White Rabbit

There is a time somewhere after midnight where the city stops breathing. It occurs somewhere between the hours of 1 to 3, depending on where you live, just late enough you might doubt that it's morning. Just early enough that the dark still makes you call it night. Any car you see here is either abandoned or lost. Every person is either a danger or a ghost. 

That’s when I started my nightly stroll.

 I don’t count myself as an insomniac. A walk at this time is just like a dream. Because you’d think it would be quiet, stepping in and out of the lamplight alone, but it’s ever so loud in that dark deeper than the ocean: The echo of your footsteps lasting just a tad longer then it ought to; The sound of a breeze that does not touch your skin; Voices of conversations long past. Only when I stop does it go quiet—the noisy thing is me. Alone with me, just like a dream. 

Connie wouldn’t like that. It was his voice I heard on my walk. Fresh and loud like I had just nicked myself during a shave. 

“I don’t ever want to be like you.” he said, loudly as my mouth foamed over.

  But the poor child doesn’t know he’s always a part of me. And here, in the dark, I felt so close. Why, it was the only time I really felt like a child. 

“Do you even understand what it’s like to be your son?” Connie had asked. 

I remembered my own father. Now he was a piece of work. He would tell me stories that would keep me in the house, away from people, away from life. 

“There are horrible things out there in the night,” he would say. “They’ll gobble you right up.” 

Such threats didn’t work on Connie. He was too smart for that. Too smart for his own good. 

But as for me? In the deep night, I let myself laugh in the dark and heard my own voice laugh back at me. I kicked up the dust and gravel and promptly fell on my ass. I am not as young as I used to be. 

I listened to the ache of my body and the burble underneath the earth. There was a sewer grate nearby, a horrible yawning mouth that surely hid one of those terrible monsters. 

I think that’s where I found the difference between me and a child: A child would have run. But I just laid there, waiting for teeth, and a moist slimy doom. 

I sneezed. Something was soft and furry against my face, like the way my wife used to tickle my nose to wake me up. I opened my eyes, hoping to see her, but instead all I got were black beady eyes. It flickered white a little ways ahead of me, startled from my own eyes. 

“A rabbit,” I whispered to myself.

A bit of excitement filled my heart. I lived in a suburb in a city that no longer loved the color green. There was no reason for a rabbit to be here. And yet, it stood just at the edge of the lamplight, watching me with beady black eyes. Something like wonder began to fill my heart. A gasp of laughter escaped my lips. 

“A rabbit!” I blurted out loudly. 

It fled, startled by the sudden noise. 

“Dammit-” I scrambled to my feet, scraping my knees against the crack in the sidewalk—another reminder I was getting old. I was slow and sluggish and the rabbit was fast enough to outrun me ten times over. But it would double back every now and then. It would watch  beneath flickering lamplight—It wanted me to follow. 

It stopped for one last time in front of what must have been the only patch of green left in this gray place. My breath was ragged and my sides hurt. But the rabbit stood still and let me approach. 

As I stood over the little white thing, I realized I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take it home. Or if I could let it roam free. I racked my head trying to remember if there was any zoo nearby, although I doubted they’d want a silly rabbit. 

The rabbit was really only for me. 

I reached out to grab it, only for it to leap down the hole. 

To avoid being perplexed, I imagined what Connie would do here. Somehow I imagined he’d find a way to fit down this hole. It was just a tiny black divot, barely larger than my arm. 

I reached down inside. I felt fur and then skin.

“Ow!” There were teeth too. 

I pressed my face into the hole and tried to look through. From whatever source of light, I caught a glint of eyes: Not beady black rabbit eyes, but human eyes, big and  brown and sad. 

“Is that you, Connie?” I call out, mouth muffled by the dirt, but the eyes were gone.

It felt like him. If there were anyone who’d be stupid to crawl down a rabbit hole, it would be that boy.

I began digging into the dirt with my hands, but the earth was hard and dense and scraped at my skin. Luckily I had a few old keys in my belt. They would’ve never opened anything again, but here now they are, making a hole. I smiled at such novelty, happy for these rusty things. 

