The Fluffy Bunny

He has a small gauze bandage on his thumb. A scrape on his right knee and a four-inch strip gouged out of his left thigh. I ask him what happened and he gives me a momentary piercing glance. He tells me that his thumb is broken. The knee injury is a scrape from a football game and the gauged leg is from a sharp twig that went through his skin where he fell out of a tree. He tells me it could have been fatal and explains how close it came to a major artery. Then he makes a big fuss of taking the tiny bandage off and nursing his thumb. He stands the discarded bandage upright on the table in front of us, like a dismembered fingertip.

I have an overwhelming impression of dishevelment but when I check for the signs I’m surprised to find that his shirt isn’t hanging out. His tie isn’t wet and gnarled from chewing and his socks aren’t falling down. In fact, I’m surprised he looks so smart as the impression of scruffiness is so strong that a giant scraggy ball of unravelling wool rolls into my mind.

His thinking is jumbled and confused. His stories don’t fit together. He draws predators fighting out scenes of nature and the hierarchy of the food chain. He draws startled deer, alert and frozen on secluded mountain paths as they stare into the eyes of the hunter. He draws fluffy bunnies, distracted by the blue of the sky. Stepping off the edge of the paper, strolling and whistling as they walk into the open mouths of foxes.

Joolz Mclay 2004