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ISSN: 1941-4137 |
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Volume One Issue Two |
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The Rabbits of Chicago Wait Only for Me In the earliest part of the morning, when I shut the screen door they must hear me, because they run from under my car to sit along the burdock in the yard, and smile. I call them over and they gather around me. I sit in the driver's seat of the car with the three of them sitting on the dashboard. I tell them the story about the night the coyotes got into the neighbor's rabbit cages. I tell them the field was soaked in blood and how at the age of 12 I was told by my father to go help and that I did — walking through the grass picking up fur, guts, and clumps of dirt matted in blood and dropping them in a plastic trash bag. And how I had to just throw away my shoes, because the stains were too much for me to bear. As I pull in to unlock the gate at the sheet metal shop, I catch just the slightest glimpse of bunny ears peeking out through the overgrown clump of weeds in behind the fence. My friend hops over and asks me about the dent in my bumper. I tell him I still feel bad about it, but that if he must know, it had to do with someone much like himself. I tell him I was driving late at night and that I hit a rabbit. He gasps, but I tell him I did everything I could, and that I couldn't swerve because of the other cars on the road and that the rabbit jumped up into my bumper, when all he had to do was duck and everything would have been okay. My friend reassures me that I did the right thing and that it was probably bunny suicide. I'm third in line at the loading dock. I pull up behind the garbage truck and look down and to the left. I see him sitting there, on his lonely island, the only patch of grass in miles of concrete. He seems content to look and stare at me just the same. When I return home, there they are again and they've got bad news. They tell me they've been crunching the numbers all day and that the bank account balance is still in parentheses and that I should really cut back on eating out and buying CDs for a while. I assure them that everything is fine and that they're just overreacting. I offer them some carrots and milk. They decline and return to their hole. |
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