Bad Hare Day

They called me ‘The Fox’. Like most of the imaginative names behind fables and fairy tales were wont to do in those days.

But we foxes get a bad rep now, don’t we? Skulking round at night. Rifling through bins. Stinking up the place. It seems wildlife illustrators can never get enough of us though. I once saw a woman in the park out walking her dog, then yelling at the poor hound for rolling around in fox shit. After she’d blasted the eardrums of her pet and every other soul trying to soak up the peace and quiet, she reached into her handbag and what did she bring out? A flask with dozens of brightly coloured orange splotches on it. Some sicko had plastered it with an array of decapitated fox heads. It makes you wonder about people, it really does.

But a word of advice from my deathbed – don’t spend too much time worrying about people. There’s no help for a lot of them. We focus on ourselves, ya hear? Pack instinct.

Anyways, back in the day I had great standing in the community. I was known as the one who could get you things. You name it, you got it, if the price was right of course. I had many, what I believe your generation calls ‘side hustles’. Only one time this long-eared individual comes up to me with a different kind of request.

I was just minding my own business. Quite literally. I had a market stall selling poultry and dairy products. Most folk were wise enough not to ask too many questions but if they did they’d get the old: “They’d all fallen off the back of a lorry, guv, honest. That break in at Farmer Carr’s coop, the one where they made off with all the eggs, that was nothing to do at all to do with me, sir!”. This is where you gotta get some practice in, little ‘un. You’re far too quiet. Makes people suspicious, y’know?

So I was winding down for the day, loading up the van, when this self-important hare rocks up. He asks will I be the adjudicator of some ridiculous race. Despite having my hands full, I heard him out and took him up on it. Having carefully considered the case that was presented to me, I deemed it would only serve to improve my reputation further if I played my cards right.

What was the race, you ask? Oh you might have heard of it. It was the one between between a tortoise and a hare.

Haha, the look on your face. Weren’t expecting that from your grandpops, huh? No doubt your marshmallow-headed mother told it to you once or twice when tucking you in at night before going downstairs to soak herself in gin. My son deserves so much better than that, not that he would ever listen to me. But I digress and time is short.

In case you’ve forgotten, I’ll give you a brief recap. This ballsy hare is riffing on this tortoise one day, pointing out how slow he was, as if this scaly motherduffer didn’t know it. The tortoise bores of this roasting after a while and challenges the hare to a race. After the hare is through laughing his tail off, he acquiesced.

So then the story goes, the hare got complacent. That’s a fancy word for saying that he couldn’t be arsed. When he realised he would finish the race before the tortoise even finished emerging from the leaving pen, he decided to go off and stuff himself from some poor sap’s nearby allotment. I know, right? And hares get portrayed as all dignified and noble and great lays, and we get called sly and shot at. It’s tough out there, boy. We take what we can get where we can.

Which is exactly what I did that day. Lean closer now. And push back my fringe would you, it's tickling my eyes.

I saw what direction the hare went, I could guess where he was headed. I also decided I could take my eye off the tortoise because he wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. Besides, loads of people came out to cheer him on. A bunch who were largely half-cut on the cider from Angie’s cider stall because she was never one to let a chance for hawking her wares slip away, and when better than at a sporting event? All eyes were on our old boy, and mine were on the hare.

I followed him. Watched his furry belly bloat on all the vegetables he lifted. Heard all his burps and farts because he thought no-one was in earshot. Then he sat by a tree, slipped into a food coma, and then I ate him.

I’ll just let you digest that a while. Just like old grandpops did! Oh, now see what you’ve done, your face has gone and made me laugh so hard I spat my dentures out. Pass ‘em over please, I want to go out in style. Thank you.

I could’ve had the tortoise too for pudding if it weren’t for all the witnesses. Plus I was rooting for the lad myself after having heard about the merciless ribbing the hare gave him. I pinned the winner’s ribbon on him myself. Well, I say ‘pinned’ but I would’ve had to go to the van and get my drill out if I was gonna actually do that, so we agreed I could wrap it round his neck. Then we posed for pictures while I was still picking bits of fur out of my teeth and licking bloodstains off my chops. Made the front pages.

Thanks for indulging me. I felt the time was right to get that one off my chest. Most people take a different moral from that tale, usually guff about ‘slow and steady wins the race’. Me, I made my own one up going on what really happened. Consider it my parting gift to you.

‘I’d rather a hare out the race than a hair out of place.’