Lots of Fhet

Lots of Fhet

“Look,” said Bunneh. He waggled a paw at a shiny, floating thing tied to the branch of a miniature baobab tree. “What’s that?”

Meow scampered up and poked experimentally at the trunk with his forehead. He gave it a periphery sniff. “Adansonia pusilla,” he replied.

“No, not the tree,” corrected Bunneh. “We have trees on the moon. What is the unidentified mysterious animal being held captive by that branch?”

As Meow was wont to do, he scurried up the trunk of the miniature baobab (a majestic climb of three feet) and tip-pawed onto a thin, upsidedown-ish limb. He stood next to the object in question and peered, seemingly unaware of the precarious nature of miniature baobab branches.

“Should I help?” Bunneh eyed the baobab speculatively.

“I think rabbits from the moon are not supposed to climb trees,” said Meow.

Relief flooded Bunneh’s face and his nose stopped its alarmingly rapid twitching. “That is why bunnies need kitties, I think.”

The cat nodded, as though the rabbit’s statement were common knowledge. He inspected the object bopping about in the light breeze. It was very red, and shined like an olive. It was even olivey in shape. “I think it is a FRO,” pronounced Meow.

“A FRO?”

“Flying Red Olive.”

“I’m not sure olives can fly.” Bunneh’s tone was dubious.

“Well, you never know,” Meow replied. “There are many kinds of olives, and I am an expert of olives. Perhaps, if it’s a new kind, they will name it after me.”

“If someone went to the trouble of tying it to a tree,” Bunneh said, “it’s likely that they want to keep it.”

“Nonsense,” scoffed the cat. “All olives are forfeit to Meow, the King of Olives.” To prove his point, the kitty gathered up the string holding the olive in place and tugged the glistening jewel closer. His pink tongue darted out, quick as a whip, to sample his newfound treasure.

“Well?” called up the rabbit. “How does it taste?” Bunneh noticed that Meow had acquired a most curious expression, like someone had squirted lemon juice into his milk.

Smacking his lips and yowling pathetically, the cat looked down at his friend. His eyes were moist with regret. “It’s not an olive at all.”

“What did it taste like?”

“Like the doctor’s office,” answered Meow. “His white hands always taste like that, and it is very unpleasant.”

The rabbit bounced anxiously on his haunches. There were no doctors on the moon, and to Bunneh, the idea of someone sticking yucky-tasting fingers into his mouth sounded dreadful. “I’m not familiar with that taste.”

“Don’t you go to the doctor?” Meow asked.

“No,” Bunneh admitted.

“What do you do when you catch rabbititis?”

“I drink more of the lavender wine,” the floppy-eared bunny said.

“I see.” Meow’s tone was even more dubious than Bunneh’s.

“Well,” continued the rabbit, changing the subject, “what does the doctor’s hand taste like?”

“Chalky and bitter and chewy.”

“Hmm.” The rabbit thought long and hard. Once, when he was a very young kit, Bunneh had accidentally swallowed a pencil eraser, thinking it was one of his special Dreamland Pills. That story did not end happily for the buck, and so he tried his bunniest not to recall the incident very often, but Meow’s description yanked forth the memory. Bunneh crinkled up his nose as he remembered the unpleasant flavor. “That sounds like rubber!” he exclaimed.

“Rubber?” Meow poked the non-olive.

“Careful with the claws!” cried Bunneh. “I believe that to be a balloon, and if you stick it with a pointy thing — like your claw, Meow — it will explode and the world will end.”

Shocked, the cat nimbly hopped down and backed away from the miniature baobab tree. “I had no idea balloons were so dangerous.”

“Yes,” Bunneh proclaimed. “I now remember seeing one once, a long time ago, when I visited Paris.”

“What makes it fly?”

“Happiness,” the rabbit answered sagely. “A French bluebird collects all the little fragments of happiness from around the world, like a silverly snowflake or the smell of green grass, a hug or a kiss, and puts them in a rubber bag. They all mix together, and the more the bluebird adds, the bigger the balloon gets.”

“If it’s filled with happiness, why would it destroy the world?”

“Well, you know what they say.” The bunny hopped laps around the trunk of the tree, restless. “Too much of anything is a bad thing. Plus,” he added gravely, “have you ever laughed so hard that your om-noms come out of your nose?”

Meow’s whiskers stood on end, remembering how unfun that sensation could be. He nodded at Bunneh, suddenly understanding. “The world couldn’t handle all that happiness at once.”

“Right,” hopped on Bunneh. “Sometimes, little happinesses can be better than one big blast of happiness. Still, I wonder why the bluebird would tie it to a tree.”

“I don’t think bluebirds can tie,” said Meow. “At least not the ones I’ve met.”

“Should we let it go? It seems eager to be free, bopping about like that.”

