In all the fairytales I've read, rabbits are lucky creatures. My mother says the only lucky rabbits are the old ones. The only ones to escape the jaws of fear, to escape the teeth they did not have themselves. Would it be luck to have such teeth? Would it be luck to invite more conflict yet have the means to crush it?
What terrible luck it is to have my prayers answered. To not only escape, but snap back at the jaws of fear, to see that terror on the outside looking in. Is it joy? Is it relief?
I hoped for pride. All I received were tears and a scarf of stars. She pointed to the opposite direction and said, with finality...
"Never show your teeth, lest you haunt the world."
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Eli set his pencil down and pressed his knuckles against his palm, the crack of each joint ringing loudly in his ear. He was approaching hour three and a third page one. Like the last, he contemplates tossing this one in the trash. A solid ten minutes pass as he reads it over and over again, thinking only, "No one is going to get this." as he straightens the stack of papers.
Write a story. There could not have been a simpler request from his second favorite teacher. It's hardly his first time doing it, but never had there been...pressure.
Aching head in his even worse aching paws, he groans. He doesn't dare look at the clock or peek out the window, as if time will stand still if he doesn't see it pass.
And then there was a knock, "Eli, baby. Get to bed soon, kay?" comes the flat voice of his mother, followed by the sound of her shuffling back off to the other side of the house.
The bun sighs and reaches for the pencil, thinking surely he could get another quick paragraph in. There is a pinch in his wrist as he grips, causing him to drop it and bring his paw to his chest.
Leaning back in his chair, rubbing the pain away as he absent-mindedly stares at the popcorn on his ceiling, he can think only one thought.
