After three days of filling and re-filling forms, speaking to managers, sub-managers, and associate supervisors, and subjecting Hector to a variety of physical, mental, and seemingly spiritual tests, I decide to give up on the long application process required for admitting the leathery lump to ‘The Rabbit Hole,’ a wildlife sanctuary outside Maine. The office does not seem at all set up to receive visitors and, more than once, it’s suggested that ‘most mammals just wind up here.’ They emphasize words in a way that seems suspicious but isn’t otherwise threatening. They offer me self-guided tours of the grounds and seem baffled or disappointed when I return. The last straw is a man that bursts through the sanctuary-facing door, thickly bearded and dressed in rags.

“I’m back!” he screams, “My god, I’ve finally returned!”

He seems a changed man, his perspective on our mundane world greatly altered by whatever occurred to him inside ‘The Rabbit Hole.’ He laughs gleefully as the manager calls him a ride-share and somehow I get the stink-eye for having arrived with a rabbit and not with a revelation. Hector and I take our business elsewhere and, on the way, we drop the gibbering man downtown.

‘One might assume that a wayward hare, run to ground, would find refuge in ‘The Rabbit Hole.’ Typical of a woodland bureaucracy, ‘The Rabbit Hole’ is a liminal haven, at best, useful only as long as one is content to run in place. Most who take up residence there find nothing special about the forest, only that its benefits stem solely from the respite it provides from the city. ‘The Rabbit Hole’ is a wilderness and, in preserving the ecosystem it is careless with the individual parts. Life is inconvenient, there, meaning most emerge with a new respect for civilization and nearly as many simply die.”

-traveler

‘It’s difficult to say whether the death cult behind ‘The All-Year Christmas Tree Arboretum’ recognizes a certain hypocrisy in their perpetuation of an off-season holiday. It seems likely enough that the angle is toward some mysterious higher purpose, given the unsettling references to the resurrection story embedded in their promotionals and a fervent use of the word ‘evergreen’ in contexts where it only just applies. A failure to see the irony in prolonging something that has already extended its natural lifecycle would represent a severe disconnect between their PR branch and the core beliefs they’ve never quite admitted to (nor ever fully denied).’

The friendliness with which I am greeted at ‘The All-Year Christmas Tree Arboretum’ sets the loudest of my internal alarm bells ringing. Three immaculate men in immaculate uniforms surround the bike before I’ve even reached for the strap at my helmet and for all their timeliness they wait, silently, for me to say something before speaking themselves. The air is dense with the smell of pine, the field beyond the fence a forest in clean lines. Hector sniffs meekly about in his cage and one of the men bends awkwardly to look at him.

“That’s Hector,” I say, “A rabbit.”

The creature’s hairlessness has made the clarification necessary several times now.

“Cute,” the man smiles, “Hello Hector!”

“I was going to walk him out on the curb before…”

“Please, bring him inside!” another of the men says, “Plenty of wild animals roam the arboretum and the small fellow’s droppings are as welcome there as any other!”

“He could stay,” the first man chimes in, sensing somehow that our partnership is temporary, “He would be taken care of, here, and when his long life ends his body will…”

The unspeaking man ends the suggestion by gently placing his hand on the first man’s back.

“Ah, well,” the first man says, “Perhaps a tour?”

Picture a nervous traveler walking a blind rabbit while three clean men patiently follow, each holding an axe that they’ve retrieved from the barn where a dozen more clean, smiling employees knelt as though interrupted in prayer. The men talk in circles around the subject of inevitability and death, each a cheerful vulture in their choice of words.

“It’s an honor to tend to life in the arboretum,” one man begins.

“Even if the fruits of our labor fall to the axe,” another continues, “The evergreen essence returned to dirt.”

“It costs nothing to fell a tree in this place,” another chimes in- or maybe it’s the first, “Nothing to the customer, that is. It costs the plant everything.”

“Nothing to the arboretum as a whole.”

“Nothing to the world.”

“But enough…”

We stop while Hector sniffles about in the grass.