“Leave it to me.” Meow, certain that the world was no longer in grave danger, bravely hurried back up the baobab tree and with one swipe of his claw, severed the cord binding the balloon to the branch. It quickly rose into the crisp spring air, sailing towards the clouds. The cat, proud of his good deed, landed neatly on the ground next to his rabbit companion, who had stopped hopping to wave a paw in farewell to the balloon.

“That was very nicely done, Meow,” said Bunneh.

“Thank you, Bunneh,” said Meow. “Where do you think it will go now?”

“Maybe it will go to the moon,” Bunneh said thoughtfully. “It gets very lonely there, sometimes. I would like very much for there to be a little happiness there.”

“If you stick with me,” said Meow, “you won’t have to be lonely anymore.”

Bunneh was watching the balloon in fascination. “Do you really think so? I used to be very brave, but now I am scared of new places.” His nose twitched nervously.

“Oh yes,” said Meow reassuringly, and bumped his forehead against the rabbit.

This seemed to comfort Bunneh. “Thank you; that made me feel better.”

“I see what you mean,” said Meow. “About small happinesses. I bet the balloon just got a little bigger!”

“Of course it did,” replied Bunneh knowingly. The cat and rabbit began walking down a path lined with yellow tulips, which Meow was informed are not tasty for bunnies, despite what certain gardeners think.

Meow cast one last glance over his feline shoulder, watching as the balloon grew smaller and smaller before his eyes. It was climbing very high, and Meow thought that maybe that balloon might actually make it to the moon. But even if this one didn’t, the cat knew he could help fill up another rubber bag with little happinesses and give that to Bunneh in its place.

They continued walking. “Does this remind you of anything?” asked Meow.

“Now that you mention it,” said the rabbit, “I think I might have seen a film about a red balloon once.”

“Me too, when I was a kitten. I think it was called The Red Balloon.”

“Ah, yes!” Bunneh said, skipping a little. “A delightful French film! I saw it on my last trip to Europe!” He added proudly, “I watched it in the original French, of course.”

Meow’s tail stood at point in the rabbit’s direction, and he quirked a whiskered brow. “Isn’t the movie mostly silent?”

Bunneh stopped and considered this statement for a moment, before resuming his walk down the path. “Well, what I meant to say is that I thought about it in French while watching it.”

“Hmm,” mused the cat. This was a quirky rabbit indeed. He wondered how easy it would be to collect enough little happinesses for Bunneh.

“Shh!” said the bunny. Meow was startled into silence, though he hadn’t really been making much noise other than his soft, steady purr.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“Listen,” said Bunneh.

Off in the distance, in the direction of the miniature baobab tree, a bluebird whistled a little tune.

“A bluebird!” exclaimed Meow. “To deliver more happiness! But I speak Birdish — for I used to trade stocks with a pink, bird-like creature, but that’s a tale for another time — and I couldn’t understand a lick of the tune.”

“That,” said the rabbit, smugly, “is because it is a French bluebird. You need to speak Oiseauais.”

“So what did it say, then?” asked Meow.

“I don’t know, Meow,” Bunneh replied. “But I will pick up a book on the language tomorrow.”

“You have many bits of useful, if random, knowledge.”

“And your brain and prowess helped free the Red Balloon. Now, someone will have some happiness.”

The bunny wiggled his ears at his cat companion. When the floppy things breezed past Meow’s nose, he detected the distinct odor of Deliciousness. It reminded him of happy mornings, full of friends and pancakes and syrup and — most of all — bacon. The cat was very partial to bacon.

“Bunneh,” he said. “I don’t want you to be alarmed — or start drinking the wine — but your ears smell like bacon.”

“Of course,” Bunneh said, nonplussed. He faced Meow and stared at him with his glassy grey eyes. “Rabbits from the moon have bacon ears. Didn’t you know?”

Meow gasped. He had not known, but was very keen to explore this concept. “What is the Rabbit word for the small happinesses we’ve been talking about?”

“Fhet,” said Bunneh.

“Hmm,” said Meow. “Fhet.”

“Fhet.”

And the two animals walked down the flower-lined path, though sometimes there was some mud or bears or Bunneh drank too much wine and lolled about uselessly, or Meow insisted on fiddling with some complicated contraption to see how it worked. Sometimes the rubber bag never seemed quite as full as it could be, or at the worst of times, that even some of the fhets had fallen out. But Bunneh assured Meow that they had a lot of time to put more in (and that Meow should carry the bag because it was heavy and Bunneh was of ‘delicate constitution’), and so they kept walking down the path together, and now and then, when they stopped chattering or playing around, or even arguing, they would hear the same Oiseauais song chirping off in the distance.

This story was originally published in a blog at brianfence.com. Copyright © 2013 Brian Fence. Printed here with permission.