Travels of an Arctic Hare, Part Two: Not As it Seems

Dling didn’t sleep. IMAG2902There was a moment when he thought he might but his leg was tight and he had to stretch it out. And then it was the other one. And there was something wrong with his stomach. There was the constant light too. It seemed to get darker for a moment, but that was only a cloud. IMG_3190There was no dark in this land. He liked the idea of that, but he couldn’t sleep. He just couldn’t. He thought back to Piff. She had seemed kind. But there was something else about how she was always in the same place, in her corner, somehow scared, staring out, distant. Their first session of wiggling had went well. The little ones liked it. Stub and Kijo seemed happy. They shared their red berries with Dling and wiggled their noses crazily. The next session didn’t go as well. Kijo didn’t like Dling’s wiggling any more. She thought it wasn’t wiggling at all. She called it twitching. Stub had lost interest in wiggling and played with a young hare’s ears instead, who sighed nervously at being touched like that. arctic_hare5Piff stayed in her corner. The next session was worse. Dling showed his nose wiggling to a young hare near Kigo, who then stamped her foot and jumped away. Piff sat in her corner, and Stub was gone. Dling jumped up the moraine and found Gigo looking over the glacier. Dling tried to explain his concerns to Gigo, but Gigo only wiggled his nose. He loved his view of the glacier and waited for a piece of ice to fall off. IMG_3389He was very happy when he did that. Dling told him about Piff and Kijo, and most of all Stub, but Gigo only watched the glacier, waiting for another piece to fall. Dling returned to find Piff, Kijo and Stub in a tight huddle. They broke apart, bits of sticky red flowers falling from their mouths. Piff’s paws shook badly as she explained that Dlng’s wiggling wasn’t wiggling but twitching and couldn’t be taught anymore. The little ones came to Dling the next day and asked to be taught how to wiggle their noses, which he did. And that’s when everything went very bad. Kijo bit him and Stub stomped on his tail. arctic-hares-fightingAnd Piff watched from her corner. Dling knew that he should leave but he liked the young ones. He decided to visit Gigo one more time.