The Mindful Migraine

On a derelict property, located on some backwater road of a forgotten suburb, there was a small shed.  Inside the shed was a portable table, on which there was a candle, burnt half-way down as it rested on its tin-can platter.  The room had a door to the outside, and a single window opposite, which someone had clad with newspaper.  In one corner of the small room was a pale rabbit trapped in a cage.  In the other corner was a camp-bed, on which a man lay curled up in a ball.  It was as if, even in unconsciousness, this six-foot-tall human was trying to make himself as small and silent as possible.

On either side of the table, two men, dressed from head to toe in black, were getting impatient.  Their minds and bodies were designed for action.  Sitting still for so long in this small, dark shed was making them irritable.  The man they were tasked with minding, hadn’t moved on the bed for a long time, and the occasional moans and groans he made were unsettling. 

The younger of the two guards, Brent, stood up from his folding chair and dropped to the floor to do push-ups.  He wanted to get his blood flowing again.  The other guard counted the reps off in his mind, losing interest once Brent went past 30. 

“Yo Bent,” the older guard said to the pusher-upper.

Brent sighed and stood up.  On his first day with the new crew, someone had asked him his name.  Brent had replied “Brent,” but unexpectedly, the man burst out laughing, “what kind of name is Bent?  Bent by name, bent by nature I suppose?”  From that moment on, not only did Brent acquire a nickname he hated, but also a mountain of suspicion about his lifestyle choices.  Why, Brent often wondered, couldn’t he have a cooler nickname, like Viper?

“Yo Bent,” Viper repeated, “you betta tape that back down,” and he tipped his chin to the window where one corner of the newspaper shield was lifting off, letting the afternoon light in, which meant it would soon be letting their evening light out.

“Stupid tape keeps peeling off the glass,” Brent replied, “must be the condensation… we all gotta breathe a bit less.”  He laughed and glanced at the body in the corner.

“We don’t do anything without an instruction.”

“I know, I know – what Diablo says goes,” Brent said as he walked over to the rabbit cage in the corner.

“Not a smart accessory for someone in your line of work,” Viper commented.

“I couldn’t leave it behind,” Brent replied, “my drunk old dad always had a soft spot for rabbits, and I guess I do too.”

“Do I want to ask why?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got a long night ahead of us,” Viper said and inclined his head towards the whimpering body curled up in the corner, “tell me about the bunny-wunnies…”

“Yeah well… when my dad was halfway through a bottle, he always told this story about one of our great ancestors.  This ancestor was either my great-great-uncle or my great-grandmother… the story kept changing each time he told it… either way, this relo ended up shipwrecked on a beach on some remote island.”

“Hmph.”

“This great-uncle-grandmother-character was struggling to survive in the wilderness… lost everything… home, family, possessions… was lying in the bushes dying… starving to death… about to give up the ghost, when these two rabbits came out of the bushes, curled up and went to sleep next to my great-relo.”

“So, the Grand Poohbah got dinner that night?”

“No… weirder… when the morning sun rose, the relo used the last of their energy to build a rabbit hutch and then bred rabbits for everyone else on the island to eat… went on to be incredibly successful.”

“I call rubbish.”

“Yeah, it didn’t make sense to me either… like, I know that rabbits breed… like rabbits… but that still couldn’t have happened overnight… what did the relo eat for the few days in between?”

“And if there were enough people on the island to sell rabbit-meat to, why didn’t they help Poohbah out when they got shipwrecked… besides… what do Poohbah’s business plans have to do with you dragging a rabbit around?”

“My dad always said that rabbits saved my relo’s life… made them rich beyond their wildest imagination…”

“So, your family is rich?”

Brent laughed, “heck no… some relo between the rich one and me lost it all on a horse race… or something.”

“OK, ok, so the rabbit?”

“I dunno – dad just liked rabbits, said they were our family’s lucky charm; the nicer you are to rabbits, the better your chance of getting lucky.”

