Author Information
A Tale of Hope
Daniela Valdes
Jose Javier Sanchez
It had been a day already. A day since the little rabbit woke up after a terrible sound and found that everything was gone, that everyone was gone. A day since he last ate. A day since he last felt the warmth of the sun.
Two days passed. He still couldn’t find any kind of food or any signs of life and he had to make a decision: stay where he was and hope to find something to eat or leave his small village for the first time in his life. Terror, loneliness and hunger pushed him towards the second choice and, for the first time in his life, the rabbit stepped over the limits of his home. He didn’t know where to go, but he supposed it didn’t matter, everywhere he looked seemed as lonely and deserted as his village, and he didn’t plan on coming back anytime soon so it wasn’t as if he could get lost.
About a week had passed and the rabbit was ready to give up on ever finding someone else, he barely had enough to eat, sometimes finding plants that had survived what happened, most of the time living off dry grass. He suddenly felt like something was watching him and the hope that flared inside him was enough to overcome any warning sign that he should have noticed, so it was too late when he realized that the thing rushing towards him was not friendly at all.
“Wait!” he screamed when the fox was close enough that the rabbit could see his teeth glinting in the dim light of what was left of the sun, “I know you’re probably hungry, but can’t you see we’re the only ones left?”
The fox paused, but the words didn’t seem to make much sense to him. Of course they don’t make sense, though the rabbit, why would a fox understand what a rabbit says?
He tried again, “No one should be alone in these dark times,” he wanted to run, but the thought of company was too appealing, never mind that the company could eat him.
The fox backed off, he looked like he was trying to say something, but the rabbit had no idea what it was. He slowly moved closer to the fox until they were close enough to touch, “You should come with me.”
It took weeks of slow communication and trying to guess each other until they were finally able to understand each other and as the rabbit watched the fox make a face after eating some dry grass he thought that maybe the world wasn’t as dark after all.
