Dead Rabbit.

The humble rabbit.

When you were about 11, you sprinted outside around the vegetable garden that your friends mother grew in her backyard. You’re eagerly waiting for your friend to come play, and you have a frisbee in your hand that you plan to bean at his head when he comes out. You’ve been practicing, and you’ve figured out the secret to great aim. His frisbee is a bit different than the one at your house, sometimes it wobbles, but your technique is perfect. You’ll get him. He still isn’t out yet. You wonder what's taking so long. You start to walk towards the back kitchen door. As you round the corner you see that he's outside, but crouched under a bush. He looks sort of dumb and awkward. As he always does. His butt is in the air, and for a second you take careful aim at his backside with the frisbee. The idea is enticing, but something about how he’s poking at the ground draws your attention. You two are so close you have changes of clothes in each others houses. You both like his house better. You’re not ashamed of it, but your house has way fewer video games. Your parents are a lot more strict. But he’s always let you play on his toys as long as you’ve liked. And he likes the same subjects you do. Math, and science. You two have been class nerds of equal caliber for as long as you can remember. But you’re sure you’re still cooler. You don’t tuck your shirt into your pants, or your pants into your socks, and you don’t have glasses (yet). 

Imagine this with pants tucked into socks.

Your relationship with him is the same protective bully you are with your younger brother. You’ll chuck the frisbee at him any day. But everyone else better back off. He’s your victim. He takes it in good humor, so you guess it’s okay. Today you wonder how his mother ever let you near her child, or why he enjoyed your company at all. But you are a physical child, and you show your adoration through punches and thrown rocks. He didn’t complain too much. The makings of a best friend.

But your attention turns to the point of his focus, and you see an animal on the red mulch under the bush. He turns, sees you behind him and waves you over. “There’s a dead rabbit”. A dead rabbit? This is your realm. A dead body. Time to cut it open and see what’s inside. You bend down, grab a stick, and crack it into two, imagining the jagged edge can be used as a scalpel.

                “What are you doing with that stick? I think we should bury it.”.

“Bury it?” Why would you bury it? You want to look inside. He continues, “I think we should send it on its way into the afterlife. Poor rabbit.”. Being a 10 year old, you roll your eyes at his rather precocious talk. You understand his words, but not the sentiment. You just want to cut it open. It’s a dead rabbit. You can name all its internal organs. You wonder what a spleen looks like. 

Literally no one know what it does.

You push him to the side, bend down and poke the rabbit. He screams. You back off, he only contradicts you for a good reason. “We should bury it.”. He’s crying. You’re uneasy now. He’s too moved by this. It’s a dead rabbit. Nothing more, nothing less. May as well look inside. You’re sure you can get your way, but something about his tone gives you pause. You agree to bury it. “We should give it an egg. Two eggs. So it can eat on its way to rabbit heaven. You run into the kitchen, and come out, egg in hand. And start towards the rabbit. He looks on with abject horror, “No, rabbits are vegetarian, why would you give it an egg?”. 

Vegetarians eat egg....

You don’t know the answer to this. You just wanted to crack an egg on the rabbit body. See what it did to the fur. Also, cracking an egg is satisfying. He remains adamant. “I think we should write it a poem.” This goes too far. He wants to make a rabbit burial into an educational activity? Poems are written in school. You can’t stab it and you have to write a poem? You throw the egg onto the rabbit, it cracks on impact, and oozes into the fur. “Aruuuuuuuuul, come on. You ruined the rabbit. Now it’ll be forced to give up its vegetarianism on its way to heaven.” You’re satisfied, you got the egg on the rabbit. He shakes his head and starts to wax eloquent, composing a poem on the spot. You don’t listen. It’s probably dumb anyway.

Intro to Me.

Hi friends! This post’s goal is to introduce myself. This also, I’ll admit, is a class assignment that I’m writing this to complete. This was submitted late. I guess that tells you a lot about me. I mean, it seems to peg me in a hole till you check the email the professor sent us and realize that it’s not as distinctive as initially assumed, seeing as the Professor’s email update yesterday told us half of us hadn’t submitted it by the due date. I see you, and I call to you, kindred spirits! Still, the idea remains that it narrows the field. I am, in fact, as the day I sent this in suggests, absentminded and disorganized.

Caught.-age 7 approx.

Ouch. 8 sentences into “be honest, be brave, and be willing to expose yourself”, and it already hurts. Thankfully, it’s not all bad. So let’s dig further, and figure out exactly who I am. My name is Arul, which sorta sounds like “I rule”, which all my friends point out (it might actually be a requirement to be my friend), and I definitely enjoy.

Literally 2 seconds later.

They told me people died standing there.