I stabbed the jagged metal into the dirt, cutting though and ripping away. 

I must have been there for hours. Much longer for the night to have lasted. But the dark was still high as I fell deeper and deeper into a pit of my own making. 

I didn’t know when I’d stop. It was a difficult toil but somehow that just invigorated me.  There was just this manic urge to keep digging. 

I only stopped when it stopped being so hard. In fact, it was quite soft and wet. It’s amazing how quickly dry dirt turns into mud. Something wriggled under my hand and steel in the softening soil. You can imagine how mortified I was. 

“I’m sorry, Connie,” I mumbled in a numb stupor. “Are you alright?” 

It was too small to be Connie. It was only just bigger than my two hands. I tried to hold it as it writhed in the dirt. A gentle flow began when the earth could drink no more. Black fluid like oil spilling out.

 I began to push the mud away, my hands turning to the color of rust. 

  There was a dirty white beneath. And there was red. And pink. And a bright cobalt blue like gemstones as they stared into the sky. 

“You’re not a rabbit.” I said a little thing. It was shaped more like a little boy.He had white hair and a little headband with bunny ears and a massive gash in his side where the key had gone.

“Of course, I’m a real rabbit.” said the boy. “These ears are mine. But don’t you go pulling them now.” he said so sternly, all the while he shook and bled from the holes in his body.  

Suddenly, the boy went limp. I stepped back. The flow had stopped and he lay still and pale on the ground. 

I felt my stomach turn. I turned the child over, something so impossibly small and frail. It shouldn’t have been alive in the first place. It shouldn’t have been real. 

“If that comforts you.” the child said. I nearly dropped him.

“Don’t be scared,” said the rabbit boy, his body still as a stone. “ I’m only dead.”

“Then why are you still talking?” My heart was racing out of my chest. 

“It’s the best time to talk, I’d say. I was always racing to get somewhere. I didn’t realize this was where I had meant to go. The end of all my stories. Want me to tell them all to you?” 

“What sort of stories could a rabbit have?” 

“How deep is this hole in the ground?” asked the rabbit back. “You haven’t found the bottom, nor who you were looking for.” 

“You saw my little boy?” I asked, desperately. 

“I didn’t see anyone who was yours or anyone little. To me, he might as well be nine feet tall. But you, looking at you up close, you’re as small as they come. Tiny, even.” 

A faint smile played on his lips. 

“But yes, I saw him. He was delightful. Big as he was, he could go anywhere he wanted. High in the sky or the deepest pit in the ground. Oh I’d love to show you.” 

“Then what do I need to do to follow?”

“First, we have to avoid the police,” said the rabbit. 

“The police?” I asked, looking around at the empty street. ”There’s no-” 

Suddenly I heard the squelch of something wet coming from the road, from the narrow sewer grate. It was a fat blue man, swollen like a bruise. He squeezed out of the canal with a loud pop. 

“Whatever you do, don’t tell him you’re looking for someone.” whispered the rabbit. 

“I thought the police were the sort to help with missing people.” 

“They’re also the type to bash your head in.” 

He looked like a fish, with blue skin and a blue uniform and a small blue hat that barely fit his head. And as he approached, he spoke just how imagined a fish to speak: with a squat and blubbery noise as deep as the waters it came from. He shook his head, fins dancing upon jiggling jowls as they did

“Soooo,” he blubbered, his vowels stretching and wobbling. “What seeeeems to be the problem heeeere?” 

His eyes narrowed at the body of the rabbit. 

“Has theeeere been a deaaaaath?” He stretched the word out so long his face turned purple. His hand moved to the baton attached to his waist.

“Well, officer-” 

“It’s a wonderful time, isn’t it Officer?” said the rabbit. 

The officer huffed and chortled, cheeks shaking like an earthquake. 

“I suppose it is, Konijn!” said the policeman. “Congratulations are in order.”   

A stale awkward air filled this moment as neither had the dexterity to dance or cheer. 

