The Holly War

 It was with every intention of malice that Holly, Chigusa’s Holland Lop bunny, bit my ankle and wouldn’t let go. I told her as much, but that girlfriend of mine defended the dwarf rabbit and accused me of delusions and oversensitivity. “How can,” she began, “such a cute creature like Holly have that kind of thoughts? Look at her!”

I looked at the big floppy ears, large eyes and button nose.

“Even Satan was once considered devilishly handsome,” I reminded Chigusa and made an effort to look in pain.

 “Oh, stop it. It was an accident, right, Holly-wooly?” she asked the infernal creature while snuggling its soft chest. “You didn’t mean it, right, honey?”

I swear, if that rabbit could talk, it would purr and coo in triumph at my disgusted look. Who knew that a harmless Valentine’s Day present a year ago would turn into a monstrosity and a third-person (er, animal, sentient being, or whatever suits your fancy) in our relationship? I wouldn’t be so petty to list all bodily harms Holly had inflicted upon my person, but to ignore the mental injuries that were causing strains in my love life was just foolish.

No, I wasn’t jealous of a rabbit. No, really.

It didn’t matter that Chigusa’s priority now looked like this:

HOLLY >>>>>> me

No, it really didn’t matter. Okay, a bit. Just a teensy bit. It irked me to know that a pet bunny had successfully usurped my throne in her heart. Holly pwned me by a degree and just because I was Chigusa’s steady for three years didn’t mean that she could relegate me to the backseat and expect me to be fine with it. I wouldn’t go as far as to make a YouTube video and threaten the blasted animal on camera, but I was this close to ordering a rabbit meat dish on our last anniversary dinner. Just a hint, baby.

(Although I had a feeling that if I had gone and done it, there wouldn’t be another anniversary dinner and hello again single life.)

“Here,” Chigusa said, placing the bundle of horror on my lap. “Take care of her for a bit. Play with her. Get to know each other.”

“I don’t want to,” I said. “Where are you going?”

“I’m running out of paper towels, just going to Seven Eleven.” She put on her slippers and reached out for the house keys.

“I’ll go!”

“Stay.”

I made an “Urk” sound — which I think what some dogs let out whenever their owners issue the order in a certain terse tone. It is a reluctant grunt coupled with a healthy dose of self-preservation. We ain’t happy, but we ain’t suicidal either, to put it in other words.

The front door clicked to a close and my fate was sealed. The trip to Seven Eleven usually took five to ten minutes depending on Chigusa’s mood of the day. She might feel like stopping by to chat with the kopitiam denizens — which could add another three minutes because she had to dodge the ‘Why aren’t you married already?’ question from at least four different aunties.

What was I going to do with thirteen minutes of bunny hell?

Holly solved that particular quandary for me. She stared at me, unblinking, as if she was trying to hypnotize this adult human. I had no choice but to retaliate. In my job interviews, I had always listed not backing out of challenges as my greatest strength. It was in all honesty the truth. So I stared back at her. Unblinking.

Holy shit, how my eyes watered after a minute and a half.

“Bugger off,” I told Holly. “I need to get a tissue.”

She continued staring. Her eyes seemed to mock my weak resolve. Is that all, human? Is that all you’ve got?

I made the shooing sounds and gestures, but she didn’t budge. She stared.

“Okay, you creep. I’m not touching you, so don’t blame me when you fall down.”

I stood up and waited for her to drop to the floor. But no — Holly was made of sturdier stuff than that. I looked down and found her doggedly clinging to my jeans, with her claws embedded on the fabric. Her wild eyes continued to bore into mine and I let out a small, girly shriek.

A Holland Lop bunny could be considered one of the smallest house bunny breeds. By right, this creature clutching my trousers and mere millimeters away from breaking the skin of my thighs should not weigh more than 2-3 kilos. But Holly had to be different from any other bunnies. She was a whopping 4.2 kg, a veritable soccer ball made of fur. I often thought it was animal cruelty the way Chigusa kept her well-fed. Now I realized it was a hazard potential for the humans as well.

So this dumbbell was hanging off the fabric of my jeans, refusing to let go of its claws. Her nose twitched, her eyes shining, and I couldn’t help noticing the proximity of her teeth to my nether region. “Don’t get ideas,” I hissed, bending forward from the sheer weight.

It was impossible for me to take a step, let alone walking to the kitchen to get some tissue. I considered removing Holly forcefully from her deathly hold of my jeans, but I really didn’t want to touch her. If there’s such a thing as bird flu, why can’t there be rabbit flu? I don’t mind animals in general — I just don’t pat them or pretend I want to be their friends.

The irony was that I had been the one who brought Holly into our lives to Chigusa’s delight and my (subsequent) chagrin. A year ago, our relationship had been undergoing some rough patches because she’d felt I had not been ready for further commitment. To show her that heck yes, I was serious, I’d bought the bunny. At first it had seemed so innocent, so harmless. It was just a rabbit. When I’d told her we would raise the baby bunny together, Chigusa had cried and hugged me. Score.

Then things changed. She’d started spending more time with the bunny and whenever we talked, most of the time it would be about the animal. Not cool. I had never imagined that buying that animal would come with hearing my girlfriend talk about poop size and frequency, spaying and neutering, and bunnies’ play dates. I did not want to know about anybody’s defecation or castration, and the only play dates I was interested in were mine.

