Zootopia Short Stories: A Good Morning
***A rallying cry to all writers!***
This new virus has us all on edge and feeling the blues, so we need more stories from the many talented writers on this site and AO3 which can give us a literary escape from the problems of the world around us. I'll kick it off with this short story about a farmer named Stu Hoops.
The old goat sat back on his porch swing and stared at his laptop, the sun had begun to set over the newly turned fields outside and the wind softly blew thought the tall green Southern Pines in the woods beyond. Inside the old white clapboard house was the sound of the television as it blared a news channel's dreadful announcements of what seemed like one disaster after another and then the self-righteous and solemn voices of talking heads, all experts in blaming one politician or another for an unfortunate creation which nature has released upon the world.
Life can be hard as it always has been for a farmer. Sometimes after one had imagined grand dreams for the future, it seemed that either a drought or a hurricane would intrude and grind those dreams into the sandy clay soil. A retirement fund left in tatters as the stock market tanked from fear and businesses shut their doors to stem the ever-growing and seeming unstoppable illness that has claimed so many loved ones and overwhelmed our lives.
But hope springs eternal and it is often found in the sounds of birds singing as one walks through a field full of bright green seedling sprouting and still wet with the early morning dew. It is found in the late summer sounds of a combine harvesting the year's crop and in the laughter of a grandchild as he chases a firefly in the soft summer night.
Hope, like love, can be found in the most unusual places.
And so our short story begins…
Stu Hoops smiled as he sat back in his porch swing and listened to the soft pattering of the rain upon the tin roof overhead. It was early in the morning and most of his children were still snuggled in their beds, a warren full of generations of future farmers. He deeply sniffed his mug of lemon balm tea and then sipped it with satisfaction. I can't believe that fox likes coffee? He thought to himself and then he scowled. His morning was so peaceful and serene before memories of Nick Wilde and his daughter Judy intruded themselves again. "I should have used a fox taser on this mangy red hide!" the farmer bitterly huffed to himself as he now stared at the mug with distaste. "Fried his tail good and then ran him off my land, away from my daughter! Then I should have grabbed her by the ears and hauled her back home to talk some common sense into that this thick skull of hers!"
"Face it dad, you aren't just mad at him because he's a fox dating Judy," a voice spoke from behind him and Stu turned to see Abel standing there sipping from his own mug of tea. The tall buck was handsome and broad-shouldered, he was dressed in an old white tee-shirt and the knees of his blue denim overall were worn thin from use. Abel was as much of a dirt farmer as his father and his grandfather, children of the earth.
"What do you mean by that?" Stu snapped as he slowly stood up and stretched.
"I remember when Annie came home from college with her future husband Benny, you wanted to grab the shotgun and shot him with rock salt," Abel continued. "You have always been overprotective of us, but we're not some crop of prize-winning show carrots to be coddled over. Judy especially has been…"
"Carrots!" Stu grumbled. "He called your sister Carrots, how demeaning!"
"Aw, come on dad! It is his pet name for her, like she calls him Slick!"
"Still…he's a fox!"
"Judy has always been the strange one in the family and you know she would never be happy here on the farm!"
"Still…"
"Still what? Let Judy have her dreams and if that is of being a police officer in the big city, so be it. If it also means that she is in love with a fox, who are we to judge her for that?"
"Son, how did you ever get so smart?" Stu laughed as he smiled at his son.
"Definitely from mom," Abel joked as he set his mug down. "Now come on you old rabbit, we have a tractor to fix before the rest of the family awakens. Maybe if we can get it working and if it hasn't rained too much, we can get that lower forty plowed before dinner tonight?"
"Old rabbit!" Stu called out with a grin. "I show you how spry this old rabbit can be and race you to the barn."
"Sure dad!" Abel called back with a laugh as he let his father hop ahead of him into the rain.
…And so it was another day at the Hopps family farm…a new day with new dreams and new hopes for the future.
Hope, like love, can be found in the most unusual places, such as in a city named Zootopia and between a bunny and a fox.
***STAY HEALTHY & WASH THOSE PAWS***
I do not own the rights to Zootopia or any of its characters. This story was written solely for the reader's enjoyment and without any profitable purposes. The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this story are fictitious.