“Hooray.” I said weakly. 

The officer turned to me with sudden interest. “And what have we here?”

“My killer.” said the little rabbit boy.

“Oh callou callay what a lovely…” His smile faltered. His eyes narrowed. “You look like a missing person.” 

“Missing?” I asked, lying as best as I could. “Who’s missing me?” 

“No, you’re the one who’s missing.” the officer said. He pulled out his pen and began scrawling chicken scratch onto the skin of his hand.  His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Missing someone. You wouldn’t happen to be lost now, would you?” 

He spat that word with much venom and so close to my face, I could see his needlelike teeth poking out from under his shivering jowls.

“I-I have nobody to miss.” I said. “And shouldn’t you have a pad?” I asked. The officer’s hand was white with scratches. 

“You seem to be quite a fan of rules in such a dark dank place.” 

“Why aren’t you? I thought you were an officer of the law.” 

“Oh damned it be, I am an officer but not of the law.” 

“What do you protect?” 

“Earnesty, of course.” 

“Don’t you mean honesty?” I asked. 

“Oh heavenssss, no,” said the officer. “That would be a terrible thing to uphold. Earnesty, in all things. Sureness and certainty. Especially in such a place as this. Can’t have wanderers down in the underground. Imagine they kill someone-”

“I thought death was a good thing.” I look at the rabbit who’s still smiling. 

“By all means yes, when it’s intentional. Can’t have regret and backtracking clogging up our fine tunnels.” 

“What do we do to the lost?” I asked curious.

“Why, I conk 'em on the head, of course!” I eyed his nightstick warily. It was a nasty thing, ridged with spikes. I could see its ridges and curves covered with layers of gristle and blood. 

He leaned in closer now. I could see the light in his black beady eyes and I could smell the sewer in his breath. 

“Now who’s that in your eyes? I see a woman and a boy. I see the words…Co-con-co” 

The word was flickering on his tongue. I felt my heartbeat quicken as it felt like he was looking into my soul. He raised his club high in the air. 

“Konijn!” was all the rabbit had to say. 

“What?” The officer blinked for a moment. And then he blinked again.Suddenly, he began to swell. 

“He was looking for me.” the rabbit said, confidently. 

“Oh.And he found you then.”  He swelled a little more. 

It was then I understood. And I’ll admit I felt a little clever. 

“Yes, rather presumptuous of you, wasn’t it?” I said. 

The officer now looked a little embarrassed. “I suppose it was.” 

“Wouldn’t you call it a mistake?” I pressed. “Awfully big for your britches. The type of thing that would make traveling down there quite a tight fit.” 

The officer looked down at his belly, face downcast. “It’s not that tight.” 

He seemed to be getting bigger and bigger the more I spoke. 

“Now we can’t have an officer like this,” said Konijn. “Maybe you could send us to the store. Get you that special drink. Where is it anyway?” 

He shrank slightly and pointed somewhere in the direction of the moon.

“We’d have to head there. But I am an officer. To drink such a thing would be akin to poison. It’s a poison that would destroy a man half his size.” 

He looked so conflicted. He looked so confused. And so I had a nasty thought that I think everyone has. 

“There’s a simple way to fix this then.” 

“What is it?” he asked so desperately. 

I gestured to the club. 

“You could always beat things down to size.” 

A great big smile spread on his fishy face. “Oh you clever man. You clever clever man” he shook with blubbery joy. “I am in great debt to you.” 

I returned his joy with a grin. “First pay it back to yourself. It’s only right.”

The officer responded with a loud crack as he smashed his own skull in. I couldn’t help but giggle. Does that make me sick or childish?

“Does it help you feel young?” asked Konijn. 

“Shh.” I whispered, placing the little rabbit boy on my shoulder.

“Thank you. Just call me if you need anything.” he said in a daze. Another loud crack as he struck himself

They grew fainter as I carried Konijn away. Where we went, the spaces between street lamps grew wider, like faint  yellow islands on a sea of gray and black. 