If I were to be blunt, Holly’s presence hindered our romance. Chigusa had to cancel several of our Friday night outs because Holly had constipation and there was no one to take care of her. And for once, ever since we’d started dating, I got no handmade cake on my birthday because Holly had diarrhea. That was the last straw. Never, ever in the years of our relationship had I not received Chigusa’s lovingly made birthday cake. I had been quite livid and from then on, it was Holly vs. I, vying for Chigusa’s attention and affection.

So, stuck in this current mano-a-mano situation, I distributed the blames equally between the rabbit and myself. I got half of the blame because my stupid decision to buy the bunny allowed the holy terror to infiltrate Chigusa’s heart. Then the bunny got the rest because its existence was evil incarnate.

Proof: it had not let go of my trousers.

Proof: it was still staring at me with those beady eyes.

Proof: it was getting heavier by the minute.

Proof: it just peed down my pants.

As the warm trickle seeped into my best pair of jeans and dripped onto my rare edition Nike sneakers, I felt the loathing inside me grew into gargantuan proportion. That’s it, I thought, my brain furiously churning out plausible kidnapping scenarios where I played the honorably beaten hero, Holly the victim and some poor dude the imaginary villain. When I arrived at a particularly nasty one involving the milk jug, trash chute and rainbow-colored-socks-wearing criminal, the beast suddenly let go.

She plopped down on the floor with a soft thud and stayed still for a while. I began to think of checking for an injury or a pulse, but she shivered a little and looked up. Those eyes squinted at my reaching hand and I drew back. “What?” I said.

The bunny stared. The bunny wobbled, leaving a trail of pee on the floor, and landed on my sneakers. She was still staring. I followed her movement with a sense of dread and waited for the worst to come. The bunny shivered again, and without further warning, baptized my sneakers with what was left in her bladder.

I screamed. I wailed. I moaned. I sobbed like a little girl and probably horrified the elderly Indian couple next door with my high-pitched grief.

“We toilet-trained you!” I cried, pointing a finger at the unused litter box at the corner.

Of course the odious creature had the gall to look cute and innocent as if she was justifying her action. She wiggled her nose and stared. The strangest thing was she had no anxiety issues being faced with a very angry human who was making horrible noises. Holly was the picture of calm and decorum as I raged on telling her in human words how nasty, how filthy, how mean her action had been.

“Do you have any idea how much I paid for those shoes? Huh, do you?”

She wiggled some more and stayed perched on my formerly precious footwear, basking in evil deeds done.

I made all sorts of obscene gestures, rooted on the same spot, unable to move because the obese bunny had decided she was making my feet her new home. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of winning, so with some difficulty I pulled my feet one by one from underneath her furry belly and rushed to the bathroom.

I pulled my jeans, socks and sneakers off, and rinse everything with hot water. There I stayed, draining Chigusa’s supply of soap and scrubs to wash the stench out of my articles. When my girlfriend finally returned home, I was still trapped inside the shower, lamenting the loss of few hundred dollars worth of status symbols.

“Sweetie,” she later said after I had calmed down enough, “you’re such a drama queen.”

My affronted look went unnoticed as Chigusa put my jeans and socks in the laundry. She had lent me a pair of Bermuda pants for the time being, although I would much prefer her pajamas bottom. Less skin exposed, the better. I wouldn’t give that rabid bunny the pleasure of two scratching poles if I could help it. Too bad her bottoms were all too pink and too small.

“Has she ever peed on you?” I asked.

“Well, no.”

“On anybody else?”

Chigusa shook her head. “I guess you’re just special,” she said with a smile. Today, for some reason, I didn’t find her dimples adorable. I felt betrayed. She took Holly’s side and I was left feeling like a deranged person whose hobby was to play the victim.

“You know what, I think Holly actually likes you,” my girlfriend began. “Whenever you’re around, she always has this look on her face.”

“Yeah, the look that says she’s thinking of mostly nasty things.”

“No, silly — she wants to be picked up.”

 I blinked. “Have you noticed how heavy she is?” I pointed at the round thing munching slices of carrots in her cage.

“It’s all just baby fat.”

“She’s twice the size of a normal Holland Lop!”

“Nonsense, she’s just big-boned.”

I wondered if this was a prime example of blind parental love, but wisely kept my mouth shut. With Chigusa’s encouragement and prodding (and assurance that rabbit flu did not exist), I approached Holly’s cage and opened it. She stared at me.

“Now, now, you see? That’s the look,” Chigusa pointed from behind.

Arms stretched and palms open wide, I waited on my knees for the creature to jump into my hands. “Come on,” I mumbled while Chigusa made cooing sounds.

Holly took one step forward. Then she waited. Another step forward, and again, she waited. After few of these, she finally exited the cage and planted herself securely between my hands. I placed one hand on her squishy body, just between the forelegs, while with another hand I scooped her up from under her rump. When I was sure she wouldn’t suddenly rebel and struggle, I picked her up and cradled her against my chest.

Chigusa beamed. “Isn’t she just the cutest?”

I dared not answer her as the warm creature in my hands kept staring at me. I didn’t want to break the moment.

“Rub her cheek,” said my girlfriend. “She likes it.”

I obeyed.

Holly closed her eyes and snuggled against my chest.

And suddenly I had this feeling that I needed to sit down.

Jakarta,

February 2012