You most probably have heard of the story of the tortoise and the hare, but it’s unlikely you’ve heard the whole story. For example, did you know that the race that took place between these two long-time friends didn’t happen until they were very far advanced in age? Oh, certainly they had many many races over the years, but the one that everyone talks about happened well beyond their respective Middle ages.
Their friendship was born of the competitive spirit, as are many boyhood friendships. They were little tikes yet, living in the same neighborhood surrounding the old duck pond in the meadow on the hill overlooking the town. An idyllic setting for small animals such as ducks, turtles, rabbits, squirrels, and the like. And they all played together on the small little beach on the north end of the pond. It was early summer of their first year of life that the two met and the gauntlet was laid.
“I’ll bet you my carrot sticks I can beat you to the boat dock on the other side of the pond,” the hare challenged his new friend.
And from that point forward their friendship was set. Oh, the hare had his way with the baby tortoise besting him easily three straight times. Despite the losses, the tortoise found the races exhilarating and challenging. By the third race, it seemed to the tortoise that with a little more training he might actually be able to win a race against his newfound friend.
But, unbeknownst to him, the little baby rabbit was merely toying with the tortoise. He quickly realized that he was much much faster than his new friend. By the second race, which he easily won by the effort of a light jog, the rabbit discovered that winning came easy to him. By the third race, he’d already figured out that he didn’t even need to concentrate. He could skip off and play marbles with the ducks, or push his friend Fox on the swings and still make it across the finish line before the tortoise.
So, on that fateful day, upon completing the race far in advance of the tortoise, the hare stood, leaning against the tree that also marked the finish line, smiling at his new friend as he slowly trod across the line.
“A good race chum,” said the hare.
“Aww,” sighed the tortoise. “You are really fast. I hardly had a chance. But,” he said thinking about how much closer this last race was than the first. “If I train really hard, stay focused, and push myself, I think I may be able to beat you one day.”
Oh, the rabbit got a good laugh out of this. He was very confident now, he seemed different somehow. The tortoise secretly watched his new friend for what it was exactly that seemed had changed. He looked at the rabbit, leaning against the tree. One leg propped up with his foot, his front paws stuffed casually into the pockets of his fur. He looked like a movie star. The tortoise admired his fast and cool friend, but he didn’t like how the hare made him feel about himself.
The hare, upon hearing that his friend actually believed he could beat him, was about to confess that he, the hare, hadn’t really been trying. That after that first race, when he realized how easily he could best the tortoise, he had secretly snuck off to play other games with the other little boys and girls animals around the pond. The hare thought to himself, “Well,” he thought. “No harm in that. I’ll just pretend along with him, let him think that he stands a chance.”
The two friends went their separate ways that day, but their friendship grew. They soon grew so much that when they both had children of their own they became like one family. All the while they remained close friends. Oh sure, there were many changes, good and bad, but through it all, they maintained their friendly races. They even tried to get their own offspring involved in their competition. But the children didn’t feel the same way about racing. The little rabbit children would run off and play at some new and more attractive game almost as soon as the race had started. And the little tiny tortoises got distracted by playing “flip-your-sibling-on-their-back,” just as soon as the little rabbits were out of sight. The kids of the tortoise and the hare had no interest in this competition, and that was ok, just different.
By the time the kids of the rabbit and turtle had grown and had kids of their own, the tortoise and the hare were getting big bellies and grey hair. The rabbit looked like a wiley old prospector and the tortoise like a wizened old warlock. The two of them sat on a log at the north end of the pond, in a nook that gave them a view of their respective families as they played and had picnics in the sun. They would talk about those old days when they were young.
“Remember,” said the tortoise. “That one day, when I nearly beat you. I came around the corner on the home-stretch and I saw you entering the track from the bushes. I almost had you that day.”
The rabbit thought about it as he watched their families playing together. He watched as their little grandbabies played in the sand burying each other up to their necks and then digging them up. Their families were close, the kind of close that meant each other’s kids called them “uncles” even though they weren’t really uncles.
“Well,” the hare began. And he looked at his old friend and he didn’t have the heart to tell him, though he wanted to very badly, that the tortoise had never stood a chance against him. That he’d not been in the bushes as the turtle suggested, but merely passing through them after having just played a spirited game of catch-em-catch-can with his brothers and sisters.
