Rabbits

My father brought home two rabbits. My father encouraged me to feed the rabbits. The rabbits were snow white and had pink eyes. The rabbits were fat and had shinny coats and ineffable eyes. Every morning my father would give me a handful of chopped carrots to feed to the rabbits. I would feed the rabbits the chopped carrots and tell the rabbits my dreams and my fears. One day the rabbits were not in their cage. Father had killed the rabbits, skinned the rabbits, and placed the deskinned rabbits in a pot of boiling water with potatoes and carrots. The rabbits’ snow white coats had turned an apocalyptic swirl of grey/black and, on the plate, the pink eyes, ineffable, looked like cloudy marbles lost to a nemesis. I licked my lips and like Oliver I asked for more dead rabbit.

Tate Vannozza