The Turtle and the Rabbit

One day, a rabbit was looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, admiring himself and boasting (to himself) how fast he could run.  The rabbit did this every morning of every day.  Some might call this behavior narcissistic, but since rabbits generally don't speak using words of more than two syllables, such a label was never applied to this rabbit. 

One day, a turtle happened to be playing splish, splash and taking a bath in the tub that lay within earshot of the boasting rabbit.   While the turtle was still traumatized by being suddenly plucked from his homeland by the ten year old boy living in the house, he still managed to find the rabbit quite annoying.  After listening to the boasting rabbit for awhile, he challenged the rabbit to a race.   At first, the rabbit did not respond, so preoccupied was he with his image in the mirror. The patient turtle (as turtles are prone to be) repeated himself once, then twice, then thrice.

Finally, the rabbit stopped his boasting, considered the turtle's words, then turned around and stared at his rather unwelcome bathroom companion.   At this very moment, the rabbit broke out into great peals of laughter.   The prospect of racing the turtle was sheer lunacy to the rabbit.  Never had the rabbit heard of such a race, much less a mere turtle winning it, because the rabbit, having spent most of his childhood playing video games, had never read any books and didn't know a tortoise from a hare, much less a fable from a short story.  All he knew was that racing this turtle (or any turtle for that matter) would be no competition at all.   The odds were clearly heavily stacked against the turtle in the tub before him, the one still waiting ever so patiently for an answer. 

Though the rabbit was convinced that a race between him and the turtle would be no race at all, he accepted the invitation from the turtle: 

"Yes, yes. We will race."

And so, the urban animals, domestic and feral, came together and mapped out a course through the city for the race.  They hacked into the traffic light cameras to monitor the race, so that the start would be fair to both and the winner at the end would be indisputable.  Bets were laid down, and the usual booking sites were activated.  After grand preparations, race day finally arrived and the race began.

At top speed, the rabbit took off and was soon many city blocks ahead of the turtle.  The rabbit slowed, turned, and could not even see the poor turtle in the distance.   Seeing no harm in doing so, the rabbit took out his cell phone and turned it back on, seeing it as at most a minor distraction that had no chance of changing the outcome of this lopsided race. 

He heard his text notification, clicked, and found a note of encouragement from his friend Energizer.  The rabbit smiled and started to stash his phone in order to continue the race, when...

He heard his snapchat alert, showing him seven new photos from his friend Peter on the bunny trail during the early April morning. The rabbit smiled and started to stash his phone in order to continue the race, when...

He heard his Facebook feed ping, showing another of the latest pictures of the latest bunnies with which his friend Thumper seemed quite twitterpated.   The rabbit smiled again and started to stash his phone in order to continue the race, when....

The next notification came in, causing another squirt of intoxicating dopamine to be released into the rabbit's poor, defenseless brain.  Soon, the dopamine squirting through the rabbit's brain needed no tweet, trill, or bell to keep the rabbit's attention fixated on the phone.  The mere possibility that the phone would emit another sound was enough for the rabbit to remain rooted in place. 

In the meantime, the turtle plodded from city block to city block.  He was wary of dopamine squirts impeding his progress so had left his phone safely stashed in his spare shell at home.   After all, it was hard enough getting somewhere of consequence when one was a turtle; the last thing he needed was trills, tweets, and bells to distract him along the way.   The turtle plodded, slow and steady, as his ancestor the tortoise had, without stopping, making steady progress to the finish line.   Somewhere along the way, he passed the rabbit, but so fixated was the rabbit on his phone, that the turtle passed right on by, entirely unnoticed. 

The sun had set on the parade of onlookers when the turtle finally crossed the finish line.  He turned and waited patiently for the rabbit.  But, the rabbit never came.

Instead, the rabbit just sat at the curb, a mere block from the finish line, waiting, hoping, and waiting for the next notification, the next dopamine squirt to come from his beloved technology.

The End