A Tragic Road Tale

Rabbit was busy in his garden when he heard a screech of some kind and a thump. Then quiet. “Odd” he thought. “I wonder what that was.” He went back to his garden, but was troubled by the strange noises and decided to go have a look. When he got to the road, he was shocked to see his old friend Armadillo on his back, barely moving his legs. Rabbit rushed up to Armadillo and cried “Armadillo!!! Armadillo? What happened? Are you hurt?” And then he saw the blood leaking out from his friends shell.

“Oh NOOOO! Armadillo, can you hear me? What happened?”  Armadillo whispered “Oh Rabbit. I was just crossing the road when something big and fast swerved to my side and hit me very hard. I think I am broken inside, and I think I am dying. Please get my family?”

Rabbit dragged Armadillo to the grass on the side of the road and ran off to Armadillo’s burrow. “Mrs. Armadillo, come quickly! Armadillo has been hurt. He is very weak.” Mrs. Armadillo heard Rabbit's words and for a moment was confused. Hurt? How? Weak? “Rabbit, are you sure?”

“Yes. He was hit by something big and fast, and now he says he is dying. Please come quickly.” So Mrs. Armadillo called her children and they all ran after Rabbit. When they got to the road, Armadillo was very, very weak, and whispered only “I love you all. Please remember me”, and he died. When the news spread, Armadillo’s friends came from all over to help his family and to grieve with them.

When Rabbit got home that night, his children sat around him and asked “Daddy, why was Armadillo hit by that big and fast moving thing? He was a kind and gentle animal. He was a generous neighbor. We are so sad, and so angry. Why Daddy, why?”  Rabbit thought for a while and finally said “Children, dying is something we all do eventually. We die of old age or sickness or in the maws of a predator. These ways of dying we accept and understand. But Armadillo was murdered by a thoughtless animal who was directing the beast that killed him. There is no way to know why. Animals like these are around all the time, and they kill us for no reason at all. You must always be on the lookout for these animals, called MAN, and avoid them. They have no sense of right and wrong, and are little more than beasts themselves. We will grieve for our good friend and neighbor Armadillo, but we must learn a lesson. If we do that, he will not have died in vain.”

That night, all the children who knew the Armadillo family were told of the terrible animals called MAN, and warned to be wary. But one young rabbit had a different idea. More on that later.

Image: http://www.asergeev.com/pictures/archives/2006/545/jpeg/10.jpg