Friday, May 01, 2020

2. The Wabbit and the Flooded Landing

The Wabbit thought no further about the figure and the red bag. But sometime later when he hopped onto a landing in Venice, there was the bag again. Water lapped around his feet and soaked the bottom of the bag and he felt impelled to rescue it. He knew it was the same bag as he'd seen on the canal - because the Wabbit liked bags and recognised all the scuffs and tears. In the Wabbit's opinion, all bags had a different personality bestowed on it by its owner and its contents. He hopped across and prodded it gently with a single foot but that told him little. All the same, he felt reluctant to open it. He gazed at it for a while until a voice came into his head and whispered in a seductive fashion. "Open the bag, you know you want to." The Wabbit replied to himself. "It's not my bag." The voice in his head spoke again. "You might find out who owns it and then you can return it." The Wabbit nodded and examined the bag closely. It had any number of zips and any number of pockets where he might find an ID. So he picked a zip and poked out a paw to grasp the pull tab, but water lapped around the bag and moved it some distance away. He followed it. The same happened again. He stopped because he heard that voice again. This time he turned fast, just in time to catch sight of a figure that quickly vanished to nothing. He wheeled back but the bag was no longer there. Now he was completely alone with only the lapping of waves to keep him company. "My paws are wet," he grumbled ...