“Ohhh my old friend,” the tortoise interrupted the hare in his thoughts. “Ohh my lord did I ever come close that day. You with your speedy quickness and bravado,” he boasted. “And little ol’ humble me, the slow-but-steady turtle nearly bested you that day old boy.” And he chuckled to himself, and subsequently to his old friend the hare.
This wedged in the craw of the old wiley hare. Here he was contemplating letting the old warlock go on and believe that he actually had a chance at besting him in a race.
You see, their relationship was the product of that old competitive spirit. Competition was the fuel that kept their relationship burning and even now, lives complete and filled with loving and large families, competition reared it’s ugliness one last time.
The hare simply looked over at his old friend. He watched as the tortoise sat, content, happy even, a hint of his contentedness curling at the corners of his wrinkled mouth and he just couldn’t suffer it any longer.
“Why you old codger,” the hare unwinded. The tortoise was visibly perplexed. “You really believe you could’ve had me ‘ay,” said the rabbit to the turtle. “Really!?!” he compounded his inquisition.
“Well don’t go gettin’ yer fur all up in a huff,” the toroise replied. “I was only sayin’, the hundreds of times you put me in the dust and all I was sayin’ is that one time, ONE time (he pronounced the “one” heavily) I almost had you.”
Of course the hare saw through it, the ruse. “Oh, just sayin’ huh? Little ol’ humble me huh? Well, I got some news for you old timer. That ONE time,” he said it with disdain in his heart. “That ONE time was just like every other time I left you eating dust my friend. Just this time you happened to catch sight of me getting back on track. What I was doin’ really was I was playin’ a round of catch-’em-catch with my brothers and sisters. Not just that but we’d raided old man Harper’s carrot patch, took a swim in the pond, and even took ourselves a little nap in the sun ‘afore I hopped back on the path.”
And he paused to let his old friend take that one in.
This was nothing new, not to either of them. They had had their bouts over the years. A friendship born of competition doesn’t let go of grudges easily. There had been many quarrels. Most of them were short-lived, but they had some wizzbangers too where one or the other had crossed the line too far–and weeks, months, even years had gone by without a word being exchanged. This felt like something like that. Something big.
The hare was breathing heavily, the tortoise was filling with frenzied venom, and finally the hare broke the tension and proposed one final race to end all races.
“If I win, you and your no-good, dawdling brood relocate the lot of you’s to the other side of the pond. If, and by god that’s one whale-of-an-IF! If you by some miraculous turn of events cross the finish line before me, then god as my witness, I’ll take me and mine, uproot us all, and we’ll move to the pond’s opposite side.”
“That,” the tortoise replied. “Suits me just fine!”
“Next Saturday, six AM,” said the rabbit. “Be there or be square!”
The two old friends felt it deep down in their bellies. They recognized regret. Regret because they’d done this too many times, come back from the blackness of a world without one another’s friendship, only to return to each other’s knowing embrace with remorse over their hurtful words and gratitude for the other’s forgiveness. They recognized shame. Shame for they were both much too old to be playing these silly games. As they walked alone, returning to their respective homes, memories of warm summer days in the meadow cascaded through their imaginations like sweet montages scored with happy songs eliciting tears of bittersweet joy in each of their hearts.
As it was, the tortoise, as was his custom, trained, went to bed, and woke up early. He ate good food and visualized the well-worn track their races followed. The hare, unperturbed and undaunted as the tortoise most surely was, carried on with his shenanigans, horsing around, staying up late, and sleeping most mornings away in his warm bed confident in his ability to wipe the floor with his old friend.
By the time Friday night rolled around, as the hare and his family were preparing for their customary “movie and pizza night Friday,” eating, drinking, and frolicking, the tortoise was kissing his loving wife goodnight, hugging his children and grandchildren, and slipping into his warm cozy bed for a good night’s sleep.
Oh how the rabbit did party with his family. His kids, his grandchildren, and his loving wife watched movies, ate pizza, drank fermented carrot juice, and partied until the wee-hours. The old rabbit fell asleep eventually. More like he passed out on his favorite chair than retired to his bedroom. And, as was his usual pattern, overslept by several hours.