Yes, I’m a bit disorganized and cluttered in how I choose to go about my day, but within my head, I make up for it by keeping things neat and tidy. I’ll show you what I mean. I like to keep things in boxes, label them, and put them in easily accessible places for later. So when I was asked to introduce myself, I immediately went to the box that kept all the things relating to introducing myself to other people, and found it completely empty. Oh. I hate introducing myself to people. That didn’t work. But…. we do have a box of questions I ask people when they introduce themselves, such as “What kind of music do you listen to?” or “Do you read books?”. After that, all that's left to do is to transition into the conversation the questions spark.

It would make sense, then, if I answered these questions about myself to elucidate a workable image of myself. What kind of music do I listen to? All kinds, except metal. Really it varies, but generally it centers around various indie bands, currently very involved in 50's-70's country, and modern-day bluegrass with a splash of the 80's because the 80's were happiness and it was in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. Am I ashamed of the any of my music phases? Maybe my "strictly classical music", from 7th grade. Here are a couple youtube links to songs I'm currently listening to.

Dearly Departed by Shakey Graves, ft. Esme Patterson

The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie by Colter Wall

The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

A friend and I after a school concert. The roses were for my music teacher. -age 10

Do I read books? Boy. What a question. Of course I read books. I am a reading addict. I read literally anything, books, magazines, board game instructions, Shoprite Coupon small print, etc. It’s bad. My parents used to force me to play with friends, and take away my library books when I misbehaved. Either that, or they’d refuse to take me to the library so I couldn’t get more. I’ve missed assignments because I was reading a book I couldn’t put down. When sitting at a dinner table at a new person’s house, I generally feel the urge to go through all the condiments they decide to place on the table and read through the ingredients list. I rarely remember what the label said as to exactly where in the Himalayas their salt was sourced from, but I still find myself reading it. I’ll read it every time I sit down at that table. I don’t forget all of it though, like my favorite quote from To Kill a Mockingbird, when Atticus Finch is describing the cranky, old, recently deceased Mrs. Dubose. “She died beholden to nothing and nobody.”, he says. I think that’s a beautiful quote. A dying wish to have all the ends tied. To make her life the final end that needed to be tied within her story without any intervening influences from elsewhere. What’s more, she accomplished her goal. 

 It’s unfortunate, seeing that as I get older, it’s harder to get into the flow of reading as fast, where you’re entirely absorbed within the tale, right there with the characters. It's one of my primary fears, losing my ability to enjoy reading as I do and did.

I think it’s worth answering one question that doesn’t seem so overtly “small talk-esque”, as the last two were. I’m of the opinion that there’s no such thing as small talk, and that all questions have the potential to be the topics of an enriching conversation, but I think, “You can tell the entire world one thing. What is it?”

He's been sitting in my bathroom for 12 years.

Also in my bathroom. Didn't realize my bathroom is winter themed.

I think my answer would be to tell everyone to find a person and look them in the eyes. I think that’s all I’d bother saying. Anything longer and I think most people wouldn’t do it. This seems to be a good idea because it emphasizes the existence of another human. It reminds those who’d do it of something important. That there are other humans out here, and they aren’t the only ones around. And eye contact itself is rather powerful. As a neuroscience major, I’m keenly aware of all the heavy-duty machinery your brain has to track, recognize, recognize, and process gaze. A study noted that staring into another’s eyes for just a minute could induce an altered state of being that involved hallucinating strange faces like deceased family members and those of animals. Another possibly less scientific study made men and women stare into each other’s eyes and realized that often in the months after the study the participants were getting married. I.e. there might be stuff happening in that lump of flesh in your head when you look at a person. Maybe you’re supposed to be staring at eyes instead of your phone. But I’d only tell the world to do it for an instant. I think that just the reminder that they are a human, with other humans, on this planet would do us as a species some good. I think that, with this short glance at someone's eyes, instead of falling in love with the person they chose to look into, maybe they fall in love with all of us. They might fall in love with the idea that we’re a species of 7 billion on a planet who all aren’t that different and have wants that everyone wants and needs that everyone needs.

It’s the sort of idea that humans require if we plan on continue as a species. We’re facing issues that can’t be solved by one person, or even a generation of people. Issues like global warming and inequalities in the way resources are distributed in the world will probably take a multigenerational concerted effort to solve. I think that by using such an opportunity, like being able to speak one thing to the whole world to encourage this sort of thought, I allay that tiny spark of existential dread that we all hold in us to a certain degree. I mean, what else would I use it for? Taco Bell?

I'm on the Rutgers Sailing Team! You all should join.

Sorry it was late!

This smile has got me out of a lot of trouble, gonna keep milking it.