“Rabbit Food” by Altivo Overo

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You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.

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I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

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and Today’s story is

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“Rabbit Food” by Altivo Overo,

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who is a horse of a different color

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(perhaps even octarine)

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and you can find more of his stories on the web at Weasyl,

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Furaffinity, and of course,

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The Voice of Dog podcast.

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“Rabbit Food”

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by Altivo Overo Phil leaned back in his chair and stretched,

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then rubbed his tired eyes. He squinted at the digital clock on the shelf above the monitor and blinked.

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Two in the morning?

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Enough of this leveling stuff, he thought.

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I have better things to do than spend hours on networked gaming.

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He signed off from the multiplayer system

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and closed off his network connection

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to keep hackers out of his computer.

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As he stood up and stretched again,

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yawning like a hippopotamus, he realized that he'd forgotten dinner.

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"Damn," he said to himself, "anyone who claims that stuff isn't addictive is either a fool or lying.

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lying." His stomach muttered,

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and he staggered into the kitchen in search of food.

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The fridge was nearly empty, he knew,

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but he opened it and peered in hopefully.

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A few forlorn cans of soda and beer glittered in the sudden light,

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along with a plastic bag half-full of slightly shriveled apples

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and a bottle of ketchup.

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Not much help there.

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Thank goodness for college campuses with amenities tuned for student populations, he thought,

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as he grabbed his car keys and pulled on his jacket.

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While the engine in his old VW was warming up,

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he considered his options.

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Pizza? Nah, had that twice this week.

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Chicken? Too greasy.

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He was trying to reform his diet enough to lose at least a little weight.

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He pulled out of his driveway and turned up

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University Avenue toward an all-night sandwich shop he visited occasionally.

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The place was nearly deserted when he got there.

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One couple sat in a corner booth with plastic coffee cups in front of them.

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They were wedged so close together on the same side of the table that they might have been Siamese twins,

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and didn't even look up when the bell on the door jingled as Phil entered.

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The night time counter girl came up from behind the refrigerator case with a damp rag in her hand

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and offered him a slightly buck-toothed grin

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as she washed and wiped her hands with a paper towel.

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"How may I help you?"

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the girl asked. Except for the teeth, she was rather attractive, Phil thought.

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She just needed to lose those big round glasses

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and have a course of orthodontia.

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Her almost straight hair hung in heavy braids that looked like lop ears.

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"I'd like the sliced turkey sub, hold the mayo and lettuce,"

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Phil told the girl, offering what he hoped was a winsome smile.

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It never hurt to show a little interest, he figured.

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She nodded. "Sure thing,

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for here or to go?" "To go, please.

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please." Phil hesitated for a moment,

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then added "Whole wheat roll if you have

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one." "Fresh batch just delivered,"

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the girl said, and turned to the back counter,

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pulling on a disposable plastic glove to assemble the sandwich.

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Phil noticed that her apron was tied in a double bow right above her rounded derrière.

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It made him think of those photos of Playboy bunnies in their silly costumes, with a poofy little tail behind.

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He was lost in rather distracted thought by the time the girl slipped his sub into a white paper sack

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and set it down on the counter.

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"Anything to drink with that?"

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she asked, and he shook his head.

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"Bag of chips? They're free with any full sized sub this week."

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Phil was tempted, but said "No, thanks,"

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and tried to feel virtuous as he handed over the $3.37 for the sandwich.

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"Have a good night then,"

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the girl said, with a wink,

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and picked up her cloth to resume cleaning.

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"Thanks," he told her,

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noticing that the couple in the corner booth had moved even closer together,

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something he would have thought physically impossible, but there it was.

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He let the door tinkle behind him,

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climbed into his VW

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and headed straight back home.

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The side door of the house refused to yield to his key,

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as it sometimes did in damp weather.

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Phil walked around to the front door, which was better sheltered from the elements,

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and unlocked it to let himself in.

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He didn't turn the hall light on,

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and swore softly to himself as his foot caught in the wire cage

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resting on the floor in the shadows.

