The Rabbit Hole
February Flash Fiction submission #1: write about a garden.
The Rabbit Hole
She destroyed the bunny in three rips with her finely honed canines. Kept it guarded in the jail of her teeth while she swallowed organs and sinew, bone and fur.
She felt so guilty.
She had wanted to be a good girl, even when the man in the cold house beat her with a stick and branded her behind, calling her bad, bad, bad and locking her inside for days.
The current shame and the former memories devoured her like she devoured the bunny and she crawled into the empty rabbit hole, wondering if she could ever be a good girl again. Or if she ever had been a good girl at all.
She could hear the mini-human panting through the garden, calling her name, squeaking her toy, and offering treats. Oh how she wanted to jump out and be scratched and belly rubbed and played. But she was a bad girl. She did not deserve this big garden and this nice human and this warm home.
The human stopped calling and grew quiet. She saw a rabbit hole. She crawled into it. The earth, the worms, the pebbles - is that a fossil? - were all fascinating. She needed to learn about all of it.
The silence panicked the dog who went sniffing for her master. Genetics overcame angst and she found and followed the human’s milk - and-cheerios scent, sniffing past the herbs and around the flowers, finally stopping at the rabbit hole where the human was studying nature.
Realizing that her master must be a bad girl, too, since she was also in a rabbit hole, the dog lay beside her, stretching out in the warm sunshine, poised to chase the next bunny that might hop by.