December 16, 2009
Drone Wars: Talking Rabbit
"Bourbon or Scotch?"
"Bourbon!"
"Sometimes I forget I'm talking to a rabbit."
"Hooey."
"No really. I never met a talking rabbit who liked bourbon before."
"Hello," Roman Forester yelled from the front porch. Snow was coming down hard in the Upper Peninsula. He stamped his feet to get the slush off his boots.
Dr. Tulsa Phoenix put the rabbit back in its cage, grabbed the open bottle of Maker's Mark, and ran upstairs to answer the door.
Between nips from the bottle they undressed each other. Her skin was so beautiful Roman Forester was overwhelmed by an idea. There was something he always wanted to, but never had done before. With a swift motion he grabbed the waistband of her underwear and tore them off her. Dr. Tulsa Phoenix's first thought was confused, a little angry even. They were her nicest lace underwear and she had saved them especially for such an occasion. Her dismay didn't last long, however. She quickly realized it was a romantic first for her. No man had ever ripped her underwear off before. Both of them practically busted their sides, they thought it was so funny. Roman Forester wanted to say "We interrupt Drone Wars to bring you this special moment," but he couldn't quite catch his breath.
Emergency alert sirens went off. Drones were coming in again. The young man wanted to get back to his equipment at the refugee camp, but she pointed out that they were both still a little drunk from the night before. "Besides it's too dangerous. There isn't enough time. My neighbor has a bomb shelter." She ran downstairs to grab her rabbit. "It's right over the hill," she yelled up from the basement. "If we're lucky we might just about make it to the farm before they seal the hatch."
Half-hidden faces winced in the dark bunker with every new thump and quake overhead. About thirty people had made their way to the bomb-shelter. A nearby impact, quite a bit louder than the rest, made them all flinch. Roman Forester had his arm around Dr. Tulsa Phoenix who nervously cradled her fluffy white rabbit. He knew the drones were targeting the outer-lying camps because that was where all the Drone War Version XIV points were, but he also knew adolescent and teenage remote-control operators halfway around the world could care less what they blew up. As long as it was in the designated mission grid they got some points.
"Who was it you were talking to in the basement when I came over last night?" he figured she would tell him about a roommate he didn't know she had.
"The rabbit."
"I thought I heard another voice."
She tickled the rabbit under the chin.
"He talks?"
"She sure does, don't you," Dr. Tulsa Phoenix corrected him and set the fur-ball on her lap so it could nibble on the snacks she had cupped in her palm.
Air in the bunker was getting thin. Everyone was breathing heavily and wiped the perspiration from their wet brows. "Damn this old death-trap all to hell," the old farmer stood up and pounded the air vent with his hand to try and get the rusted out fan to start working again, but it was frozen. A whiff of smoke from singed electrical wiring was a sure sign the motor had burned out.
"Last year at this time we were down here for two days before the carpet bombing let up," a middle-aged woman across from them pulled out a songbook to try and raise everyone's spirits. "To pass the time we all sang Christmas carols."
"Last year at this time we all thought if we only embraced Jesus Christ as our savior and lord everything would turn out fine and all the wrongs in the world would miraculously get righted," her husband sardonically cut her off. "And the year before that, and the year before that going all the way back as far as I can remember. Well, where's it got us, mother? Huddled down here while the whole town up above us gets blown to kingdom come!"
"Hard hearted stick-in-the-mud," she gently reprimanded and flipped through her book for the right song. "Don't pay him any mind," she said to everyone else in the shelter. "Hard in the heart and soft in the brain like all those right-winger nuts he's always crooning over."
"You're a fine one to talk," another bearded man accused the farmer's wife.
Sooner or later someone was going to notice Roman Forester was not a local. Tulsa Phoenix would defend him, but he was already self-conscious enough about the fact that were it not for him and all the other folks like him camped out on the outskirts of their town these people -- otherwise forgotten on the northern boarder -- would enjoy a peaceful and placid existence far away from the chaos of the civil war that raged in the rest of the country.
Roman Forester felt so sure the second bearded man was about to turn on him he tried to change the subject back to the talking rabbit. The tension in the fall-out-shelter was unbearable. To the young man it seemed like all hell could break loose with the next impact.
"So," the rabbit asked: "Did you ever hear the one about the comedian Vagina von Lesbian? I'll tell you right up front the guy was a wet rag, down on his luck. He was desperate -- at the end of his rope," the rabbit held one paw over her head, cocked paw and head to the side, and stuck her tongue out to indicate an invisible noose. "Living in a one-room cold-water flat in New York with a view out his only window of an air-duct.'
"One day Ruth Buzzi walks in on his lounge act. After the gig is over Vagina von Lesbian comes over to her table. 'Ms. Buzzi,' he says, 'I'm one of your biggest fans. Do you have any advice for a young aspiring comedian? I'm putting my best material out there but it all flames out like the Hindenburg. No one ever laughs at any of my material. You're the greatest of the great. What do you think I should do?' She narrows her bleary eyes, clearly unhappy with the intrusion. 'Whah? Who the hell are you?' she whines and knocks her drink over reaching for her cigarettes. 'Vagina von Lesbian,' he says with as much pride and self-confidence as he can muster. 'Vagina von who?' Ruth Buzzi practically spits up her olive. 'Are you kidding me with a name like that?' she gags. 'I mean that's awful. Maybe you should start by changing your crummy name.'
"A year later she stumbled into a Vegas lounge. The room is in stitches, the comedian is killing, but the minute he sees her walk in he runs down to greet her. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you,' he says. 'For what?' Ruth Buzzi asks somewhat annoyed. She doesn't recognize him from Adam. 'Last year I was down-and-out and it's all thanks to you my career was resuscitated,' he tells her. 'You saved it when you told me to change my name. And you were right!' She squints up at this lanky character: 'What did you say your new name is?' He stands back for dramatic effect. 'Dick van Dyke,' he says proudly."
No one was conscious enough to get the joke. Far from it, a number of folks clutched their throats and coughed uncontrollably like they were about to throw up.
Not much oxygen was left in the shelter when the firemen finally cracked the metal hatch open with their jaws-of-life contraption. "Bless you baby Jesus," the middle-aged farmer's wife wept at the sight of daylight. The drone raid was over. The bombing had stopped. Everyone, young and old alike, poured out of the bunker and gasped for fresh air. A shaky Roman Forester helped the physician and her talking rabbit up the stairs. Most everyone recovered after a gust of icy cold wind.
Dr. Tulsa Phoenix had her work cut out for her at the hospital tent. Victims of the drone attack numbered in the hundreds.
Back at the VW Van Roman Forester's friend ribbed him about the doctor: "No way that's her real skin," he said. "She bought that skin."
"Not even the Pentagon can make skin that perfect," Roman Forester wistfully brushed the comment aside and got back to work wiring a stack of hardware that he believed could cut down their response time to the Drone War Idol gamers by half -- maybe even give them the edge. He didn't mention anything about a talking rabbit.
--Daniel Mendel-Black, copyright 2009
