Rabbit's Milk

"Where am I?"

I look around me and I see walls of glass. Yet beyond the glass is nothingness-white. It scares me and chills me to the bone. I'm afraid to move. The icy fingers of fear frostbiting my toes, slowing my breath.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Nothing but my echoes and the madness of my mind.

"You know, you might want to try scaling the wall."

I spin around. Who said that? And I see straight in front of me, a white rabbit. Pink eyes, long ears, and strong hind legs ready to pounce.

His pink eyes look up. "See. There's a hole up there."

I gawk as the realization of a talking rabbit soaks into my brain but I am not troubled by him for some reason. The presence of another...anything..was comforting. I look up and then back down. Yes, there was a hole up there. The glass walls....the funneling of the room to the top hole in the ceiling. I was in a bottle. A glass bottle.

"Who are you? Where am I?" Was I really talking to a rabbit?

The rabbit bounces around which causes its thumbing to echo throughout the bottle. "This is a milk bottle. And I am a rabbit named......Maurice." He smiles at the made-up name. "But those aren't the questions that are important now because you already knew that." He smiles and his teeth are sharp.

This sight frightens me and I cross my arms, puff out my chest in a futile attempt to seem in control. "I can't scale the walls. The walls are too smooth. Its glass." I palm my way up but my toes don't leave the ground. "If I were you, I would try to hop out, I suppose."

"But you assume that I am here to escape. But I am not. " He smiles again, the sharp teeth are still there.

I smile back. More of a timid grimace. I think. I think hard. What was I doing last. Where was I before I woke up here?

Mother.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I spin around because it wasn't me nor the rabbit who knocked on the glass wall. I see my mother. But she's on the other side of the wall, outside of the bottle. She's trying to tell me something. I run up to where she is and wish to hug her, hold her, feel her safety.

I cannot hear her. I cannot make out her silent wailings. She keeps knocking and it echoes throughout the bottle. It makes my head hurt.

"STOP, MOM. I CAN'T HEAR YOU. STOP IT" But she continues until I close my eyes hard and wish her to stop. I open my eyes again and she's gone. The silent screams gone. The knocking gone.

"Where'd she go?" I turn toward the rabbit who is licking his paw.

He's startled as if he didn't realize it was his turn to speak in a school play. He listens to the empty space as if someone from off stage feeding him his lines.

"Are you sure that was your mother? Or is that just what you wanted to see?" He continues licking his paw.

My mind races. My eyes burn with salty tears of fear and frustration.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!"

I grab the rabbit by its foot and swing it around around around around around until my steps feel heavy and my head it light with dizziness. I hurl the rabbit against the glass wall over over over over over over. Until there's blood on his white fur. Cracked skull against the clear walls.

Finally one last crash of his head against the wall brings the whole bottle crashing down around me and I'm left with, blood in my hair, shards in my skin and a rabbit foot in my hand.