When he woke he wasn’t worried. “I’ve overslept long past this point in the past and still whipped that old so-and-so easily,” he said to his loving wife. “And today will be no different.”
He kissed his loving wife goodbye and dashed off to the starting line. There was a note left scratched in the dirt.
“See you at the finish line old chum,” and it was signed with only a turtle’s footprint. This enraged the old rabbit and he left a cloud of dust as he stomped the message into smithereens on his way down the track.
Meanwhile, the old tortoise was moving along quite nicely. “I’ve never gotten off to such a speedy start,” thought the old turtle. “All that training had paid off.”
The tortoise had woken a whole two hours earlier than the agreed-upon start time and he’d stretched and eaten a good hearty and healthy breakfast. His entire family had accompanied him to the starting line and none of them, not even the littlest grandbaby were surprised at the absence of the hare that morning. And, as the sun began to rise in the sky, he kissed his loving wife just before the clock struck the hour and he was off.
Now he figured he was close to halfway when he heard the padding of rabbit’s feet coming from behind. He heard the slow whistly song the rabbit always whistled, and he heard the chiding laughter of his old friend as he whizzed by without a word and then disappeared around the bend ahead.
Well, you know the rest of the story I’m sure. That old rabbit, overconfident as always, once he’d gained a significant lead on the slow-but-steady tortoise, decided a noon-time nap on his favorite hammock, in his favorite nook near the duck-pond was in order. He settled, exhausted, into the hammock and with heavy eyes fell into a deep sleep. So deep he was undisturbed as the tortoise strode slowly by. So deep that he heard not the cheering off in the distance as the tortoise came within sight of the finish line and the other animals congregating there. So deep, he only woke when the cheering from up the track seemed to infiltrate his dreams and only when, in his dreams, as all the meadow animals had hoisted him upon their shoulders, did he wake believing he had won once again.
But it only took a second for him to realize it was a dream. He was back on the track and speeding to catch up with his friend and for the first time in his life, doubt crept into his heart.
The crowd gathering around the finish line was an upheaval of shock, happiness, and encouragement. Everyone there was cheering them both equally and if it was possible to have no loser in this contest it would have been optimal. Of course none in the crowd could fathom the sight of the tortoise as he appeared from around the bend, doubled was their disbelief when no sign of the rabbit was found. Nonetheless, the cheering grew to a fevered pitch. They would have cheered as much if it was the rabbit who’d appeared first, it did not matter, they were all part of the same little meadow community.
The tortoise slowly approached the finish line and even a 3-toed sloth might have traversed the final distance with a mere simple step but the turtle was still a good minute or two away when the hare came scurrying in a cloud of dust and feet and fur. The look of desperation and realization on his face was enough to send a ripple of question marks throughout the animals, all of whom had only known the rabbit as a cheery and carefree sort and even from this considerable distance it was clear to everyone that jig was up for him.
As the tip of the tortoise’s nose crossed the finish line, the hare wizzed by in a blur skidding to a halt a good twenty meters beyond. Both the hare and the tortoise were met with rousing cheers and both were hoisted up onto the shoulders of the biggest and strongest of the community.
A grand party was held that afternoon and it lasted into the wee hours. As the crowd began to dissipate and animals returned to the bosom of their hearths we find the tortoise and the hare sitting on their favorite bench, in their favorite little nook, near the north end of the duck pond.
“Well old friend,” began the tortoise. “We’ve been through too much to let it end like this and this night has shown me something of who we are and what we mean to our small little slice of the world.”
“Yes,” the hare replied. “I never knew how much the animals of the meadow on the hill loved us and I’m sorry for chiding you. No, I’m sorry for all those things I’ve thought about you. I knew that all along I could be a better friend, a better rabbit, and still I persisted. I’m sorry my friend, and I’m sorry for all of those thoughts that seeped into every aspect of our lives.”
The tortoise, moved by this admission replied. “Oh my old and dear friend. You are not the only one to apologize. I too have secreted away these terrible thoughts and between the two of us we should count our lucky stars that we’ve gotten away with it with such prosperity.”
The two old friends clinked their drinks together and turned their attention to the night sky over the little pond, in the little meadow, on the hill overlooking the town.
