All stories

-- Hey little rabbit. You look like you’re lost.

-- No I’m not lost, said the Rabbit, just temporarily misplaced.

That wasn’t something that usually happened when speaking to animals, the questions to the cat didn’t need answers and fortuitously never got answers.

The rabbit looked him in the eyes and asked for a light. The rabbit was smoking…smoking a cigar, a cheroot to be precise, whilst draped decorously, no, languorously around a gilt picture frame.

He knew that frame, recognised it and the photo it contained from somewhere, but he couldn’t quite catch the memory. A small blonde child, with enormous blue eyes that followed him around the room. Now he was pacing, anxious and also feeling terribly misplaced himself.

What was happening

-- You’re dying, said the rabbit.

He didn’t know he had spoken out loud.

-- You didn’t, said the Rabbit.

-- When you say I’m dying, what exactly do you mean?

-- This is what dying looks like, this is the threshold, the bit just before your heart stops. It’s like dreaming except it’s real. I actually am a talking rabbit.

This was a bit of a shock, unexpected in the extreme. Dying. The word sounded peculiar, especially coming from a rabbit. Why was he dying, he hadn’t known he was ill?

-- You were shot

-- What do you mean I was fucking shot, that can’t be right!

-- With a shot gun

The room spun. At least he thought it was a room. It looked like all the rooms he had ever been in. It spun faster and faster whilst he stood still. He saw flashes and fragments of things he knew, people he had met, places he had been. From the jumble a figure coalesced before him.

-- Who is that fella – the one with the wellies and the green jacket.?

-- That’s the Farmer said the rabbit. The one that shot you.

A shooting accident then, a mistake. Somehow that thought soothed him and he looked again at the angelic child in the picture frame.

-- Perhaps I won’t die rabbit. I think I would like to go and meet that child. I want to go to the cinema, read books, eat out, hug my wife, laugh with my friends.

-- But you don’t have any friends and you never go out. Your wife hates you and she has been having an affair with the farmer

The room wasn’t spinning any more, it was still and silent like a field in the snow. The rabbit blew him a kiss and hopped into the frame, which was now empty. The golden--haired child had gone.

He knew he was weeping, noisily. Then with a flash, he was back in the woods, rain mizzling about him, something wet and slimy oozing from his gut.

-- Ssssshhhhhh

-- Kneel down

He heard the words and felt the cold steel against is temple.

-- Time to go little man, said the farmer,

-- After all, 3 is company and 4 is a crowd.

It started with a clock that was facing just slightly the wrong way. Of course, I didn’t think of it like that until much later. At the time I was sleepy and confused because the streetlight outside glinted off the clock’s shiny plastic surface and I couldn’t see what time it was.

I swivelled it to face me. 6.30am. Dylan was fast asleep beside me and the alarm would go off in half an hour anyway, so I slid quietly out of bed and shrugged on my dressing gown to shuffle downstairs and make the tea.

I wouldn’t have thought any more about the clock if it hadn’t been for a few other strange little things I noticed; the salt cellar that had disappeared reappeared inexplicably beside its replacement like a reflection; a new picture frame smashed before I had a chance to add the photo from Becky’s wedding; the grill, alight when we came back from a late lunch, Dylan swearing he’d turned it off after making the toast.

Dylan called it ‘Susanna’s little ghost’, wrapping my forgetfulness in a sheet and casting it in the role of a mischievous spirit.

But I was beginning to lose my cool with him too. Could he not remember to shut the attic when he’d been up there for his camping gear? Or put the empty milk bottle out if he finished one?

Our usually happy marriage was beginning to sour. We started snapping at each other, silently building up a little cache of resentment that seeped into even the happy spells.

It all clicked into place when Dylan was out on his camping trip. I was happily starfishing in our double bed when I noticed that he had, once again, left the attic hatch in our bedroom open after fetching his camping gear - not all the way, just a few inches, but how hard was it to pull it all the way and fasten it shut? I felt the now familiar surge of irritation bubble up in my gut.

Honestly, he knew I was worried there were rats up there and the last thing we wanted was for them to get into the main house. But the bed was warm and I found myself drifting off to sleep before I could see to it.

I woke up to slow, deliberate footsteps making their way across my bedroom floorboards.

“Don’t worry about creeping, Dyl, you sound like a drunk rabbit,” I slurred, sleepily “I’m awake, just get into bed.”

The footsteps stopped and I felt a weight beside me on the mattress. The weather must have been awful if they’d left the campsite in the middle of the night to come home, I thought, smugly pleased that I had never been a camping person. And I fell quickly back to sleep.

When I woke the bed beside me was rumpled, but empty. My phone flashed with three new messages. I slid upright, rubbing my eyes and unlocked my phone to find three beautiful sunrise photographs from Dyl and a message ‘Morning beautiful. Doesn’t this make you wish you’d come with us after all?’.

Sent at 6.22am today.

Downstairs in the kitchen the hob top kettle began to scream.

It was midnight and the bartender had left him the keys and gone home. This was how much of a regular he'd become since she'd broken his heart.

He unscrewed the top of another bottle and poured one for himself and one for Dolores.

The stranger who had just come in didn't say much, he just sat there nursing a brandy sidecar, seemingly happy with his own company.

Flopsy, took a long draw on his Kentucky bourbon.

"Aaah whassa point." He said out loud.

"I never was nothing without ya Dolores"

The stranger smoked another cigarette.

It was a typical evening at the lonely hearts saloon.

To an outsider there would be

nothing to see here, just another couple of normal Joes, broken on the wheel of life, either the drink or the dames, possibly both.

The only difference was that one of them had long ears.

His fur was dirty, his suit hadn't been washed for a good few months and when he talked to Dolores he addressed the picture of a broad that he had placed on the bar.

She was cute, with big blue peepers the kind who could cause a whole lot of trouble for a working stiff like Flopsy with a little money put by.

"Dolores, why did you do it to me, whydyahavetaleaveme????" A tear fell from his cheek and on to smoke stained bar top.

The stranger said nothing but walked over the bar and hit the drunk firmly with what you can only described as a rabbit punch.

"What was that for buddy" said the buck struggling to regain his perch on the tall barstool.

"Pull yourself together" said the stranger "is this how you would want her to think of you."

Then he cut the picture of the dame from the frame rolled it up and put it behind the bar.

"Now let's have a nice drink just me and you."

Flopsy looked back and saw a look in the stranger's eyes he hadn't expected. An expression that might, on a less taciturn guy, be mistaken for something amorous. He was so manly. Very different from Flopsy.

The stranger put a firm hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes.

"I could see the first time I saw you you were the guy for me", he said unbuttoning his gabardine coat.

Flopsy couldn't quite measure his own feelings, but they weren't negative, in fact he was somewhat excited by the surprising advance of the charismatic and enigmatic stranger.

The stranger reached for his paw and clasped it gently.

A frisson of excitement raced through flopsy's veins.

"Now kiss me you big lummox" commanded the stranger. He was not a man it was easy to refuse.

Within moments the pair were locked in a deep embrace.

The stranger removed his coat and jacket and began to remove his belt.

"Before we begin I have just one request" said Flopsy.

"Sure" said the stranger "I'm broadminded" .

The rabbit looked over at the rolled up picture in the corner.

"Can Dolores watch? I think she might have liked to".

The stranger shrugged.

"Sure why not. Three's company! It could be the start of something beautiful".

And from that day forth, they were inseparable, a man, a jack rabbit and a photograph. A typical little threesome, living and loving the best way they could in the city of angels and the land of lost love.

For who amongst us arrives in this disappointing flop house we call life hoping only to be lonely forever?