“I believe your little rabbit has chosen,” a man says. All three hold out their axes.

“You saw what I drove in on, right?”

“We’d be happy to take care of the remains if you have no use for it. Firewood for a pyre.”

“A pyre?”

“A bonfire.”

“If you need wood, can’t you chop it down yourself?”

They laugh and hold out their axes. With no little reluctance, I let one of the men hold the end of Hector’s leash while I go about the suddenly distasteful business of chopping down the rabbit’s tree. One man shouts advice and encouragement. The others smile and weep loudly. Amidst the crash of the fall I swear I hear cheering from the direction of the barn, but it’s quiet again in the aftermath.

One of the weeping men silently returns Hector’s lead and the three of them begin to cut the tree into smaller pieces with a zeal that makes me nervous enough to carry the squirming animal out in my arms rather than trust his default meandering. I tell myself, on the drive out, that I’m made no more complicit in their occult dealings through my actions in the arboretum than I am made a sponsor for war in paying taxes, but find the thought falls flat.

I try to forget it altogether.

-traveler

Hector is so still, at times, so unresponsive to the world outside his thick serenity that I wonder if he hasn’t quietly died in the back of the carrier. More than once I have poked and prodded and called out to him through the open bars and he has either been in such a deep sleep or has had enough reason to fake such a state that he only ‘wakes’ upon tumbling out of the tilted box like a medicine ball before chewing at his lettuce in a drowsy stupor. A veterinarian has said the creature is old but reasonably healthy, minus the clear UV-callusing of the body and the probable abuse-callusing of the mind.

Water. Food. Comfortable bedding. These are the things Hector needs in retirement and I fall into the habit of providing them. The animal hardly notices.

‘‘Daylight Savings’ is the company with which the American bourgeois prefers to stockpile its summers. It’s headquartered in central Florida but maintains several regional branches for personal deposits and withdrawals, the density of which increases as one moves toward the U.S./Canada border. These locations are popular with the lower class, as well, who sometimes huddle near the buildings come winter, waiting for a bus or otherwise loitering with the goal of skimming a little warmth from the upper echelons.

This practice is based upon the misconception that ‘Daylight Savings’ still stores significant quantities of daylight in their regional sun safes. In reality, modern fiberoptic networks allow for the vast majority of deposited summer to be transferred immediately to a location that remains undisclosed and is very likely some sunny, offshore haven that caters specifically to shady forms of sun tax evasion.

The many lawyers employed by ‘Daylight Savings’ have stated that the cloak-and-dagger keeping of the nation’s excess summers are to avoid disasters like the botched daylight heist of 1886 that resulted in ‘The Oklahoma Sunspot’ and may have inadvertently triggered the nation’s ‘Big Die-Up.’

‘When all that stands between a few bandits and a scorched-earth disaster is a family-owned business like ‘Daylight Savings,’ they claim, ‘Then America must have faith in those who have invested the most in its daylight and in its security: the wealthy elite.’’

We don’t get very close to ‘The Oklahoma Sunspot’ before I notice Hector’s uncharacteristic agitation. He’s pacing back and forth in the carrier at the rim of the great, black disc and by the time we reach the edge of the scorching-proper he’s begun to chew his way out. Nothing in my research suggested that ‘The Sunspot’ emitted even faint radiation, but the rabbit is familiar with sunlight and wants nothing to do with the charred landscape where there once stood a town.

I drive far enough back that Hector calms and then we hike to a viewpoint just off the highway and up a short hill. From there, I snap a few pictures of the blast zone and spend some time fussing over sketches of the white-warped shadows of old buildings, each pointed away from the old sun bank with the same dire certainty as Hector.

-traveler

Traveling has made me comfortable in most environments, no matter how harsh or unpredictable the terrain, but the local bar is far and away the venue I dread most. I’m not talking about one in a chain of bars, regional, national, or otherwise. I’m not referring to the loud, popular bars downtown or along trendy streets. Not the brew-pubs. Not the clinical dives.

