The Escape

Darius is an old bunny and he got to be so old because he was loved and comfortable. But he isn’t comfortable anymore, not when he was stuffed into a dog-carrier in the middle of a cool April night, and certainly not now, as he rides through the summer heat, choking on cigarette smoke and barely mustering an appetite for the McDonald’s side salad this woman gives him, this woman who smells like the smoke, who doesn’t smell like comfort, like Annette.
He knows he’s tall for a bunny; his four-foot length could let him hop over walls meant to keep him in. But he’s not fast enough or strong enough to get past the lady when she slides the food in - not to mention he really needs that salad when he’s been starving all day.
The lady has been driving for hours, so she takes a smoke break on her feet, stretching her legs. She leaves the hatch door of the van open so that Darius won’t die of the heat, and a tiny mouse finds its way into the bars of the dog carrier, smelling that despite his immense size, the rabbit inside is an herbivore.
When the lady opens the cage to take the salad away, the little mouse, jostled and disturbed, nips her finger. She cries out in pain, turns, and for a second looks away.
Old rabbit Darius is jumping down a few feet from the van, the longest distance he has hopped in years. On the door of the McDonald’s is a poster with his face, and as he hops towards it he just knows: old though he is, he will see his Annette again. He just wishes he had the mouse coming along for the ride.