Genevieve; Spring Rushes Forth by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Chapter 8

Pablo and his new room-mate Rufus had been doing their newly usual thing together; reading books. While this was often previously seen as a lonely adaptive activity for Pablo, it was now something more cheerful ever since Rufus had moved in a month or so ago.

Rufus and Pablo; property of the author.

Rufus was well behind Pablo in his knowledge of books. But that only seemed to renew Pablo’s interest in the things he had read years ago. When reading it for the first time Rufus was, with tears in his eyes, elated with the story of “The Velveteen Rabbit.” This enabled Pablo to forget about all of the similar stories he had read over the years, and he was again able to love the child and his rabbit just as he did when he first read the story, now seeing it once more through Rufus’ eyes. He never

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made Rufus aware of this, but in a brief time Rufus thought that he knew. They both kept their sweet secrets; not completely sure that they were right; but contented at a spot which required no changing through stupid words or disastrous needs to feel smart, important or something.

Original 1922 cover of “The Velveteen Rabbit”; public domain.

Pablo had been primarily luxuriating over another personal re-read. It was still early in his and others’ view of himself as a cuddly Lab, as well as the loneliness-ending-constant company of Rufus. Life was good and he had no current use for any of those depressing stories of failure and disappointment.

“Combine that depression with a disjointed, contradictory

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narrative and you have something deemed ‘worthy’ by a credentialed pro,” he jested only to himself.

He wasn’t a distinguished pro; he was just one of many undistinguished readers. He was in the middle of “The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Armin. It concerned the overlapping vacations taken by four English women with nothing in common other than disappointment with their marriages, death or life in general. In other words; everything. After some degree of initial tensions they re-discover hope and love in the tranquil beauty of their 15th century, Italian surroundings.

Stylized cover of “The Enchanted April”; property of the author.

Having heard the sound of Rufus’ voice, but not the detail of the words now making a bee-line for either a higher altitude

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or a low form of oblivion, Pablo momentarily broke from his book, and instinctively looked out one of his windows to see that spring imminent Pacific Lane wasn’t all that bad either. He said; “Rufus, look at this.”

Rufus walked to the same window and said; “I was wondering how long it would take you to say something. Springtime! And look at the wild onions.”

Pablo said; “Wild onions?”

Rufus said; “Yes. You must have thought that those skinny green things were early grass shoots. Come on outside. I’ll show you. When I was a little pup, we lived out in the country. It was nice. Well, I liked it a lot. And then everything went wrong and we wound up in Rapidtown ........ I don’t want to think about that and it’s got nothing to do with wild onions anyway.

January and February were always cold. Sometimes the temperature wouldn’t go above freezing for weeks. Then all of a sudden it would seem warmer and we’d see these skinny dark green shoots pop out of the last of the snow. Then we’d know that winter was over. You know, they kill ‘em now. Yeah. They’re considered a weed. They are even the victims of propaganda. They say that they are poisonous and don’t smell like onions. I’ll tell you one thing; anybody who says that they don’t smell like onions has a malfunctioning nose or never got close up with an onion.”

Pablo said; “Well, be quiet and we’ll go out for a sniff.”

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Wild onions; property of the author.

When outside, Pablo said; “I don’t smell a thing other than the faint aroma of the reviving earth.”

Rufus bit off the top of one of the plant shoots, and said;

“Here. Smell it?”

Pablo said; “Oh yeah. Nice. Gotta mow more often.” He took his own bite and the two of them stood there, close eyed, and breathing deeply.

Rufus eventually broke the silence to add; “They make bulbs if given a chance.” He almost successfully tried to shelter his sadness when he added; “But, they never do any more.”

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Pablo said; “They still do here in Poochville,” then bombarded Rufus with his wild onion bite.

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