Coming home one evening I found a young rabbit on my front porch. a not uncommon occurrence, there were rabbits all over the yard throughout the day, but there was something different about this one: it didn't run off as i approached it. I got to within a foot or so and it still didn't hop away. i nudged it with my foot and it loped slightly sideways and then stayed put. I crouched down to take a close look and stayed that way for several minutes. The rabbit didn't move. "obviously something wrong here", I thought, and went inside. When i came out a few hours later, the rabbit was nearer my neighbor's house, and still not running away if I came near. It was then that I noticed that it's head was somewhat larger than before, and surmised that something was definitely wrong with it. I wondered if i should do anything, but eventually decided not to and went to bed. The next day when I came home from work the rabbit was in the driveway and I had to swerve to avoid hitting it. I had asked a co-worker who is knowledgeable about animals what she thought and she said it had probably been hit by a car, reassuring me that that didn't necessarily mean that I had hit it. I wondered then if this animal was trying to commit suicide to relieve itself. I got out of the car and went over to look at it again. I'll spare you the details but it was much worse off. I thought about killing it, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. what if it would recover? I went inside.
Coming out again several hours later I found the rabbit prone and barely alive. Putting on some old gardening gloves I picked it up and placed it in a grass-lined hole under a mesquite tree in my front yard. Then I went back in the house and got my recorder. Placing the microphones on either side of it's head I recorded several minutes of the rabbit's laboured breathing. I felt kind of strange about this, but I did it anyway, rationalizing that it was another fairly unique desert sound, and rabbits probably died every day, without me (or anyone else) noticing. By evening the rabbit was dead. I took it out into a large tract of land adjacent my house and buried it.
A number of conundrums presented themselves around this event. Should I have "put the rabbit out of it's misery"? should I have recorded it, or was this a ghoulish act? Should I do anything with the recording, or should I delete it? The recording resided on a shelf in my studio for a couple of years, and I thought about these things every so often. Recently, while working on some other field recordings, I decided that the rabbit recording would fit in with what I was working on, so I mixed it in. All the old questions came up again, and I wondered what to do with the finished piece. I told the story to a couple of good friends whom I was visiting in New York, and they encouraged me to publish the work along with the story. All of this has been compounded by the fact that it is nearing Easter, and images of rabbits are everywhere.
After telling the story to my friends, and expressing my doubts about what I was doing, I was reminded of the old zen story: two monks are walking along a path when they come to a stream, beside which stands a woman who is obviously trying to cross, but unable to do so on her own. the first monk, without thinking, hoists the woman on his back and wades across the river. the second monk follows. after this the two monks walk on. a while later the second monk turns to the first and says "why did you do that? you know that we're not allowed to touch women..." the first monk replies "put her down. I did an hour ago".
So I suppose this piece is my way of putting the rabbit down.
Putting the rabbit down (22:28)
