for her lack of size by being the brainier of the two rabbits.

Jonathan had bought his bunnies from a back-yard breeder two years before. His rabbits were the two beings that he related to best in the world. In many ways he preferred animals to people. They were more stable, more predictable and much less emotional.

Bugs and Thumper stood in the doorway looking quizzically at Jonathan. Bugs hopped a hop closer. “You got hit on the head."

"Does it still hurt?” Thumper was sympathetic.

Jonathan sat bolt upright in his chair. “You can talk?"

Bugs eyed Jonathan with the kind of look only a dwarf rabbit can give. On the one hand, it looks vacant—and on the other—infinitely superior. “God told us we could talk to you for awhile. He said to tell you to stay cool and to carry on with what you're doing. Whatever that means."

Bugs and Thumper were not only albino Netherland-Dwarf rabbits—they were also highly pedigreed. It was a wonder they'd lowered themselves to talk to a bitser like Jonathan.

"You can talk to God?"

"He does most of the talking.” Thumper squatted on her haunches. She looked extremely smug and self-important. “You have to ask us when you want to talk to Him."

Jonathan was a little peeved that God would talk to the bunnies, but wouldn't speak with his messiah. “Why?"

The bunny ignored the question. “He said you're to start gathering disciples.... What's a disciple? Is it anything like endive? I like endive."

"It's nothing like endive.” Jonathan smiled at the smaller rabbit. “Have you two been fed yet?"

"No.” Both rabbits looked accusingly at Jonathan.

"I'm sorry. I thought Mrs. O'Reilly would have done it. I was late home because I got hit on the head by a dwarf and temporarily died and went to heaven, and God said he wanted me to be the next Messiah, and...."

Bugs interrupted him. “Don't forget the carrots and the pellets with the endive."

Jonathan was hurt. “Have you two ever missed a meal?"

"No, and we're making sure we don't.” Thumper hopped towards him and sniffed his shoes. Both rabbits loved the smell of shoes or bare feet.

"So I can only talk to God through you two? I don't understand. Why do I need an intermediary? And if I do, why did he pick rabbits?"

Bug's pink eyes glowed at him from where she sat near the door. “Because Netherland-Dwarf bunnies are the highest form of life."

Thumper looked up from her sniffing. “Our mother told us that. We're purebreds—not like you."

"Well, yes. I suppose you are."

"No
suppose
about it.” Bugs was slightly overdoing her haughty look.

"We were stolen,” said Thumper dramatically.

"Stolen?"

"Our mother told us that the man who sold us to you stole us. Our father and mother used to go in shows and win prizes and everything. If we'd stayed where we were born, we'd have gone in shows as well.” Thumper had finished her sniffing and now sat near Jonathan's feet.

"The man who stole us came over the fence one night. He opened up the cage we were in and stole our mother, our father and us. We were only two weeks old.” Bugs was staring intently, searching for Jonathan's reaction.

Thumper looked up at Jonathan. “We haven't got our papers. That's why we can't prove who we are or go in shows or anything."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know any of this. He seemed like such a nice man."

"He was a dill. Our mother and father were getting the wrong food. They're probably dead by now.” Bugs’ indignation was evident in her voice.

Thumper was slightly conciliatory. “That's one of the reasons we like you. You give us our proper dinner."

"We like you now, but we didn't always like you. We were only six weeks old when you took us away. We loved our mother.” Bugs was still indignant.

"We nearly died of grief.” Thumper had a catch in her voice.

Jonathan was wracked by guilt. “I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm so sorry."

"It's alright now. Maybe it could have been worse. You look after us real good.” Thumper's soft eyes were full of forgiveness.

Bugs was somewhat less kind to Jonathan's feelings. “God told us that we would inherit the Earth if people didn't improve."

"When did you talk to God?"

It had happened on a Tuesday morning. The air was fresh and invigorating. The bunnies had been mooching around the backyard eating tidbits of grass and weeds. They had stopped feasting to play one of their survival games. This was the one where they tore around the backyard at full pace and then came to a dead stop. They then leapt high in the air from a standing start and turned 180 or 360 degrees before racing off again. Both bunnies had just leapt into the air in joy and clicked their heels on the side—they did this when they felt particularly happy—when all of a sudden a bright light appeared in a corner by the fence.