Viper laughed at the accidental joke, and then laughed harder when Brent blushed scarlet red.

“Betta be quiet,” Brent said to shut him up, “you don’t wanna be making noise when Diablo arrives.”

As if conjuring a spirit, the door opened, and a third man dressed in all-black came into the room.  He lifted his chin by way of greeting then pulled off his black gloves and beanie, throwing them onto the table; “he say anything yet?”

Viper shook his head, “only cries… you don’t think we should help him along by…”

“No,” Diablo replied, “the advice I got was sensory deprivation… solitary confinement would be better… but it’s so damn cold out there, we’ve got no choice but to stay in here with him… besides… it’s better this way in case he wakes up… we’ll hear what he has to say.”

Brent hovered near the rabbit cage, doing his best not to make eye contact with Diablo, grateful that only moments before he had replaced the newspaper over the windows.

It didn’t help.  Diablo was in a foul mood and found fault with everything.  They were running out of food, the rabbit smelt foul, the candle in the middle of the room was giving off too much light.  He went to the corner where the body was still curled up in a ball and leaned in for a closer look, nudged the camp-bed with his steel-capped boot.

With only two chairs at the table, Brent stayed standing so that Diablo could sit down when he was ready.  Eventually, he did.  Diablo placed his arms across the table and used them as a pillow to lay his head down.  Brent and Viper made eye contact, but Viper stayed sitting bolt upright, and Brent stayed in his corner, doing his best to use his body to conceal the rabbit in the cage, in case something in Diablo snapped.

To say Diablo had a temper would be an understatement.  To say that things got broken and people got hurt when he had one of his outbursts would also be an understatement.  To say that it would be a very bad idea to get in his way during one of those outbursts, or try to redirect his anger elsewhere, would, again, be an understatement.

Half an hour later, Diablo woke from his power nap, less surly, but still not sweet.  He stood up and started pacing the room.

Viper risked talking again.  He asked a series of rushed questions, trying to get as many out before Diablo could interrupt; What were they going to do next?  Where were they going to go?  Could they go to jail for kidnapping?  Did they cover their tracks at the warehouse well enough?  Should they move somewhere warmer?  Would they get paid?  What if…

“Enough,” Diablo whispered.

The body in the corner was moving.

Diablo leapt up and stood beside the bed.

With a great heaving sigh, the body rolled over. 

Diablo raised both hands, his arms stretched out like wings beside him.

With the sound of another epic internal struggle, the man on the bed sat up and with a voice rasping with disuse, cursed heaven and earth.

Diablo burst out laughing “finally! We’ve been so worried about you!  You’ve been out for nearly three days!”

The man rubbed his hands against his face, kneaded the flesh of his scalp and then muttered, “worst one yet.”

“Yeah,” Diablo replied, “that’s what we thought… that’s why we decided to get you out of the warehouse… bring you here…”

The man looked around, seeing the room for the first time.  He took in Viper and Brent.  He took in the candle and the newspaper-clad windows, recognizing the attempt to keep the room dark for him.  The only thing his mind struggled with was the rabbit in the corner. 

“Thanks guys,” he said as pulled himself up to a standing position, “I really appreciate it.”

Diablo patted the man on the back whilst Viper and Brent gave him a thumbs up.

“Damn migraines,” the man said as he rested one hand on his forehead, another on his stomach, “I could really do with some food,” and then, a moment later the man rubbed his face again; “you kidnapped a rabbit?”

Brent shrugged, “he was next in line for the experimental research we were guarding and…”

“His name’s Poohbah,” Viper interrupted, “he’s our lucky charm.”

The migraine man glanced at Diablo who shrugged, and they all burst out laughing… just not too loudly.

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Take care taking care, Linda x

[and if this story was a bit odd or confusing… don’t forget you can download the ebook with all 13 short stories… here… this story makes most sense when you also read “Wrecked” and the 13th story, “Loose Ends,” which clarifies some of what’s going on.]