The Rabbits

"Huh, so it is really happening." I sighed as I looked up at the sky. "The sky is actually falling".

All of us in the rabbit community knew that this day would come. Global warming has been an issue since the humans started to siphon the worlds resources. Well, we are way past the point of return nearly 200 "rabbit years" later. Humans are long gone. All that remains is the technology that they put in place to mitigate the harmful effects of the UV rays. We have heard jokes and tales of people mistaking falling objects for the sky falling, but it appears that the human's attempt at rebuilding the ozone has finally collapsed in on itself. I guess we knew it would happen. We knew that the bubble would burst, but no one knew it would be this soon. I stand and watch on the muggy street corner near my childhood rabbit hole as thin slices of some sort of engineered plastic fall from the sky. The sun shines through the holes in the bubble that appear small to the eye but must be half a mile wide. The rays are bright, as if they're being amplified. I squint as I look up to the sky. The UV stings. My fur feels like it could singe under the heat. I have heard stories of how the human before "the bubble" lived. If they wanted to go outside then they had to be fully covered from head to toe with layers of SPF underneath. It is a scary thought. This could have been avoided, but now I stand gathered with a small group of strangers under the falling sky. No one says a word.

Small chunks continue to depart from the sky and we are helpless. Rabbits and bunnies scurry back into their homes and take shelter. Others, like myself, stand in awe. A minuscule piece of shrapnel falls down to my feet. I pick it up to examine it to find that the material is much less durable than I imagined. I snap the flimsy plastic in half with ease and look back up to the sky to see how quickly the damage spreads. The folks around me with mixed reactions. Some complacent like myself, others ensue panic.

This moment feels weird. I do not think that this is the end, however. I think we will just have to go underground and hide for a while. One of the perks about not being a human is that we were able to adapt to the changing climate must faster. We are what is left behind. The human's selfish actions are long forgotten, but we are still here. There is only so much that a band of animals can do to provide any relief for our circumstances. We are merely the victims of the world the humans left behind.

So for now, the group us just sit and play the waiting game.

Authors Note:

Going into this story I knew I wanted to write about The Foolish, Timid Rabbit from the Jataka tales, but I did not know what I could possible write about. I felt sort of inspired by the "what if?" of the sky actually falling. What would cause the sky to actually fall one day? I could not think of what would cause the actual sky to fall, so imagined a Stephen King style "bubble" around the countries that suffer from the harshest UV rays, but I think that one day that bubble would burst. No solution can last forever, right? This story, if extended, would take place in a near-future dystopia where things are entirely different from the world as we know it. The humans are long gone in this world, and the only inhabitants are the animals clever enough to adapt and survive. I think I would have a lot of fun turning this into a short story that explores the fixes and complications that come with trying to save the sky from falling. In the original tale the foolish rabbit himself had woken himself up from a bad dream where he imagined the world breaking up. While in a panic, a monkey dropped a coconut from the tree he was resting under. He ran as fast as he could without investigating the cause of the noise that led him to believe the world was breaking up. As he was running, he collected a band of other animals who believed the rabbit's foolish game of telephone. Finally the news got to the king lion who took the rabbit to investigate the scene where the wise lion discovered that it was merely a coconut that had startled the rabbit, the in fact, the world was not breaking up. I wanted to recreate this story in a way that would speak on global warming and its effects on the animals, and what the humans will have left behind. Of course I am open to any suggestions anyone may have, otherwise, enjoy!

Image information: The Folklore of Rabbits and Hares

The Foolish, Timid Rabbit By Ellen C. Babbitt (Jataka Tales)