Pneumatic Geolocating Rabbit Traps

 

She-oaks and mallee scrub tinged orange by sunset. Over land not undulating, but undulating for a bunny rabbit, Flopsy goes bounce, bounce, bounce to his rabbit hole, one thought on his mind: I am going to fuck Mopsy yes I am just going to pin her to the wall and give it to her ooooh yes she loves it just fuck her till she bleeds don't matter what Dropsy says its still good technique if she bleeds -

Internal monologue interrupted by Flopsy's quick death. Specifically, a noose around his neck, connected by cord to something which swings Flopsy in twelve accelerating circles (dislocating spine from brain stem) before throwing the rabbit in parabola which, at its zenith, is about two-hundred metres tall.

The sun is replaced with a full moon. The noose and cord are wound back into a disk thirty centimetre diameter, ten centimetre thick. The machine four metre-long pole legs bend at pneumatic knees and it walks away, a motion imitated by three other machines amongst this grey-scale bushland. A fifth is stuck is stuck in a dry creek and cannot figure out how to climb out, just keeps sorta' walking into the creek wall.

Jessica warms her tushy on the chicken coop, which is nearing its nightly crescendo. Paul hands her the last glass of Travellers Rest mourvèdre , a quarter of the bottle and thus above the recommended serve but easier to measure. The first quarter stewed potatoes, jalapeños and Mopsy, a meal accompanied by the second and third glasses. Another rabbit corpse splashes into the esky wired to shed-roof antennae.

Paul cracks pale ale: 'That's tomorrow's lunch. Mmmm chips.'

Jessica: 'They'd be on the move now.'

'How can you tell.'

'GPS is active.' She points at the moon. 'The satellite is out.'

'Clever.' Paul concedes. 'You never did tell me what inspired these traps.'

'When I was working for defence, they got me to program these machines, walking sniper rifles essentially.' Jessica rides the buzz. 'I wanted to know what hardware I was programming but Shaun from records was being a dick. So I had a digital sneaky-beak into the other silo and, I think the printer was out of cyan, so I had to memorise the blueprints.'

'Nice. Any buyers lined up?'

Jessica smells wine: 'You mean, aside from the trap you've got for testing range use? You have a rabbit problem?'

'Who doesn't? Know a girl who used to take a dozen fire-chicken feathers for a day's hunting, fletched instant-fire arrows with them.  Apparently they are really fun to use at night. Addictive, even. And then destructive. Don't suppose you'd be interested?'

'I'm more of a Linux girl. But I am open to an exchange.'

Paul offers his arm: 'Shall we?'

She takes it: 'This is all very Jane Austen's Emma.'

'I'm a Jane Fairfax.'

'I don't get that reference.'

They tour Paul's barterings:

·         A litre bottle of the hard living, long dead John's Piss. The chemicals that John consumed and then expunged are viciously lethal to plant life but, a drinker of wine and everything else, the urine contains phosphate concentrated to rapidly encourage new vegetation. Jessica: 'It's like weed'n'feed but better and gross.'

·         A Fairy Energy Pokémon TCG card, which became scarce after The Pokémon Company  rotated the Fairy Type out of play. One occasionally appears in the en bulk energy cards that come with a Elite Trainer Boxes.

·         The Lobby Pan Set of Ball Lightning. In days of yore when magic still existed and internet had to be dialled, a bolly of ball lightnings visited a shopping centre lobby. One large and three small balls, floating 10 cm above the floor, loitered around a Fireman Sam $0.40 children's ride. They crackled with subtle electricity, producing a sensation not dissimilar to when you see a parent shouting at their young child in a foreign language and you are not sure if you are racist or need to call a hotline. The cleaner did not have time for this shit - every five minutes carrying a 2.8% chance of literal shit hitting one of the toilet floors - and so swept the whole bolley up into their lobby pan set.

Paul summarises: 'It's a lobby pan set that can launch ball lightning.'

'Fuck yeah I'll give you a couple of traps for that.'

'I'm not willing to part with the Lobby Pan Set of Ball Lightning just just a couple of snares.'

'Three, then?'

'I don't need three.'

'What?'

'I am, well, seeing someone. Kinda'. She lurks around here and does a bit of hunting, comes to the house occasionally and we fry some tofu. So I don't want the rabbits completely gone.'

'Aw, that's nice. Is she the jealous type?'

'You're a bit young for me.'

'And she is?'

'Hard to guess. Three-hundred-ish? But good looking, elegant, Japanese with the whole kimono.'

'Kitsune? There's a silver fox joke there.'

'Don't make it. Trust me.'

·         A Sentient Marijuana Plant, which says in feminine digital assistant voice: 'You can boost your super by adding your own contributions to your super fund or into your spouse's super fund. Spouse contributions aren't eligible for a tax deduction, but your spouse may be eligible for a spouse contribution tax offset of up $540 if their income is $37,00 or less.'

·         The Sorting Akubra, which snarls: 'Get me four cool boxes, some dry ice and a pouch of White Ox, and I will sort your friend there very profitably.'

·         The manuscript of A. J. Holmes' The Lunar Calendar's Influence on Courtship, Kink and Pornography Habits. After the collection of bolley of ball lightnings into lobby pan set but before the application of Rudolph Steiner's biodynamic pseudo-science to wine drinking, the author realised that, some days, he really liked boobs. This inspired Holmes to conduct esoteric research that found, beneath other variables, that straight males notice particular feminine attributes - breasts/legs/waist and bottom/miscellaneous - more so depending on which star sign the moon is passing through.

Jessica: 'I call bullshit. But I'll give you a trap for it.'

Paul: 'Make it two and you've got a deal.'

'Sure, gotta' be good for a laugh.'

Jessica does not want The Lunar Calendar's Influence on Courtship, Kink and Pornography Habits for a laugh or otherwise. However, she knows a gal who knows a gal who knows James. James' musical-theatre pornography has had a sold-out run around Australia, it's illegal nature sidestepping covid restrictions that crippled competing live entertainment - a market effect similar to illegal warehouse parties but targeting the baby boomers that went to see The Book of Mormon without knowing that it was made by the guys behind South Park.

James has been courting (lobbying) the Department of Very Bad Ideas with a proposition: government funded pornography. If today's youth are learning toxic sexual practices and disrespectful attitudes towards women from pornography, then one government or another will inevitably deem wholesome, family friendly pornography a public good.

Key objectives of  'pornoganda' include:

·         The depiction of condom use and other safe-sex practices.

·         A shift in establishing scenarios (contexts, genres) away from sex as punishment/debt repayment/cleaning method towards characters having sex because it is, you know, sex.

·         Ease of mind for single parents of teens hoping to commence relationships with other single parents of teens.

·         Prototyping of various iterations of the 'enthusiastic yes' within the broad aesthetic of 'dirty talk'.

·         Probably slip in some 'register to vote' subtext.

·         Continuation of mainstreams pornography's gender ratios and employment of minorities.

Pornographic works containing these elements already exist because amount of pornography. Instead, the macro-goal is influence, meaning eye-balls and similar works in the 'recommended for you' - high volume of works is just a means of competing with rather too much groaning. Government funds will produce influential quantities of already-shoestring-budget pornography, a non-profit in a sector of fake casting agents.

James wants to make this pornoganda because he will be well paid - a non-profit is still a business and must be run as such by a talented and compensated CEO. He therefore seeks innovations (ethical, if not necessarily legal) that will improve the triage of views, productivity gains and influence. Also, keep costs down. James will readily fork out for A. J. Holmes's slightly-better-than-chance predictor of what the vast swathes of masturbators seek in new releases.