“Awfully childish of you,” said Konijn, repeatedly. His face seemed to shrink each time I passed the light. Or did he grow when I went into shadow? I could not tell. 

“I’m sorry,” I began, just a tinge of remorse creeping up from the pit of my stomach. 

The dead rabbit let out something that might have been laughter. 

“You don’t mean that. You never meant that. You’re only saying that because I made it seem like a bad thing. Do you have a thing against children?” 

“I have a son.” I told him. 

“But he’s run away now, hasn’t he? And from who and from what?” 

I felt cold hands on my face, and saw gray eyes searching into mine. I didn’t want to meet his hollow gaze. 

“The policeman was right. You’re a man with a son. So where’s his mother? Where’s your wife? I didn’t see her down the hole. Where did you put her? Is she safe?’ 

I grabbed the little rabbit and began to squeeze him like a dog with a toy. He was soft in my hands, almost like a plush. 

“It’s okay.  This just means we’re moving forward-.” The rabbit’s words were muffled by my hands. 

I did not like that thought in my head. I did not like how she sat. 

All of a sudden,I felt my eyes begin to spin. And I felt the world come crashing down, with the floor becoming the sky. I fell upward and tumbled into concrete. 

“Oh we’re here.” said the rabbit. “There should be medicine inside.” 

“Medicine inside where?” I asked. 

A bright new light flickered on, with a nasty fluorescent hum. A familiar white glow washed over me. It was the color of disgust and hunger. 

“No, not here. Anywhere but here.” 

It was a convenience store. One of thousands in the city. The 24 hour sign buzzed like flies over an old corpse. 

“So you’re familiar with the grand market?”

“Grand-It’s a convenience store.”

“Isn’t convenience such a wonderful thing? To us creatures of the night, we fight tooth and nail to survive the many strange paths and 

“But they’re dingy and gross and small.”

“And yet, you walk in without fear.”

I hadn’t even noticed it but I had already stepped through the door. 

“Hot dogs are on sale,” said a listless voice. 

I eyed the familiar sight before me:Rows and cramped rows of snacks and candy and drinks. A boy with a face full of pockmarks yawned with heavy bags under his eyes. If it weren’t for the dead rabbit around my throat, I would have thought it was all a dream,

“It could very well still be a dream,” whispered the rabbit, as I absentmindedly grabbed a bag of chips and orange juice. I would get vodka from the counter, I remembered, and a headache in the morning. ”Nightmares are dreams too.” 

“I haven’t slept in a few days.” I told the rabbit. I stacked 

 “Well then, the dreams came to you.” 

I paused because I heard the click 

“Half off if you buy them with a soda.” I turned to see the barrel of a shotgun pointed at me. The teenager was brandishing it a little unenthusiastically.

“I know what you are,” he said,his voice cracking. 

“Excuse me?” I asked, confused. Up until that point, I was certain I was just a person. 

He gestured to the rabbit around my neck. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might find it strange. I looked down and also saw I was just a little splattered with blood. 

“Your kind makes me sick,” said the teenage clerk. 

“Now hold on-” I could hear him flick the safety on and off. 

“I was just checking,” he said. “Filthy loiterer.” 

“Hold on, this isn’t mine. Wait–Loiterer?” 

“Not buying anything.Loitering. Clogging up the space. My manager hates you guys.” 

“You’re not bothered by the blood?” 

“Oh no, be covered in whatever fluid you want. Blood, piss, vomit, I don’t care. I just don’t care for hooligans who disarrange my shelves and don't buy anything.” 

He gestured to the window. Outside, there was a crowd of dark outlines. Things not fully shaped, but hungry nonetheless.

I pull out my wallet and flash him a few crumpled notes.

“Oh,” he politely pointed the gun away. “How can I help you, sir?”

“What did you need me to buy?” I asked the rabbit. 

“It’s a forbidden potion. Clear as the sky. Burns like hellfire.It’s nearly impossible to get.’

It didn’t take me long to understand. I gestured to the vodka on the shelf. 

