Rabbit vs. Snake [jessi]

Nat exited the train and stood blinking on the platform, dazed and disoriented. Her current state of shock lasted for sixteen trains which arrived and left again before she began to move toward the turnstiles that would lead her to the marble staircase, the glass corridor, and the cold January sun. She carried a battered cardboard box in her arms and had a bandage on her hand. The heels of her shoes click-clicked down the cement walkway and reminded her that she was a grown-up with grown-up places to go, and grown-up things to do.

As she walked through the station, she pondered the box in her arms, and the chubby brown rabbit within. Hazel, had he been given his own way, would have been perfectly content to be smuggled onto a train. He would have munched his lettuce at ease, disregarding the swaying and tilting of the InterStar as it wooshed through the countryside at twice the speed of a normal train.

In retrospect Nat could see that she should have paid the extra fair to stow him in the pet compartment. It wasn’t as if the rabbit needed his box to be cuddled on her lap in a crowded car. And, of course, had she followed the InterStar’s posted rules of travel, she would have had a legitimate complaint against the other passenger who had also been unwilling to entrust her non-human companion to a train attendant. It was unlucky that they and their cardboard boxes had found themselves in such close proximity to one another—one chance in thirty to have ended up in the same car, and the odds were much less that they should find themselves in seats facing each other.

Two nervous women, each breaking protocol and liable to be dismissed from the vehicle at the next stop: one was carrying a rabbit in a box, the other possessed a large rat snake—a constrictor that had not feasted on rodent in several days.

It did seem unfair to be the one who was turned off the train, since her animal had not been the aggressor in the incident. But Nat did not have the cash to pay her fine, and she had the additional charge of causing an allergic reaction in the distressed elderly woman who had been seated next to her. Nat thought that the woman’s sudden breathing trouble was perhaps not the result of free-flying pet dander as Hazel the bunny attempted to flee his pursuant. She thought it more likely that it came from the shock of seeing the snake’s blunt nose burst through the weathered corner of its box.

They had been sitting in tense silence, listening to the snake as it roiled and scrambled in the box, smelling the bunny’s smell and becoming increasingly agitated. When it finally made its escape, it had frightened them all. The creature’s owner lunged after it over the fold-down table that separated their seats. Table, snake and owner all collapsed on Nat’s lap, and as they crashed toward her she threw her own box to the side not through any conscious desire to protect the rabbit, but from purely from instinct; she needed her hands free.

The woman caught the snake by its midsection and it writhed in her grip. Nat reached for its head and the frenzied animal struck, catching her hand in the fleshy spot between her thumb and forefinger. From that point it was all over rather quickly. With its head firmly in Nat’s grasp (Nat laughed later when she realized it was she who had been firmly in his) the other woman regained control of her pet as two train attendants converged on the scene. Nat was guided to the First-Aid station three cars down, and the other woman was escorted to the pet-carrier car to deposit her snake in a stronger container.

It wasn’t until the woman was paying her fine that she thought to question what triggered the snake’s unusual behavior. Hazel was no longer in his box, but he left a trail of evidence behind him and the investigating attendant had only to follow his little bunny trail of bunny things in order to find his sanctuary. He was lodged in a men’s size 12 wingtip that had disassociated itself from the side pocket of a duffle bag. Its owner had debarked some time ago, and was at this very moment in his hotel room debating whether to attend his board meeting bare-foot or in sneakers.

Nat was also weighing her options. The cascading tiles on the wall announcing the arriving and departing trains was mesmerizing—changing moment by moment, and delivering new possibilities with each new destination. The train from which Nat had just been dismissed was the last one stopping in Elgin that day, but many more were in proximity to it, and she had only to route herself by train, bus or taxi to reach her destination. Or she could hole up in a hostel by the station, or camp out in the station itself for one night and catch the same line the next afternoon.

It was only a minor holdup—she could proceed forward. But then the thought occurred that perhaps she had been given a sign. Perhaps God in the form of a reptile had arrested her journey in order to give her a change of direction, and perhaps instead of the security of the known, she should throw caution to the wind. Exchange the immovability of the mountains for the changeability of the seaside. Trade the job offer for a transitory existence. Let the apartment be rented out while she occupied a train compartment, or the back bench of a bus. If there were one life form she were certain God would not cloak himself in, it was a snake, and yet…and yet…

The departures board continued its change, flipping tiles to reveal new track numbers, and new ports of call. Nat smiled. Ultimately she didn’t believe in signs, but she did believe in the knot in her stomach when it released and gave her that sense of calm that she hadn’t felt in years.

“Come on, bunny” she said, heading toward the ticket booth. “Let’s visit the sea.”