A little bunny once lived in a meadow, among many sheep and cows. He hopped and skipped and nibbled the grass. Oh, how he loved the sunshine! He capered and pranced, gambolled and bounded across the grassy meadow all day long. When humans sometimes passed through the meadow, examining their flocks or hunting the birds, they went right past the little bunny, and never thought to have him for dinner.
This didn’t have so much to do with the kindness of their hearts, as it did with the fact that this little meadow bunny was green, and blended right into the grass. Not even the sheep and the cows knew he was there. He ate the grass, big blades and little blades, and when he pooped, it came out green, and like little blades of grass. The little blades came out as little blades, and even the big blades came out as little blades, and so the grassy meadow remained always as grassy no matter how much the little bunny ate.
He thought about it one day and went to the doctor, and told the doctor that when he ate grass, he pooped grass, but bunnies were supposed to poop pebbles. The doctor pondered over this for a while and said, well, then perhaps he’d be better off eating pebbles! What a very good idea. So the bunny went home and searched high and low, he capered and pranced, gambolled and bounded over all the meadow, but not a single pebble was to be found.
So he packed his bags and began to follow the creek at the end of the meadow. He walked along it, hopeful that he might find small smooth pebbles along the course of the water. The creek grew and grew, until finally he was walking by the banks of a very large river, but not one pebble had poor meadow bunny found. Now nightfall was at hand. The poor bunny decided that if small, smooth pebbles were not to be found, his next best option would be to eat a large rock. He was worried that pooping chunks of rock might be more uncomfortable than pooping blades of grass, but the hungry rabbit did not have many options.
So he ate a large rock, and went to sleep under the open sky. When predators flew over him in the night, they did not dare eat him, because he was green, had an unshapely bulge in his stomach, and was also sleeping under the open sky, which is not usually seen in rabbits. They thought it best not to risk this rather unappetizing entrée.
When meadow bunny woke in the morning and did a poop, behold, out came small, smooth pebbles! He couldn’t believe his luck; for the first time in his life he had done a perfect poop. He rejoiced that he could eat large rocks and poop little pebbles, because all around the water’s edge were nothing but kilometres and kilometres of large rocks, and so he could eat to his heart’s content. So he made a home for himself by the water, to live in when it was night, but when the sun was shining he capered and pranced, gambolled and bounded all over the river bank, eating large rocks and pooping smooth pebbles, till he stopped being green and became quite grey, and the river banks, from source to mouth, became quite densely populated with little pebbles. When all the large rocks were gone, he began to eat the pebbles, wondering if they would come out now as sand, but no, the little pebbles he ate came out still as little pebbles.
And so pebble bunny lived happily ever after.
You will not doubt, surely, that he lived happily, since he became quite a normal rabbit, grey of fur and with pebbles for poop. But if you doubt that he lived ever after, I say to you that he did, and for proof you need look no further than any river you may visit in the world, for pebble bunny has become quite a traveller and has left little pebbles everywhere, for you to see and know that this story is true.
Jaya Berged 