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
