SmokeLong Quarterly

The forest was silent in the morning.

The little white rabbit poked his little pink nose out of the rabbit hole.

He climbed out of the hole and pattered across the forest, the very picture of innocence.

Bang! A gunshot burst out of an ancient gun and cracked the silence of the forest, along with the rabbit’s skull. The little white rabbit was now a very red rabbit, and his little pink nose was five feet away.

The pleased human took his prize home to his family and his little girl picked some mushrooms for dinner. Well, rabbits are rabbits but mushrooms aren’t always mushrooms. There aren’t any poisonous rabbits, but you can’t say the same for mushrooms. But how’s a three-year-old girl supposed to know that anyway?

The family had the little white rabbit and mushrooms for dinner that night and died the next day. The town buried them in the forest.

Their bodies made wonderful compost and the soil was rich with nutrients. Time passed, and plentiful, thick green grass sprung up on that soil. That spot became the favorite feeding place for little rabbits everywhere.

And the forest was silent in the morning, except for the sounds of innocent munching.