The Warren

A strange little story about a rabbit trapped inside their warren by a controlling mother, a rabbit Rapunzel. Concise but pointed, and I like the ending. The first time, I chose to (Spoiler - click to show)stay.

As a kid I would go through phases of reading books only about animals, and I ate those things up. Hurry Home, Candy; Silverwing; the Warrior Cats series; Guardians of Ga'Hoole; Jack London's books, and many others. The rabbit setting of this story reminds me of Watership Down, a book about rabbit societies that I read in one of those phases, and greatly enjoyed.

Each animal book has different sliding scales for how human its animals are, whether they're true animals who are incapable of speech or have full-on civilizations with oral traditions and religious castes. Watership Down threads the line by giving the rabbits rabbitlike behavior in every aspect, but grounding that in a rich and intriguing rabbit society with clear, but not 1:1, parallels to humanity. This story matches Watership Down in the setting, in the balance of human and animal, human and alien; depictions of humanity through the lens of rabbits that aren't really human, except in all the ways that matter.

The modern-day human analogue of what happens in The Warren is obvious, but the rabbits give it a kind of melancholy, the alien feeling of a world that must exist somewhere but is very far away. I live in a city; the last time I saw a rabbit in real life must have been at least months ago. Overall, the story has the mien of an old-school fairy tale. One of the songs it's inspired by is, itself, based on a fairy tale about animals.

My other comparison is to Yume Nikki, though I've only heard of it and haven't played it. But in both stories you are trapped, dreaming of the myriad worlds you'll only see in visions and fantasies, perhaps for the rest of your life.

"The tunnel leads you outside, and now that you're out here, you find yourself disinclined to go back to where your mother is waiting. Instead you seek out a new warren.

You are eager to start over in a new place, but your years of isolation have served you ill in learning how to interact with other rabbits. Whatever you do or say seems always to be a mistake. The other rabbits bar you from the best nesting places and grazing grounds. They often start fights with you for no reason that you can discern.

You eke out a meager existence on the margins of your new warren. You are often cold and hungry, sometimes battered and bruised, and always, always lonely. Even the joy of being able to go outside whenever you wish is short-lived.

You could go back to the warren of your birth, but you can't imagine that you'd be more warmly welcomed there—except, perhaps, by your mother, and the thought of proving that she was right after all is enough to put you off that idea."