A friend, KK, was visiting me, which mysteriously made me feel trapped. I wanted to get out or to be alone, but I didn’t know why. As I looked around my apartment, which was nothing like any I’ve ever seen, I noticed rust marks and missing paint high up on the kitchen and living room walls. Some of it made sense to me because of leaking and some work that had been done, but much of it mystified me.

I discovered writing on the wall. I thought I should call the manager to have the walls repainted, but that the writing must be my responsibility. I ran a finger over the little that I could reach, and it rubbed off. I wondered how they could repaint all these walls with all my possessions in place.

Finally, I got KK outside, where we may have boarded a bus. When we got off, a boy told me about a blind bunny he’d found nearby. Confused at first, I spotted it in the grass by the side of the street. It was ginger and white, like Hodge, so therefore not an eastern cottontail. Its blindness wasn’t obvious.

As I was considering my approach, it hopped over and got under a parked truck. As long as it stayed out of traffic, this didn’t seem too bad — but then the truck started to lower itself. It was going to crush the blind rabbit! I grabbed it, but not in time — its head was caught in the mechanism. I was horrified; I couldn’t free it, and I couldn’t tell if it were already dead. I imagined all kinds of horrors, but I couldn’t let go.

The truck operator must have realized something was wrong, because the truck stopped its descent. I still felt trapped — unable to free the rabbit, afraid of the mutilation or death I would find if I could free its head.