THE MIDWIFE

A little tale of inter-species understanding

There was a murmuring in the Greenwood. Not the sort that sounded as if someone might be coming with a cart laden with goodies for Squidgey’s growing family living in the oldest warren known to rabbit or beast, to subsist on when the grasses and leaves had all withered, but one that hinted of danger.

It was one of those blasted two-legged upright creatures, the sort that clad themselves in all manner of colourful fabrics so you could never be sure which one came this way last week or if this was someone new. And anyway, whether you knew or didn’t know it didn’t matter because they were no good. Not to rabbit kind, not to rabbit friends like squirrels and not even to themselves.

Squidgey dared to peer out of the warren entrance, and it was daring because those bipedal monstrosities more often than not were armed to their shiny white teeth with things that exploded and sent a scattering of lead every which way, and any rabbit that chanced to be in the way had died and been carried off, furry bodies hanging limp by his side as the arrogant creature made his way through the Greenwood.

Not just furry bodies, though, one of them had been Petal only a moon or two ago, and Petal had been the mother of his kittens as well as the holder of his heart. And her body, flaccid and dead, had been swinging from the monster’s waist as he had arrogantly walked back to wherever it was he hailed from. Squidgey had even wished it was he himself who was dead, and that was quite extreme.

And now another one was coming. Or the same one. Who could tell, the way they disguised their ugliness with bright colours and hummed unmelodic nonsense?

“If I had the size and the strength he wouldn’t get far,” muttered Squidgey to himself.

He was about to make more promised threats to himself, what he’d do if one of the bipedal monsters came his way and for some reason was weakened, maybe because it was foolish enough to try eating the toxic fungus that grew in patches in the Greenwood. A belly filled with that stuff would soon bring him down, would readjust the balance between bipedal monster and rabbit. Might even tip it in his favour so that he could avenge the death of pretty Petal.

Not, he thought, that it is in the soul of rabbit-kind to torture any living thing, not even the rat that burrows so close to the old warren…

Then the air was split by the hideous sound of groaning. He poked his head as far as he dared in order to see, and there was one of the giants, but wait, this one exuded an aroma that spoke of female, like a doe in his warren when she was birthing her new kittens. He looked again, and the creature that smelled of females was half way to the hard earth, her whole body bending so that it looked like she had four sensible legs rather than just the two, and she was screaming out. Horrible to listen to, discordant, filled with an agony he would never be able to interpret, not even if he lived to be a hundred turnings of the seasons.

“What is it?” came a whispering just behind him. He knew the voice all right, it was Flower, the doe he had lain with so many times he had begun to believe she was an angel. A furry angel from beyond the land of light where the ancestors, the billions of them, romped in harmony among a multitude of green turves of sweet grass. And leaves. They could feast on sweet fresh dandelion leaves throughout eternity, and never run out.

“A creature,” he replied, “in pain.”

Flower pushed her twitching nose past him, and saw somethong that touched her heart.

“She is to produce her kittens,” she said, “and because she is so huge her kittens will be equally huge and difficult to birth.”

They both watched as the human woman finally lay on her back, her knees raised, and wept. The very sound she made was enough to make Flower weep.

“She needs help,” she whispered, “she is a femme and she can’t cope on her own. You must go to her assistance, Squidgey, and see what you can do, and I will help you.”

“But we will be taken by the creature, there will be the loud explosion and we will be dead,” objected Squidgey, “then who will help her?”

“Don’t be silly! See, she is alone and lying on the solid earth and about to die!” protested Flower, “if you are not prepared to help a creature on this world who is in distress, then more shame on you! But I will go.”

Then Squidgey watched as she made her nose-twitching way to the woman screaming on the hard earth. Something in him made him hang back, but he had seen Petal, dead, hanging from a human’s waist, and he had loved Petal and in a way still did. It was as if Flower was a reincarnation of that precious doe.

He watched as Flower approached the head of the screaming creature and heard her gentle voice offering to help.

Then, as he watched, it seemed that there was some connection between the two, the woman on the ground in the pangs of childbirth and the doe who had herself only recently produced a family of kittens. There seemed to be an understanding, and the human reached out and with a wonderful gentility touched his Flower on the head.

He heard her speech, though he didn’t understand it and to him it was like a crude purring, but she uttered “you understand, sweet rabbit?”

And he heard Flower’s reply, “it is the way of nature, human girl, you will push your kitten out and all will be well, and I will chew through the cord for you, and you will nurture your little one…”

“You are so sweet,” rumbled the girl, “and I think I love you…”

Then there was a titanic battle, one that made Squidgey shudder, shake and fear for the life of his Flower, but she did nothing but nosed up to the human and then up her loose skirt, and all the time whisper in her own Leporine tongue words or merely sounds of encouragement.

Then the air was split with a new sound. He new what it was. The woman had produced a kitten and it was using a cry common to all life-kind to attract its mother to where it way.

And he watched as Flower did the impossible. She found the cord that attached the mother to her infant, and chewed through it with her sharp teeth while the mother gathered her squawking child to her breast.

Then, after assuring herself that all was well for the mother and child, Flower returned to Squidgey.

“What was that last thing you did?” he asked.

“With these humans there seems to be a great deal of waste matter, and I dragged hers to the far side out our pathway so that Old Foxy will find it. He will like that, it will be a fine repast for him, and he will leave us alone whilst he chews it all up!”

“You know so much,” he murmured admiringly.

“We females all know,” she replied, “look: the bipedal creature is moving off, out of the Greenwood, but first we must bid her farewell.”

And she led Squidgey to the human woman and her baby, and although there was no language other than that of instinct that was common to them, she understood.

“I will tell my man,” she said to Flower, “that if he in any way harms any rabbit in this part of the forest then I won’t be answerable for my actions. And I will bring my child to meet you when she’s big enough, and teach her to respect you and yours.”

And Flower replied quite simply, “so be it, and be well.”

For she, with the wisdom of the wild, knew that whatever the human girl said, she might mean it for the moment, but others, the males, wouldn’t care less. They’d be back when it suited them, with their loud explosions and death.

© Peter Rogerson 01.09.23

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