Lather, Rinse, Repeat

After I was discharged I was sent to a small seaside town in Texas to live out the rest of my days. I was given a house and a pension, generous until one realizes the government tried and failed to kill me. They got everyone else in my unit except Sgt. Panda, who saved our lives by his extreme strength and refusal to give up. We would have been dealt with as well but embedded reporters made heroes of us, another example of how sloppy and arrogant command was. My new neighbors were cautious but soon I wasn't noticed, when everyone found out that I am quiet and keep to myself they forgot about having a scarred up rabbit living in their midst, and probably bragged about it, what with the notoriety and all.

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Billy was watering his pumpkins when the screams across the road attracted his attention. A little boy had waded out into the water while his wheelchair bound grandmother tried to call him back. The other members of the family were a hundred yards away fishing, and there was not much time. Using his tremendous speed the rabbit sprinted across the road to the bay and plunged in after the boy. He cut his feet severely, the bay was all oyster beds and no place to be swimming. He grabbed the kid and brought him back to the woman in the chair, she was sobbing with gratitude and tried to thank him through her tears. He walked, limped, back to the pumpkin patch and found his smokes and lit one up. Soon, he thought, and sure enough the father was walking across the road to him, and he didn't look happy. Billy stood up and waited for it when the father grabbed his 'hand' and began shaking it like it was an old time water pump.
'Thanks so much', he said, 'Thank God you were here'. They talked some and it turned out the father had served on the same front during the war and knew of the Forlorn Hope catastrophe. Billy was embarrassed and asked if the boy was alright. Assured that he was, him and the father exchanged addresses and said their goodbyes. Billy didn't point out that the man would be contacted by the federales and would probably regret meeting him, but it would have been churlish to bring that up. After the grateful, decent guy left Billy went inside the house until the crowd down by the bay dispersed. He didn't feel like answering questions and hoped that the police didn't hear about the incident. He sat in his living room applying Mercurochrome to his slashed feet while Precious and MeeMee demanded to be fed, loudly. Oyster beds are like walking on razors. Then Billy turned on the radio and limped into the kitchen. The station was a local young people's venue, but the only classical music didn't resume playing until after 7, it was an NPR station and they were busy singing the praises of the current administration's handling of the headlong abandonment of the recent war. Billy could only remember his life in the army, the Transition had wiped out his recall of anything before it. He opened a can of tuna for his spoiled kitties and placed two plates of it in front of the greedy little things. He wasn't hungry but coffee was always welcome so he made some and then took it out to the back porch. The pool pump gurgled away and there was a flock of ibises, again, combing through his newly mown lawn searching for supper. He picked up his guitar and tried some basic chords, while his fingers were thick and oddly shaped he had learned to hold a pick with them, it was the chords themselves that were hard to play. After this he had another cigarette and watched the birds at their labors.

...I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.

Billy liked poetry and he always had a quote ready for anything. A shame, he thought, that I have no friends to impress with my wit and memory. He flipped the cigarette butt at the outraged birds and went inside. Evening was falling on the town and the water had gone from bright gunmetal to a deep green. The clouds were an angry red, the sun went down on the inland side of the house and it could be most dramatic as night fell. Precious jumped in his lap and purred with satisfaction and he could hear Meemers clawing open a cabinet so she could sit on the dishes and sulk. Sometimes Billy would pull open the hatchway he had built into the floor and hide until the fear went away but tonight he felt good about helping the boy, although drowning in such a shallow bay showed complete ineptitude and he doubted the kid had a long life in front of him. To say the least Billy had little empathy for those who didn't try, he had seen his friends murdered for simply being who they were and nothing else. He picked the complaining cat up off his lap and went into the kitchen to make some kind of dinner. Searching the cabinet revealed a can of chili and there was crackers to crumble in it. He ate all that cold, the smell of meat being heated made him anxious. Deciding to wash up in the morning, Billy turned on his TV and watched the naked lady channel, he wondered what the sex thing was all about. Looks like fun, he decided, I bet them girls smell nice. After a while he opened a bottle of not too cheap red wine and drank it as the night descended on full force over the village. He fell asleep and dreamed of not being able to tie his shoes as he fumbled during the emergency, and when he awoke his back was stiff and his feet were hurting where they were cut. He got up and went to bed after turning on all the lights in the house and making sure the doors were bolted. When he woke Precious and MeeMee were sleeping on his back and legs and the sun was bright and lovely. Seeing the sun in the morning always meant a lot to him.