From stars and talking rabbits
Night takes the place of day. And the girl stares into the dark silence of the tent in which she lies. Every time the black curtain is drawn over the world, it gives her the creeps. Everything that makes Africa's savannah beautiful and exciting for her seems to have been swallowed up by a dark cloud.
The steppe grass: during the day it is green, yellow, red. Now the stalks give off only ghostly rustling shadows. The sound of birds chirping has also disappeared; the girl hears only her own breathing and a few toads croaking. Her eyes wander to her parents' cot. It is empty. The adults are still sitting outside by the campfire, the night wind carrying scraps of words and soft laughter.
"Come out," a voice suddenly whispers. It sounds foreign, but still somehow familiar. "Come out," she tones insistently. The girl opens the zipper of her tent. Her eyes try to make out something in the darkness, but they can't make out a figure. "Down here," the voice says. A bush rabbit with gray-brown fur looks at her with amusement from dark, almond-shaped eyes. Behind him, a friendly smiling porcupine perches.
"You can talk?" the girl asks. "Sure can," says the bush bunny, scratching his giant spoons with one hind leg. "Everyone can talk." - "No, animals can't," the girl shakes her head. "Just because you don't speak our language doesn't mean we can't talk. You just have to listen carefully, like now." The girl looks from left to right. "I'm going to go back inside," she finally says.
"Why?" the rabbit and his prickly sidekick want to know. "Lots of dangerous creatures go around at night, it's not safe," whispers the girl. The rabbit and the porcupine look at each other with amusement. "But the night is just like the day, only the light conditions are different," says the hare. "The moon is like the sun," interjects the porcupine. And then both mean with an inviting gesture: "Oh come, sit with us. Just for a few minutes. The night only scares you because you don't understand it."
The girl hesitantly squats down next to the bush rabbit. "What don't I understand?" she asks. The bunny seems to have been waiting for that cue. He clears his throat, stretches his spoons bolt upright, and begins to rhapsodize about the benefits and mysteries of darkness, while the porcupine rattles his tail theatrically after each sentence. The girl gets to hear that the retreat of the sun is a boon, both for light-sensitive eyes and furry skin. On top of that, she says, the night provides shelter for small creatures - earthworms, frogs, snails, moths, moths.
"They all have fewer predators in the dark, and their skin stays elastic and moist, but in the sun many would burn." A bat hisses by and lands in front of the trio. "I overheard you guys from up there. The night is great," she agrees with the rabbit and porcupine. "Especially from my perspective, the most incredible things happen."
You can watch pairs of lovers, she says. Baby animals taking their first steps into the world. Even the trees are more relaxed, he said. They lower their branches ever so slightly at night before stretching out again toward the sun in the morning. "But there's also hunting at night," the girl interjects. "Lions might hurt you." The rabbit laughs, and the porcupine puffs up his chest. "Those half-strong fur tigers have to get us first. And if - well, so it is. We all need something in our bellies." The girl shakes her head in resignation.
At that moment, an owl joins in, taking the conversation from the rabbit and porcupine with her natural authority. "Girl, you are not as helpless in the night as you may think. You got great senses from nature. If you can't see, you can still hear. You can touch, smell, taste. Trust in these abilities, they are a part of you." And then the owl, who is not considered the wise one for nothing, says, "You also have your intuition, your inner compass. It never lets you down."
And as silently as it came, it disappears again. The girl looks after the owl, and her gaze is lost in the starry sky, the glitter and sparkle, the sky looks like an endless carpet of diamonds. "Beautiful, isn't it?" says the rabbit. "The magic comes to us anew every night. The stars give us light and direction" to help us find our way." And then the hare, always a little envious of the owl's choice of words, says something that would also please the wise bird. "But the stars are also there for you to dream. Never forget to dream.