Bugs and Thumper stopped dead. Anything new was treated with deep suspicion until it proved benign. They looked at the light with their noses twitching. No smell came from that direction. That was a good sign, but didn't make it safe. Both were about to hop away, when a face appeared in the light. The face had an amused expression on it. A hand appeared and a finger beckoned to them to come.

They stood still for a moment, looking at the light, the face and the finger. Rabbits are curious—but cautious—beings. Then they heard strains of the most beautiful music they had ever heard. Both rabbits were classical music buffs. Whenever Jonathan played one of his “Great Arias” recordings on the CD player, they would both sit—listening in rapture—eyes closed and paws folded beneath them.

They cautiously moved towards the man, the light and the music.

He smiled more broadly and spoke in that irritating voice people sometime use to children and pets. It was high pitched and sounded as though he thought they were idiots. “Come on.... That's good girls. I've got some nice din-dins for both of you.... Come on."

Bugs and Thumper went because they wanted to find out where such beautiful music came from—and because of the mention of ‘nice dinner'—not because of the insipid voice the man put on. They moved into the arc of the light, and suddenly they were somewhere else.

The backyard disappeared. The grass, trees and shrubs they knew so well were gone. So was the house and everything familiar to them. The bunnies had only been outside their house twice since they were six weeks old, and that was to go to the vet.

The bunnies were in a strangely shaped room with no glass in the windows. The ceiling was thatched with what looked like straw or hay. Even in her fear and uncertainty, Thumper wondered if she could eat it.

The man, who was standing in the centre of the room, was trying to be kind. “It's alright, my little friends, you don't have to worry."

For the first time the rabbits could understand what someone said to them. Apart from picking phrases like ‘dinner', ‘good girls', ‘outside’ and their names—phrases they heard over and over, they had been unable to work out what anyone was saying to them. They usually judged what was being said by the tone of voice in which it was delivered. They both wondered how this newfound ability had come to them.

Bugs was hiding her face behind Thumper, burrowing deep into her fur in fright.

Thumper wasn't quite so frightened. She looked curiously at the man who had spoken and who had beckoned to them in the bright light in the backyard. The man was average height and build. He wore a neat blue suit with a grey tie. His hair was cut short and he had the look of having just stepped out of the barbershop. His shoes were highly polished. He was clicking his fingers and trying to get the rabbits to come to him. Fat chance!

A larger man wearing a caftan, beads and sandals—sporting waist length hair and a beard—swept into the room. “Hey, hey, so here you are little dudes.” He sat on the floor and indicated for St. Peter to sit too. God raised his eyebrows as Peter sat in a chair—after dusting it.

"Hey, come over here and talk to us. No one's going to hurt you. It's cool."

Bugs and Thumper thought the temperature was fine. They had never trusted anyone before, but a lovely feeling of peace and serenity emanated from this Being. The beautiful music started again as the bunnies moved slowly and cautiously over and sat at God's feet. They both sniffed them as a matter of course.

God laughed. “Hey, that really tickles. Peter, make a note that we need a couple of rabbits as house pets."

Peter made no such note. He didn't want pets of any sort messing up his environment. “If you two girls ... you know ... need to go ... you tell me, and I'll let you out, okay. Just don't do your business in here."

God sighed. “One of these days, you're going to lighten up, Peter. Let's get down to it.” He looked down at the bunnies at his feet. “I need your help, dig."

"You need our help to dig?” Thumper brightened. This was something she and Bugs knew all about.

Bugs looked around, but the floor was carpeted. “Where can we dig?"

Peter chuckled, “Um, God's being a little unclear. When he says ‘dig’ he doesn't mean ‘dig’ in the sense that you understand it."

Bugs was an extremely puzzled rabbit. “We dig with our paws.... How else can you dig?"

God held up his hand to stop the chatter. “When I say ‘dig', I mean ‘understand'. Understand?"

"Why don't you say ‘understand'?” Bugs was an arch-pragmatist in a species that was already very pragmatic.