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"Damn Suzy and her rabbit too," he grumbled, but immediately thought better of it,

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and picked up the empty cage to carry it into the kitchen.

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It was his own fault for leaving it there instead of putting it out of the way.

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Phil's sister had kept a pet rabbit for years,

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an amazing number of years in fact.

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He was sure bunnies didn't normally live to be sixteen years old,

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but that's how long her Bunowitz had lasted.

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The chubby black and white rabbit had run loose in Suzy's room when she was there,

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and lived in the cage when she was at school or work.

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His long floppy ears had nearly dragged on the floor,

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and he had a propensity for nibbling things but was quite fastidious about using his litter box, so their mother had tolerated him fairly well.

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Only the week before, his Mom had told him that Bunowitz had finally passed over to the big meadow in the sky.

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Suzy was taking it well, she told him,

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but would he mind taking the cage away to keep her from brooding on the loss?

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He'd agreed, and picked it up while Suzy was in class two days earlier,

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then left it inside the front door when he got home.

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For all they'd fought with each other growing up,

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Phil was fond of his sister and respected her deep affection for her pet.

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He'd intended to check the pet stores in town and see about getting her a new rabbit,

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but his mother wanted him to wait a couple of weeks first.

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He put the cage into the utility room next to the washer and dryer,

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and returned to the kitchen where he'd dropped his bagged sandwich on the table. Phil pulled a couple of paper napkins out of the package on top of the fridge, and got himself a beer (lite, of course) from the interior, and sat down to eat.

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His stomach was still complaining.

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Good thing tomorrow was Sunday

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and he didn't have to get up for work.

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He unwrapped the sub,

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and found that in spite of his instructions, the girl had loaded it with shredded lettuce.

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"Damn it," he said aloud. "I told her to hold the rabbit food,"

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as he carefully picked the greenery out of the turkey and sliced tomatoes.

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He didn't mind the tomatoes, but he'd never understood what people saw in lettuce.

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Phil figured it tasted just like shreds of green paper, only soggier.

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Leaving the lettuce in a little haystack on the waxed paper wrapping,

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Phil bit into the sub.

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Not bad, actually.

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Interspersed with swallows of the beer,

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he began to polish it off, still thinking about the girl in the shop.

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She wasn't bad looking at all.

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Maybe if he saw her there another time or two, he could ask her

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for a date. The teeth weren't all that horrible, when he considered her big brown eyes and long hair.

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He finished the sub and bit into the pickle the girl had wrapped with it.

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He didn't usually eat those, but the salty garlic taste of the brined cucumber

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seemed to blend so well with the remaining beer that he just

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went with the flow

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and finished them both.

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Leaving the wrappings and the beer can on the table,

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Phil switched off the kitchen light

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and headed for the bathroom to prepare for bed.

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He was yawning repeatedly now.

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Sometime before dawn,

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a fire truck went by out on University Avenue

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and the siren awakened Phil from an odd dream.

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It had seemed, he thought, like something from the network role playing game.

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He was trapped inside a cage and couldn't figure out how to escape.

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After a while he began to be thirsty,

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but there was no water.

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Huge birds began to gather outside the cage,

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eyeing him hungrily and whistling to one another.

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The whistles merged into the passing siren as he woke up,

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sweating and thirsty.

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I should know better than to drink beer right before going to bed, he thought,

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heading for the bathroom to piss and get a drink of water.

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He flushed and reached for the glass he normally kept on the sink but

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it wasn't there. Oh yeah, he'd put it in the dishwasher yesterday because it was looking pretty grubby.

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So he padded down the hall to the kitchen on his bare feet,

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wearing only his boxer shorts.

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After all, it was his own house,

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and there was no one else to be offended or embarrassed, he thought.

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Phil didn't bother to switch on the kitchen light.

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There was enough illumination from the street outside so he could avoid bumping into anything.

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He picked his coffee mug up from the counter

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and rinsed it under the tap,

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filling it with cold water which he drank noisily.

