—IT’S HARD, SOMETIMES, TRYING TO REMEMBER AND FORGET AT THE SAME TIME 

 

 

Rabbit, Rabbit

 

It just appeared one day, Mother’s German bible with the stark white cover and scrolled lettering that made no sense.

It was never opened, just sat on an end table like a gleaming headstone, the nicest item, by far, in our trailer.

Sis said, That’s where God comes from. 

My brother shook his head, sneered and said, Nah, Dumbshit, it’s where babies come from. 

Like Mother, my siblings were both accomplished liars, so all those years, I filled my ears with wind and dust.

The Christmas before he left, Dad shot an arrow through the window above the sink, then danced naked in a snowdrift by his broke-down Chevy. Mother packed us up quick, like socks tossed in a bag, and we stayed with Uncle Lester, who liked to touch my knee too much.

I snuck out one night and worked myself through the shattered window over the sink, not caring about the chunks of glass or the streams of blood, because for once, it felt good to bleed. 

I figured that bible had to have a power of sorts, that it had something pertinent to tell me, even if was written in a foreign language.

The air still smelled of charred cigarette smoke, sweat and Dad’s booze breath, but I took a deep gulp anyway and held it until my lungs startled to rattle like skeletons.

Then I did it. I turned back the cover. 

At first, nothing. Then a slow plume of purple vapors cycloned out. 

Then rabbits. A dozen rabbits. A hundred. A thousand. 

They rolled over me like clouds, like a sky filled with blinding white fur. 

Their whiskers twitched and tickled my cheek as they sniffed me, testing whether I was good or not. When they hopped off, others hopped on, before I finally scampered right along with them, into a field filled with daisies, sunflowers, and endless light.