We Thought They Were Pets

I wagged a piece of celery in front of Cyclops seductively to no avail. The rabbit was not having it. Even though I named him Cyclops, the rabbit obviously had two eyes. Although in a bout of genetic mischief, heterochromia made one eye right blue and the other inky black void. After some time, I was pretty sure he could see out of both of them, but once the name was given, it couldn't be taken away. Waggle as I might, the rabbit was not going to move from the cage.

Would I have wanted to leave a place of warmth and comfort where every need was taken care of? On further reflection, I rarely leave the apartment, and DoorDash arrives even if it disappoints me. Maybe Cyclops and I are not that far apart. But not even the waggling of fun events from friends gets me off the couch.

Cyclops was a stunningly beautiful rabbit. Long, floppy white ears nearly touched the ground barely hiding the hints of pink skin of his under-ear. He had the fluffiest white coat that made him look substantially bigger than he was. And of course, the cotton-ball tail. Everyone who saw him said they had to get a rabbit immediately.

The coaxing of the vegetables was not simply to feed him. Late last night, when I was sweating into my sheets and fighting a fiendish dream, I woke up to this loud, sharp trilling noise.

At first, I had no clue where it was coming from or what it was. I thought it might be some kind of disaster alert I had yet to hear. But as I stumbled around the house in the dark, I quickly honed in on its origins. Cyclops, it seems, was hell-bent on making this vibrato sound.

I slapped my hand on the wire cage. "Shut up," I hissed. Normally, I would have been filled with concern and patience, but at three in the morning, my only thought was anger about being woken up.

The sound stopped. I sighed and trudged back to bed. Sleep disaster mitigated.

In the morning, I was woken up not by the sound of my alarm, but by the trilling again. I was less grumpy this time around and went to investigate. In his cage, face towards the window, Cyclops made his late-night noise again.

I assumed something was wrong with him, so that is when I tried to lure him out. But he just sat there staring, warbling. I was so focused on Cyclops that I only just realized there was also a cacophony outside.

Car horns blared, people were yelling, and I swore I could hear something engulfed in flames. I quickly moved to the window that Cyclops was locked in on.

I looked out and immediately started to squint my eyes as if sleep had befuddled them. No, it appeared that clouds were rolling along the street. Vast puffy white clouds that undulated in not a cloud-like way. But it wasn't clouds. As the mass moved closer to my window, I could tell it was bunnies, endless waves of them, and they were consuming everything in their wake.

I did wonder at my luck at finding Cyclops waiting out in the middle of a field on a long walk. I think I first noticed that there was a large circle in the field of compressed grass. In the middle of the circle, I spotted him. He sat there, quite docile, as I went up to look at him. He was indifferent to me as I petted his fur. I suspected he was just someone's docile pet that had gotten away.

These bunnies outside were not docile. They were ravenously hungry. There was nothing that ever satiated them.

All of this time, they had been waiting, feeding, and breeding. It didn't take any time at all to have birthed this mass of animal combatants. The Lunar Bunnies were here to take over the Earth.

I really just wanted to stay in my own cage and hide, but that wasn't going to happen. The masses surged against the window as I fell back. I almost laughed as my impending death was going to be at the hands of something so fuzzy and cute.

Cyclops rushed from his cage, darted toward me, and bit the hand that fed him. I recoiled, but then quickly backhanded him away. It only stunned him for a second before he was on his feet again, but so was I. I rushed out of the room and slammed the door. I could hear his wails of frustration intermittently interrupted so he could gnaw at the door. scrape scrape scrape. That door didn't stand a chance.

I peeked out the back window. The yard behind my apartment was rabbit-free, so I dashed outside into the morning sun. As I sprinted into a field by my place, I kept muttering in my mind, "Run, rabbit, run".