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Then something in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

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There was a faint glow from among the sandwich leavings on the table.

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"I'm still dreaming,"

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Phil told himself,

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and just then dribbled cold water from the mug down his front.

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"Nope," he said, setting the mug down. "That's real enough."

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He leaned over the table, peering at the waxed papers and sandwich bag.

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It was the lettuce he'd left lying there in a heap.

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He could swear it was flickering with a greenish light.

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He cupped his hands around the little pile of greens to block the glow of the streetlights throught the window over the sink.

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There was definitely a very faint

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but discernible light from the shredded greens.

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Weird, he thought.

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Must be some luminescent bacteria or something.

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Glad I didn't eat it.

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Rather than turn the light on so he could see to toss all the debris into the trash,

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and reveal himself standing there in his boxer shorts to Mrs. Johnsen,

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whose bedroom window faced his kitchen across the driveway,

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he turned his back on the whole thing and went back to bed.

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The dream returned.

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The birds outside the cage were holding up bottles of Evian water in their beaks to taunt him.

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His mouth was parched.

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He couldn't even close his lips, it seemed, they were so dry.

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His upper lip clove to his incisors,

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forcing him to practice Anglo-Saxon attitudes in order to free it.

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He wondered if the Lion and the Unicorn were about to start fighting for the crown.

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The next thing that happened was stranger than his expectation, though.

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A brown and white rabbit doe hopped up to the cage.

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He wasn't sure how he knew it was a doe,

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but he had no doubts about it.

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She was carrying a leaf of lettuce in her mouth,

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which she laid on the ground just out of his reach.

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He tried to reach it by turning his face from the bars and reaching through

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to grab it by feel, and almost succeeded,

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but he felt the lettuce tear in his fingers so that only shreds were retrieved.

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He chewed eagerly on the shreds to get what little juice he could out of them.

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Phil's feet felt cold.

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I'm dreaming, he thought.

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They must be sticking out from under the blanket.

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But he could feel the hard smooth floor of the cage under them.

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It was at this point

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that he woke up enough to hear another fire engine passing on the road outside.

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He found himself not in bed,

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but in the kitchen where he could see the reflections of the passing emergency lights on the

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neighboring windows.

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He got up from the table

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and turned on the tap to get another drink of water because his mouth

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really was dry just as in the dream.

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He heard a sucking sound as air rushed into the spout.

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No water pressure.

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Must be quite some emergency up the way, he thought.

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Phil sat down again at the table,

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trying not to think of the remaining beer and diet soda in the fridge.

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He knew those would fail to quench a real thirst,

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and might actually aggravate it.

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Phil was thinking about the dream and fiddling with the sandwich wrappings on the table when suddenly

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he realized that he was chewing on something juicy and slightly sweet.

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Looking down at the table and his hands, he realized that

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he was tasting the last of the shredded lettuce which he had carefully picked out of the debris.

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"Jeez, I guess rabbit food is good for something after all,"

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he said aloud. This time he gathered the sandwich wrappings and the empty can

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and tossed them into the trash.

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Then he made his way back to the bedroom, and fell asleep as soon as he got under the blanket.

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The next dream was full of the sound of running water,

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like a stream running over smoothed stones.

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Phil was trying to find the stream, but kept getting tangled in vines and brambles that slowed him down.

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Gradually he awakened enough to realize that he was snarled in the sheets,

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with his ankles nearly tied together.

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Once disentangled,

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he also realized that the rushing water sound hadn't gone away.

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Phil got out of bed again,

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turning his head back and forth to try to locate the sound.

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It was coming from the

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kitchen, and when he got there he found the water running hard in the sink.

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Fortunately, the drain was clear and it hadn't overflowed.

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He must have left it turned on, he thought.

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Cold morning gray was creeping into the sky outside,

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and he had thoughts of coffee. Well,

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OK, might as well get up.

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Maybe he'd be tired enough to really sleep for a while later in the day.

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He reached for the light switch,

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and then remembered Mrs. Johnsen and the fact that he was still wearing only his shorts.