“Is that it?” I asked.

“So you’re familiar with its power.” 

“I’m familiar with how bad a night that was.” I replied. “I was locked out of my house last time” 

I felt my head begin to throb again. I didn’t remember where I put my house. I blinked the thought hard out of my eyes. 

“ How will that help me through the hole?” 

“Shrink the mind but not the spirit. The boy remains. Get you through anywhere and anything.” 

I laughed. “If you think this is going to get us through anything-” 

I put the drink down, feeling the world spinning. 

“See, it’s already working. All you’ll need is a few drops.”

I could feel it pulsing behind my eye. “Never again.” 

“Actually, I think the only problem here is that thing in your eye.” 

The throbbing suddenly grew quiet. 

“What thing?” 

“Move closer, lemme get it for you.” 

The clerk grabbed my face and using a fingernail that did not know the bite of a clipper, he forcefully began to rotate my eyeball. If I hadn’t been screaming, they might have enjoyed that satisfying pop.

“My eye, where’s my eye?” 

“It’ll pop back in, don't worry. It’s this other-” 

I never got to hear him finish. A sound like skittering in a drainpipe began to echo in my brain. Something impossibly big crawled out of my face and ran out shattering the window. 

“Aw hell,” said the clerk, shoving the eye back into my face. 

I blinked a couple of times, before being deafened and blinded by the flash of a gunshot.

“Get back you loitering hooligans!” As my vision cleared, I could glimpse those dark things spilling into the store. There was someone running into the dark, long hair blowing behind her. She didn’t look back once. 

“Who was that?” 

“I think they might have been important.” I lied. 

“My manager is going to kill me," lamented the clerk, as he reloaded. He turned to me. 

“How are you feeling now? Do you think you can drink?” 

I looked down at the bottle and a little proudly, I said to him. 

“No, I don’t think I will.” 

I heard a click and sharp deafening  blast as I was launched back a few feet. 

“Then you’re just like them.” he huffed. 

It was like falling asleep without closing my eyes. Someone flicked the lights off and I wasn’t sure how to turn them on again. In this dark, it felt like I was laid down upon flat and hard earth. Death doesn’t feel like rest, I thought. 

“That’s because you’re not dead.” said the rabbit. 

“But why is it so dark?” 

“We’re in a grave.” 

I rubbed the invisible walls cloistering me in. I felt the dust rub on my fingertips and the roots tickling my skin, 

“I guess we are. How’d we get in here anyway?” 

“He said, and I quote “Can’t have a corpse during my shift.””

“I thought you said I wasn’t dead.” 

“You’re not. You have no right to be.” said the rabbit. “Now let’s go, we’re finally in a hole big enough for you.” 

“Go where?”

“Where all those who have no right to be dead should go. Forward.” 

“How? We’re in a grave.” 

“And soon we won’t be.” 

   I rolled over onto my hands and feet because like hell was I going to move like a flipped over turtle. I did for a while, but the act lost its novelty quite early in the process. I don’t know why I did it in the first place. I suppose to a younger me it would be fun. 

The rabbit was right as well. The tunnel did stretch and narrow before me. I felt like a rat in the walls of a house. Every now and then, I'd see lines of light, probably from a sewer grate or whatever gaps there were to the outside. Someone seemed to be yelling. 

I peeked through a crack. I think I was looking out of a wall socket in someone’s home.All I could make out were shadows: A man seemed to be yelling at his son. His mother was looking over, concerned but saying nothing.

“What do you feel first?” asked the rabbit. “Do you flinch in fear or do you simply ask what the boy did wrong?” 

“I’ll ask you where my son is.” I told the rabbit, moving on. The echoes of their anger were heavy on my mind.

“Why do you think he’d be here?” 

“You were the one that said-” I started. 

“But you believed me. You came all the way down here. You’re crawling through death and darkness…and don’t say you’re doing this out of love. Don’t lie in such a place like this.”

I pursed my lips in frustration. 

“I know it because this is something I would do.” 

