PHOTO: U.S. Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, Creative Commons license
Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range blogger, author, radio producer and columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.
Morning light washes over a pastoral meadow view, bespeckled with budding flowers and flickering sun-touched dew drops. A small grey rabbit tentatively hops into view, sniffing her way toward a long, narrow clearing. She labors to lift a ball peen hammer over her tiny, furry head to pound two heavy iron stakes into the soft, damp ground. She stretches an industrial rubber band between the stakes, then pauses to remove a watch from somewhere on her person (a pocket?), look up at the sun, before returning her red eyes to the gold face of the ticking clock.
Quite gradually, a hissing sound is heard miles to the east, as though from the sun itself. In a few seconds the hissing becomes a mild shriek, like that of an exotic bird, before becoming the sort of droning tone that accompanies a fast-moving object scorching through wet air by powers unknown to man. The trees gyrate, causing moisture to spray down like rain. The rabbit unfurls then dons a tiny, adorable poncho she brought for this very reason.
“Heeeeeeeeeeeeeee Wooooooooooooo Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” the sound somehow intensifies before a white flash of light parts the trees on distant horizon, bearing down hard on the meadow. The rabbit does not move, but strikes a flare which she holds above the rubber band. In an instant, the white phantom is upon her, catching on the rubber band and extending it nearly to the babbling brook on the far side of the dale.
For the blink of an eye, we see a dirty white rabbit knowingly contort itself in preparation for the contraction of the rubber band.
Ptwang! The rubber band has returned to its resting position, spitting the white rabbit out onto a downy soft bed of dandelions.
“Running late this year,” says the grey rabbit.
“Records are a mess,” says the white. “Used to be you just hit every house in Bavaria. Now everyone’s got different religions.”
“Got some bad news,” she replies.
“What?” he says. He is the Easter Bunny, highest ranking rodent on earth: trusted servant of a mysterious confederation of Christian denominations and jelly bean-devoted first world agnostics.
“Look over there,” she said, pointing her paw toward a green shipping container loaded with plastic Easter eggs.
“What is that? I delivered everything. Why is that there?”
“The real question is what did you deliver? Because I got up this morning and this was sitting out back. You left the coffee maker on, too. I swear, you’re going to start a fire one of these days.”
“That’s impossible,” he says, ignoring the jab. “I took the yellow shipping container across the Americas, the red shipping container to Europe and Africa and the blue shipping container to Asia and Australia.”
“You were supposed to take the green container to the Americas, not yellow!”
“What was in the yellow container?” he asks, his voice becoming concerned.
Her face is in her paw now. She brushes her grey fur away from her eyes before speaking.
“Drugs,” she says. “Prescription drugs from Canada that you were going to distribute for an HMO.”
“You are chocolate egging me,” he yells. “YOU ARE CHOCOLATE EGGING ME! When did I agree to THAT?”
“I was going to tell you later. We need a new water heater in the warren. I thought you could make a quick run tomorrow to make some scratch. The real question is how did you not notice that you were delivering plastic bottles of heart pills to millions of little children?”
“I was in the zone! What, you think I have time to think about what goes where? Why do you think Easter baskets are so weird and differ so greatly from house to house? Some people get toys. Some people get chocolate. Heck, I’m lucky if I don’t screw up the peanut allergies, and boy howdy is that a bucket of cotton tails.”
“You’ve got to go back. We can’t let the children have Cialis. It will be so confusing to them.”
“The sun’s up!”
“Yes, but if you hurry … you can swap them out. I’m sure they didn’t eat all the pills yet.”
The Easter Bunny sighs. “I just hope parents checked the baskets. All parents have to taste the candy themselves before they give it to the children. It’s for everyone’s good.”
“I know, dear. I know.”
Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. He writes the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and hosts the Great Northern Radio Show on Northern Community Radio. This piece first appeared in the Sunday, April 20, 2014 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.
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