All Hallows Eve…..part three of Man In Picture
I know, I know, I need to establish the character of the rabbit Watership more. It was so painful to write. More detail and back story is needed all around. I know. You gotta admit though it’s gonna be good, as in horrible. Here we go:
Man in picture. More.
March 3, 2008 – 5:25 am He slips inside. The key is smooth, the knob twists. He enters and shuts the door behind, very quiet.
He throws the bolt.
I see it in my head. The bolt.
I smell lamb and garlic.
Then I breathe shit. Overwhelming. No air in these fumes. He smells homeless. He smells like piss and puke and shit and sweat. It’s a stench so monstorous.
I gag.
I’ll retch. I’m sure.
I hear him begin to fill the empty ice trays on the counter. He turns the faucet off after the first one and he whispers….. too full. Very slowly he poors a thin stream into the sink.
He moves to the bathroom.
I see the spring loaded roll snap into place as I hear it.
My eyes are crusted. He’s rolling away from me. Out of my bed.
Crusty eyes and blurry vision.
Out of my bed.
What?
The front door closes.
My rabbit is dead.
His name was Watership and I adored him.
He’s been sprayed on the walls of my apartment.
His skin is on the floor. The carpet. Ears and all. He was my boy. His velvet nose.
He slept in his cage at night. His water bottle smashed on the marble mantle. He was so sweet and docile. Above the fireplace is a crude scrawl in his blood. It looks Japanese.
I think of that song by The Vapors.
There is fur in the wire around the door of his cage, he liked his cage, he came and went willingly, so I undersand he struggled violently.
He was soft and cocoa brown. His eyes were kind and he shuffled to rub his face on me.
Ever heard a rabbit scream? I have. Sounds like a baby human.
I break all the way down. Collapse. Fold. Fall. Lose it.
I scrape his remains.
Thoroughly. I collect them, all I can get or lift, and deposit them in a ceramic pot I made in grade school.
I don’t know what to do with bowl so I cover it in plastic wrap and put it in the freezer. I’m disgusted by it but it’s all I have.
His name was Watership, I adored him.
As I sit here, I miss him. He was innocence.
There’s a big piece of lumber always propped against the wall by my trash chute. It’s handy for forcing fat bags of trash down the maw. It looks vaguely nautical, like it should be on a medium sized sailboat. It’s been here for the two years I’ve been here.
I take it with me. Back to my apartment.
Hours after dawn and I still smell his fucking pigs.
I will wait forever for him.
He is fucked.
I’m not sure what he is. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill him.