I felt a rumble and I tumbled downwards onto concrete. I heard the trickle of water but smelled something like orange and vodka mixed with shit and stomach acid. 

“Is this the sewer?” 

“It’s no longer a grave, at least.” said the rabbit. 

I felt something zoom by me. It was the same long brown hair from earlier, running hard to get away from something. My feet moved on their own, tracing her footprints in the dark. 

“She seems like a good friend.” 

“She’s more than a friend.” I grinned. “She’s part of me.” 

I watch her stop at the sewer’s end as it expands into a large pool. I watched her expectantly, waiting for her to confirm my suspicions. 

“I didn’t drink it.” I told her. “I’ve been good. Now you don’t have to hurt me. You can come back. Please come back.” 

She turned back only to glance. And I held my breath as she brushed the hair out of her face. 

But, she had no face. It was just a blank patch of skin, cursing me with its indifference. 

I felt my heart sink. However, she sank deeper–she was pulled into the pool. 

“I think she just jumped in.” 

“No, I swear I saw something pull her in.” 

I walked up to the pool which smelled of oil and drain cleaner. Its surface was dark and

reflected things like a chemical mirror. And I knew if I touched it, I would surely die. 

“Is that your boy right there?” 

I could see him on that dark screen. In whatever light there was, I could see him on that screen. He would not look at me. He seemed to be on a stroll wherever he was.

“Connie!” I yelled. “Connie, come home.I’ll be better. I’ll do better.” 

But the reflection did not heed him. It seemed like it wanted to go somewhere. 

“He seems a little too old to be your son, now that I think about it. You always made him sound like a baby.” 

“But he is.” 

“He looks about your age. Why, he looks just like you.”

He did look just like me. If I were younger. If I had been better. 

“I think that is you.” said Konijn. 

“But it’s just…it has to be him. Please just let it be him.” 

My voice sent ripples across the pool blurring the image. I shut my mouth for fear they might go away forever. 

“I can go look,” said Konijn

“But the water,” I protested. “It’s toxic.” 

“And I’m already dead,” said Konijn. “Surely that’s interesting enough to get your boy’s attention. He certainly seems more interesting than you.What? Are you going to tell me you’re going to miss me?” 

I look at the dark water grimly. 

“What do I have to do then?” 

“Just lay me down into the water and wait.”

“Will it hurt you?” I asked. 

“Nothing will ever hurt me again.” 

I nodded. 

I leaned over the side, feeling the cold little boy in my hands one last time and I placed him, as gingerly as I could, into the water. I made sure his ears would touch the water last. 

To my surprise, the water began to change color. Leeching light from where it touched Konijn, filling the mirrored world with the vibrance of a sunlit meadow. The reflection looked upward, and was joined by the woman. Taking each other's hands, they swam upwards towards the rabbit. 

I felt knots in my chest as I watched them..They wouldn’t even look at me. But I felt anger and then disgust. Then longing. 

It wasn’t my son. 

“I used to be so happy.” I told the rabbit.

“I think I like him better,” said Konijn.

They were going to drag him down. They were going to take him away. To lie still forever, reflected in stagnant water. 

But I wouldn’t have it. 

I slammed my fist down into the water to try and grab them, to hold on to what was. But all I did was break the reflection. The caustic fluid burned my hand where I touched it but I felt something much worse coming.. The color scattered and faded to black once more. 

They were looking at me now. Face meeting my face just where I disturbed the pool. 

I heard the burble of something coming. He sounded like me. He felt like me. I feared he was more me than I could ever be. 

It spoke a riddle, with a voice layered in a tripartite harmony. 

“You have seen what comes in the morning. What walks in the afternoon. And now you hobble in the evening. Pray tell, what then walks at night?” 

 It rose from the water, a reptilian shape, like something allowed to live for far too long. 

I ran back into the tunnels. The water sloshed and crashed in waves as it took a step. 

But it did not chase me. No it did not have to. No matter which way I went, it was there 

waiting, silent, inevitable and gaping. It was only walking to pass the time, waiting for me to come back. 

