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Bunzo was a rabbit of four months with a stout body and poor hind limb. Bored of his days laying with the bark and clovers, he trudged to the edge of the woods until he found the Light.

***

The Light was heaven. When he discovered the grassy plains of endless warmth, he knew there could be no sweeter paradise. The ground cushioned his steps like a bed, the sun’s heat blanketed him, happily unobstructed by the trees that darkened the forest Bunzo came from. He ambled towards the sweet freshness of vegetables sprouting from the dirt. He’d stay forever if he didn’t have to return to his colony.

A man lived there, in a farmhouse. He was a godly figure. Bunzo watched him through the back door in awe. He sat at the centremost spot at the table, he took the first bite of the food served to him, he commanded attention. Bunzo knew his name.

Larry.

What those who stood below him called him.

Larry.

Bunzo watched Larry eat from the bowl his wife placed and drink from the cup his son filled. He watched as Larry spotted him and stepped out the door, holding a plate.

‘I like rabbits,’ Larry mused, looking down upon Bunzo, a gold halo of sunlight filtering through his hair. ‘It’s why I don’t keep dogs ’round ‘ere.’

The plate was laid for Bunzo. Warm vegetables! Was he a god too?

***

‘There’s a place,’ Bunzo perched on a rock, looking down upon his colony, ‘Called Farm. The leader is a commander and served by his colony.’

The strongest rabbit, Thorn, stood eye-to-eye with Bunzo. ‘Are you too weak to gather your own food, that we must serve you as humble servants?’

‘Good Thorn, don’t you see? The Larry and his colony live in heaven! Wouldn’t you wish to live that way? He is the great one, and we must live by his example. I shall be your Larry; I shall lead you to the Light.’

Bunzo stood to bump his head on the burrow roof, falling as his hind limb spasmed. Thorn scoffed. Some leader, he thought.

***

In the coming weeks, Bunzo’s missus and children agreed to join his creed, his youngest with shining reverence, because Thorn was a strong rabbit, but Papa was always right. The rest, described as “comers-and-goers,” could not live in their burrow and simply continued as they were.

Despite his heavenly living, Light never came to the wood. The rabbits grew wary, and Bunzo grew fat.

‘I don’t see why you eat so much, you don’t work.’

‘Why must we bring you gifts when you’ve kicked us out the burrow?’

Bunzo complained that he didn’t feel much like a Larry. Only his youngest was unquestioning, and there wasn’t the golden luxury the farm possessed. He demanded a bigger burrow, sweeter vegetables, higher seat. The wretch grew so fat that his poor limb became completely lame.

The rabbits soon came together in their discontentment, led by Thorn.

‘You aren’t so important,’ Thorn had said.

The rabbits turned their gifts of fresh leaves to Thorn, but he waved them away.

‘Feed your young, then feed yourselves.’ Just the way they had always done, Thorn reminded.

Bunzo grew hungry.

***

‘There can only be one leader!’ cried Bunzo, no longer willing to endure the lack of holiness from his colony. He hobbled off his throne and thrusted his foreleg at Thorn. ‘Remove him!’

Bunzo’s eldest attempted to usher Thorn away until his youngest leaped forward, ravaging his face. Unwittingly held down by Bunzo’s eldest, Thorn could not escape. His lungs drew no more breath.

‘The traitor’s blood defiles my home! Let us go to the land and Light.’ Bunzo struggled to the surface.

The woods remained dark. The branches mocked him.

‘Children! Remove that tree. Show me the Light.’

The youngest threw himself against the tree and ground at the trunk with his buck teeth. He refused to stop while the eldest pressed her face to her mother’s breast.

The others turned their backs as Bunzo watched his youngest child exhaust himself and collapse into the tangle of tree roots and dirt.

***

Lame, hungry and useless, Bunzo remembered the farm. The grassy plains of endless warmth. Larry.

The rabbits rejected Bunzo’s guidance, expelled him.

Larry would accept Bunzo, welcome him home. He struggled for days to reach heaven.

The Light, his respite. The sweetest scent of carrots! Larry emerging from the golden fields of his farm!

He saw cows in the open fields, no vegetable patches. He saw a girl with a tool and a terrier. No Larry.

No warmth came from the light Bunzo saw, leaving him achingly numb, aside from the biting soreness in his hind limb. He drew a long breath, then recoiled. Did he imagine the gentle carrot aroma? Could he dream it up again, to mask the smell of cows and their waste?

The approaching girl was not Larry’s wife, not his daughter. The God could not be gone. He wouldn’t leave his heaven. Can’t have his place so easily taken. Surely, he wasn’t exiled too.

Larry was all-powerful.

The sky was grey.

Bunzo looked up, head thrown back. He tried to reach up, grasp the silvery light, hope it still held some warmth, but he was too frail. He was starved.

No, perhaps he wasn’t all-powerful after all.

The girl aimed her tool and shot Bunzo in his lame heel.

‘See that, Dashie? That’s a rabbit. We hunt those.’

Clouds of black crowded his dimming sky.

When little Dashie took the rabbit into her mouth, its face dragged along the damp grass.