In my dream I rummaged through the top of my closet to find something, removed some boxes and there it was, a tiny white bunny with its ears gone and two little spots of dried blood where its ears would begin on its head. It stared at me and I felt shame and revulsion at it and myself simultaneously. If it could speak, I thought, it would tell me I had, in the careless days of my childhood, left it there and forgotten it, and to survive, it had to chew its own ears off and eat them. And here I had the gall to be repulsed by it after I had made it this way?

I picked it up (so tiny, it fit into my cupped hands) and carried it down from the closet top. I took it to the vet and told her to put it to sleep so I could sleep again.