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He went back to the bedroom and pulled on a sweatshirt.

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His toenails caught in the sweatpants as he put them on,

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and he made a mental note to trim them.

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Realizing that his feet still felt cold on the floor,

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Phil felt for a pair of moccasins under the bed, found them after a minute,

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and started to put them on.

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He couldn't get his heel into the slipper, though.

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It was as if the deerskin had shrunken, but that was ridiculous.

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He had worn them just the week before, he was sure.

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Finally he turned on the bedside light to figure out what was wrong.

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Phil stared unbelievingly

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at one foot and then the other,

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picking them up from the floor to examine the soles as well.

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"I'm still dreaming,"

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he said aloud. "Damn it.

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No more late night snacks and going to sleep on a full stomach. This is going too far.

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far." He put a hand over his eyes and rubbed his forehead,

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but stopped as he realized that he was endangering his eyes with those sharp fingernails.

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Then he felt something soft and velvety draped against his wrist.

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Dreading what he would see, he staggered to the mirror over the bureau.

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Red eyes stared back at him.

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Not blood-shot, but red,

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with pink irises.

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Instead of screaming or fainting,

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Phil peered curiously at his reflection.

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His ears were gone.

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No, wait, they had moved to the top of his head and were hanging down at the sides.

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That's what he had felt against his wrist.

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Convinced he was just dreaming it all, he reached with his right hand to feel the texture

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of his ear leather again, but what he

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saw in the mirror was not a hand.

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It was distinctly a paw,

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with long transparent claws

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and white fur on the back.

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He shifted his gaze from mirror to look directly at his hand,

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turning it over to show the palm side.

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It had pink skin, with white fur tufting up between the digits.

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At least he still had a thumb, he thought.

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Phil looked into the mirror again,

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watching his own nose twitch as he breathed.

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This time the whole picture sank into his consciousness.

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There was no doubt about it,

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he looked like an Easter bunny wearing a ratty sweatshirt.

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His moustache was gone, replaced by long transparent whiskers.

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His new harelip was fetchingly parted to show a charming pair of white incisors.

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He tried to make his ears stand up and failed.

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But then, he'd never been able to wiggle his ears as a human either, so maybe he was a natural lop.

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If this were a dream,

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at least it was being consistent.

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He looked down at his feet,

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which were still rabbit feet just as he'd thought when he failed to cram them into the moccasins a few moments ago.

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Well, this would be a heart-stopper if Mrs. Johnsen looked in the window and saw him,

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he thought with a chuckle,

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and went back bare-pawed to the kitchen to make coffee.

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While the coffee dripped,

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Phil extracted a couple of the slightly withered apples from the refrigerator.

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Somehow they seemed much more appealing than they had the previous night,

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and he decided they might do for an impromptu breakfast.

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Still convinced he was dreaming,

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he wondered when he would finally wake up.

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Well, it was amusing enough, so no hurry, he thought.

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The black coffee was still good,

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the way he usually took it.

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The apples were much better than he remembered them being,

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and he ate both of them, seeds and all.

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Some nagging thought

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nibbled the edge of his awareness,

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telling him that apple seeds were poisonous, but he didn't think a dozen or so were enough to worry about.

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Phil yawned widely.

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Maybe he should go back to bed after all.

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Even with the coffee, he felt sluggish.

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It was Sunday, so no problem.

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His Mom would probably stop by sometime in the early afternoon,

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when she was done with church.

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That was a normal routine.

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He wanted to ask her about getting Suzy a new rabbit,

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though he'd already suggested his intention and she'd approved it.

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He walked back to the bedroom,

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noting that he still walked on the flats of his feet rather than on his toes like a real rabbit.

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Pulling the blanket over himself, he said

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"OK, time to wake up from this. It's been fun, but..."

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The sun was shining in the bedroom window right onto his pillow when he woke up again.

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Phil yawned and tried to go back to sleep, but realized

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he was too hot. He was panting.

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Panting? He tried to kick the blanket off but his toenails caught in something,

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leading to a struggle to get free.