I’m talking about the discreet brown-brick locales with broken neon signs in the windows and two sets of warped plastic lawn furniture on the sidewalk out front where people hover to smoke. The place with a pool table that nobody uses and a single television in the corner, its screen vaguely rainbowed by some unrepaired collision, not muted, exactly, but at a volume that renders the words of sports commentators garbled. The place you step inside and wonder whether or not you need to be a war veteran to order a drink, where, at any given time, the total number of human legs is an odd number or an even number, oddly distributed.

I don’t know how long it takes to become a local at one of these places but my line of work has not yet yielded a residency and, until now, I haven’t yet understood how best to play my suspicious appearing role. It’s in my nature to act like a guest in somebody’s home, to compliment mundane features of the bar or force small talk with people sitting nearby. I inevitably get the feeling they would rather be left alone.

Against all odds, it’s Hector that changes the equation as I step into ‘Bar on 144^th’ and immediately spy ‘The Out of Order Jukebox’ across the room. It’s dead silent in the bar: an early Tuesday evening crowd, the majority of which looks up at me as I enter. Not the atmosphere I hoped for but very much in line with what I expected.

Hector shifts heavily in the kennel and I adjust my arm, roll my shoulder, and step up to the bar. The bartender, a woman in her sixties, scratches the skin above her eye and slides a decrepit plastic drinks menu across the way, asking what I’ll have without giving me time to consider. I order a drink and a basket of fries and a side salad and so little changes that I wonder whether she’s heard me or whether I said anything at all. Eventually, she speaks again:

“Who you got down there?”

“Sorry,” I tell her, “I can sit outside if he’s not allowed. I came in on a bike and…”

“Just curious.”

Fifteen minutes later, the bar denizens have all crowded around Hector who, looking like the wart off an old man’s back, chews at shredded carrots and occasionally hops about on the dirty wooden floor. He’s warmed, some, since the rescue. Seems comfortable in human hands. Petting doesn’t seem to evoke any response in the blind creature, which makes me wonder whether he can feel anything at all along his leathery back. He’s happy for gentle massaging and fresh vegetables and he expresses as much by rubbing his feet together. The small, doting crowd laughs as he hobbles over to nibble at an old man’s shoe laces. They feed him more of the salad, which arrived in record time, while I wait for the fries and fret about the jukebox.

‘One assumes that management keeps ‘The Out of Order Jukebox’ plugged into the wall mainly for aesthetic purposes and, perhaps, out of some respect for the whims of the machine which occasionally plays back-to-back albums for hours on end but is just as likely to dip into a bouts of silence that last days, sometimes weeks, at a time. ‘The Out of Order Jukebox’ responds to no outside input, happily rejecting quarters and disregarding coded requests. The original ‘out of order’ sign has been replaced with one carved from wood so that regulars can wordlessly point out the naivety of the uninitiated, these otherwise stoic locals inwardly grinning at the friendly insult.

Even more sporadic than the music are the flutterings of the machine’s inner catalogue, which have grown dusty in retirement. Hidden there, between the pages, is said to be a handwritten note- a line or two of unrecorded prose. Those who see it, or claim to have seen it, walk away with the mien of a person slightly changed for the better, having been granted a subtle happiness or small piece of wisdom.’

Another bout of laughter erupts from the locals and I turn to see Hector licking curiously at an empty beer bottle. I watch to make sure nobody thinks to get the decrepit rabbit drunk but swing back around when the silent jukebox twitches. Dust floats about inside the glass, surely disturbed by a change in the delicate inner atmosphere. I try to remember what page the catalog had been on when I first looked, try to peer through the curved glass along the sides to decide whether or not I believe there might be as esoteric truth wedged there.

Someone taps on my shoulder and I turn around to find the bartender. She points at the wooden ‘out of order’ sign and the bar erupts in laughter again. I smile in a way that I hope looks resigned to being the butt of the joke.

“Fries are on the table, hon,” the woman says, squeezing my shoulder, and they all go back to patting, feeding, and otherwise entertaining Hector.

I shrug at the jukebox and walk over to my food. I’m not sure what could make me happier.

-traveler