Fur Affinity
(being a play, in one unnatural Act.)
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2020 by Walter Reimer

Prompt:  belonging

PERSONS REPRESENTED:
OSWALD, a blind wombat
RICHARD, a rabbit
HENRY, a canine of the Bedlington blood
ACT I.
SCENE 1.  A forest, with three roads coming upon an intersection.  Enter OSWALD, feeling his way with a stick.
OSWALD:  By the spirits of Earth and burrow, this wood hath a wealth of shade o’er the road, smoothing the rough rays of the Sun upon my rotundity.  Stops, near the intersection.  Rest shall I, before resuming my wand’ring path.  Down, down my hams, and carry the burden that erst was borne by the legs.  Subordinate to you they are, yet sore charged with bearing weighty matters.  Sits.  Wand’ring in darkness everlasting throughout the wide world, what wonders have my broken eyes failed to see?  Ah, but I cannot tell, nor is it meet I should; for I am fated to go about blind.  Only underground – there, I can see with the best of ‘em.  I shall rest thus crouched here a while, and stir about after the Sun hath gone his way.  Falls asleep.
Enter RICHARD, down the opposite road, running; he stops at the intersection.
RICHARD:  Stand, stand, thou lop-eared felon!  Stay yet a moment, to catch thy breath ere the pursuit begin anew.  For why I know not, but my neighbor, a goodly fellow, hath accused me of swiving his daughter; verily she is a comely lass, yet as I’m a Christian gentleman I would not so betray my own dear wife or my neighbor’s love for me to touch her.  Soft!  What’s that?
HENRY (offstage):  Varlet!  Thou traitor of friendship!
RICHARD:  By the Mass, yon fellow pursues as if his very name was doggedness.  Come, coney, shelterest thou behind this stone.  Hides behind OSWALD.
Enter HENRY, a peat spade in one paw.
HENRY:  Where hath he gone to, that villain who dares touch my daughter?  Richard!  Come forth, sweet Dickon, I’ve a mind to play whist with thee; here have I a spade to trump thee with.  Cutting peat is its avocation, yet today will it have no more of peat, but much of pate, for I shall belabor thee.  Casts about, spies RICHARD’S ears poking up above OSWALD.  Hah!  I spy thee now!  Thy ears proclaim thee!
HENRY swings the spade; RICHARD falls back, and the spade strikes OSWALD.
OSWALD:  ‘Fore God, leave off!  This forest hath some heavy leaves indeed!
HENRY:  What’s this, by the Devil’s calkins?
RICHARD:  I know not; I thought it was a boundary-stone, such as were emplaced by those who came before us.  How now, stout fellow!
OSWALD:  Call me stout, thou miscreant!  Of a truth, I am, but such I’ll not hear from the likes of thee.  Swings about himself with his stick.
HENRY:  By the Mass, fellow, have a care!
OSWALD:  As much care as thou hast shown, sirrah!  Stand thou still, and tell me where I may direct my blow!
RICHARD:  Stands he there before thee; what, art thou blind?
OSWALD:  Of a truth.
RICHARD:  Blind as a stone, for such I thought thou wert.
HENRY:  Or a weathered stump, carved by the paw of Nature.
OSWALD:  Have a care with thy words, whoe’er thou art; yet shall my paw detect thee, and then I’ll regulate thee.  Yes, blind am I, since the day I was born.  But wherefore didst thou hit me, whosoever struck my poor, ringing head?
HENRY:  I was pursuing this one, who did naughtiness with my daughter.
RICHARD:  And I tell thee again, dear neighbor, never would I do such a shameful thing.  I hold my wife nearer in my heart than my own life; by He who made the world I would never betray our friendship thus.
HENRY:  Then who did such a mean deed?
RICHARD:  I know not, and if I did I would be speed itself to tell thee.
OSWALD:  (Aside.)  Late I came to this contest, yet I shall set myself to resolve matters.  (To RICHARD and HENRY.)  Gentles, I have heard thy dispute, and indeed am sensible of it, even if such sensibility makes my poor head ache.  Sirrah, who say’st his daughter hath been with a man before her time; which art thou?
HENRY:  Here.
OSWALD:  Eyes have I not, yet allow my fingers to see, and observe thy lineaments.  Runs his fingers over HENRY’s face.  I perceive that thou art a canine, goodman.
HENRY:  I am.
OSWALD:  And thou, sirrah?  Come, let these eyes at the ends of my paws take in thy features.  Runs his fingers over RICHARD’S face, pausing at his ears.  Thou art a rabbit?
RICHARD:  Aye.
OSWALD:  Then turn thy ears to me, and thou, friend dog, thy ears as well, and have them beg attendance unto my words.  There is no space for such unseemly enmity betwixt friends such as I perceive thou art.  Forward I shall be, but I say to thee both that thou didst not use the senses wherewith beneficent God or benevolent Nature have gifted thee.
RICHARD:  What is this?  A blind man seeks to teach us how to see?
OSWALD:  Verily, I shall teach thee, friend rabbit.  Thou hast eyes, aye, where I have none; but thy big ears failed thee and thy friend.  Why is it, that thou didst not hear a stranger swiving this man’s daughter?  And thou, goodman dog, hast thou a nose?  Why didst thy nose deceive thee, and tell thee falsely that thy neighbor had aught to do with thy daughter?
HENRY:  I am at a loss, goodman wombat.
RICHARD:  I stand abashed, that I have failed in my duty to my neighbor.
OSWALD:  It is well.  Hearken to me, that there are more than one sense; close thy eyes now, and feel the breeze, smell the scents of wood and soil, and hear the sweet songs of birds.  There is far more that makes us one than divides us, dog and rabbit; by my fur and blind as I am, I would not trade one of my other senses away for the most perfect vision in all of the created world.  
HENRY:  Friend Richard, I set aside my hot choler, now cooled; come, take my paw, and with it, retake my friendship.
RICHARD:  Gladly, friend Harry, with all my heart.
OSWALD:  Well it is, to have a friendship mended.  Gentles, the day grows long, and I am athirst from my journeying and much talking.  Couldst direct me to a tavern, where I may get myself a drink?  My purse is not so fat as it was when I set out, but I shall stand thee each a drink, to set a seal upon thy new-forged amiability.
RICHARD:  The Frog and Peach is but a short journey down the road, but thou, that hast mended us, shall not trouble thyself.  We shall stand thee a drink and dinner, as recompense for thy pains.
HENRY:  So come, let us quit these three lanes.
Exeunt.