I could have stopped then and I could have given up. But seeing the lights above in the tunnels flickering as the space got steadily smaller. I had but one thought.

“Where is my boy?” I asked the silence. 

“Please answer me, rabbit. Please answer me, Konijn.” 

It’s mouth simply hung open. An expectant smile. An open invitation. 

‘I shouldn’t be in a place like this. I shouldn’t be here with you. I shouldn’t be out. I should be with my family…at home. I want to go back.” 

I looked at this thing, blocking every which way around me. And then I remembered. 

“Police! Police! I want to go back. The way is clogged. The way is blocked. It’s-” I didn’t have the energy to yell anymore. It was so late and I was so tired. Suddenly, its mouth didn’t look so terrible. Nothing felt quite so right as being in that moment. 

There was a terrible wet sound as I was sure I was swallowed up at that moment. 

But then there was a tap on my nose.

“Make up your mind yet?” asked a pair of fish lips. 

“Are you going to set me free? Are you going to beat up that monster?” I asked. 

The policeman leaned over me, somehow bigger than everything I've ever known and yet his head didn’t even graze the ceiling. I was just small. 

“There are no monsters here.” said the officer. He picked up the creature like it was just a little kitten. “This one just wants to go back to bed. Isn’t that right?” 

Silence still. He turned back to me, 

“No, the only person getting a beating here is you.” 

He extended the rod, freshly covered in his own blood. Somehow the spikes seemed sharper and the club was much heavier than before. 

I fell backwards into the water, which grew shallow as the policeman swelled. 

“Eeeeeeverything you will receeeeeive now is entirely deseeeeerved.”

I looked up at him, and was surprised I felt joy. Nobody was around to watch this terrible thing happen. It only had to happen to me. 

I nodded my head. 

The fish leaned down, holding all of me in his hands. 

“Doooon’t waaaaaste it now.” 

I braced myself for the first swing. 

I felt a light tap on my head. I opened my eyes to protest, but everything was gone. There was just sunlight and a cold bed and dirt on my bare feet. And a boy looking at me from the door. 

“Connie?” 

“It’s Connor, Pops,” he said, unevenly. 

I rubbed the night deeper into my eyes. 

“Could you come closer, Connor? I really can’t see you.” 

 “Did something happen to your eyes. Are you alright?” 

“No, but it would help if you came closer.” 

He was standing just beside my bed. Upon closer inspection, he had whiskers on his 

chin, just a few zits here and there. He was getting old. 

“What was it like running away?” I asked him softly. 

His eyes were downcast. He wouldn’t even look at me. 

“I was scared. I was so alone. I was so-” he had to bite his lip to keep from quivering. It was a trick I knew well. 

“Was it fun?” 

“No. Yes. It was...lonely but it was loud.”  he was honest here. 

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” he said through his teeth. He didn’t mean it. I knew that. He just wanted to get this over with. 

. I stayed silent for just a second, wondering what my own father would have done here. I clenched my hand from the memory. He flinched then.

 I think my body knew what to do. 

It was warm. And it was close and tight and most of all quiet, save for our heartbeats and the silent sobs that he so desperately tried to hold in.

“It won’t be so noisy anymore.” I told him, feeling the heat stream out of my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know it’s been hard with your mom gone, but we have each other alright. It’ll be okay now. I was just worried.” 

“I’m so sorry. I just don’t like seeing you so angry. I don’t like seeing you so-” He couldn’t finish his sentence. He was so big in my arms already. He already had that look in his eye that told me he knew everything. But I was lucky enough to still have him here in the moment.  

“It’s okay. I walked it off.” I told him, letting him go.”You know I saw a rabbit.”

“A rabbit?” I saw his face light up like it was Christmas. “There are rabbits in this city?”

He looked so ready to run. I couldn’t help but smile. 

“Go put on your shoes. Maybe we could go for a walk.”

As he left,  I felt my stomach turn for a second and spat something out into my hand: A tiny little alabaster skull sat in my hand, grinning widely.