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The next thing he realized, he was on the floor on all fours.

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He could see the sleeve of the orange sweatshirt he'd been wearing,

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dangling over the edge of the bed.

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Somehow he'd wiggled out of it, or removed it without realizing, he thought.

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In this position he had an unusually good view of the floor under the bed.

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It didn't have dust bunnies,

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it had dust elephants.

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Even his mom didn't look under there, and he could see why.

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Phil tried to get to his feet,

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but only succeeded in sitting up on his haunches,

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stretching enough to bring his eyes to the level of the mattress.

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There were the sweatshirt,

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and his gray sweatpants, lying in a tangle on the bed.

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His boxer shorts were there too,

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and he looked down self-consciously to see that he was now covered

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with snowy white fur.

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Uh oh, he thought. No wonder he was only as tall as the bed now.

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He wondered if he should go to the ER for treatment,

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but thought better of it.

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Evidently he wasn't dreaming,

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but this seemed impossible.

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Even if that lettuce in his sub had been radioactive,

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it wouldn't have done this.

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Or would it? Starting back down the hall toward the kitchen,

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he realized he was springing forward on his elongated feet now,

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landing on his toes and front paws.

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Hopping like a bunny,

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oh joy. He could still read the kitchen clock.

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It was half past eleven.

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Mom should come by in about an hour.

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How would he explain the situation?

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Could he even talk now?

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As an experiment,

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Phil tried reciting the Gettysburg Address.

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"Four score and seven years ago..." he began, but stopped when he realized that

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nothing was coming out but a wheezing snuffle of a sound.

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All right, he thought, don't panic.

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There has to be a way to make the best of this.

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Then the realization came to him.

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He hopped into the utility room,

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where Bunowitz's old cage was sitting,

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door open. He climbed into the cage.

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It was roomier than he expected.

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There were still some alfalfa pellets in the small dish clamped to the bars, and he had to admit

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they smelled edible if not exactly like a gourmet dinner.

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There was water in the bottle, too,

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and he drank gratefully,

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his elongated incisors rattling against the metal tube in an encouraging way.

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Now he just had to wait.

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After about an hour, he heard the front doorbell.

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Well, he couldn't very well open it in his present state.

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He knew that his mother would have her key,

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and would let herself in the kitchen door if he failed to answer.

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Then she would sit down at the table

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and leave him a note.

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Phil hoped that the door had dried out enough in the morning sun to open easily now.

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It did. There were two voices,

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and he realized that Suzy was there with his mom.

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He wasn't sure what the reaction would be when they found him,

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so he tried to stay calm

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and act as if everything were perfectly normal.

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He recognized Suzy's red tennis shoes as she stepped into the utility room and peered around.

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"Hey, Mom!" she called.

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"Phil's got a bunny now.

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A cute white one." His mother leaned around the corner of the door and stared.

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"I see," she said. "He asked me if he could get you another rabbit after Bunowitz died.

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I guess this must be the one."

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"Cool!" Suzy knelt down by the cage and held out a hand to him.

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Phil couldn't resist hopping toward her

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and rubbing his head on her hand,

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as he had seen Bunowitz do many times.

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"Hey," she laughed, "he even acts like Bunowitz.

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Do you suppose it's OK if we take him home with us now, even though Phil isn't here?"

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"I think so, dear," her mother answered.

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"Just let me leave him a note.

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He must have been called in to work or something.

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Those computers are always breaking down somehow."

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All right, Phil thought.

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Maybe they'll figure it out in time,

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or maybe not. But at least I won't starve or go without anything in the meantime.

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He fought to keep his balance

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as his sister snapped the cage door shut

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and picked the whole thing up,

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carrying it to the kitchen door.

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"Do you think he'll mind if I call this new bunny Philip?" she asked.

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This was “Rabbit Food”

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by Altivo Overo,

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read for you by Khaki,

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your faithful fireside companion.

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As always, you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,

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or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.

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Thank you for listening

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to The Voice of Dog