I dreamt I was a rabbit

That night, I dreamt of rabbits. Not your average dream where there’s just a rabbit or two off to the side, but a full dream about rabbits.

I was standing in the field, a place I stand almost every day, but it wasn’t quite my field. I mean, it was, but it wasn’t. The barn was still intact and painted a bright shiny red. The fence was upright and the wires were all connected to posts. I could almost smell the cows from the barn.

I almost didn’t see it at first, crouched in the snow. The first rabbit was sitting still as ever. It was its eyes that gave it away. It was round, completely covering its own limbs for some reason. It looked like a dirty rock until it twitched. The subtle movement of its nose rippled down its ears and into its butt.

I looked around a bit, taking in the clear blue sky reflecting bright light off the thin layer of fresh snow. There were no clouds in the sky.

The forest to my right looked smaller than usual, somehow, and there were no leaves on any of the trees. I could hear things moving about in there, but I wasn’t sure what.

I looked back towards the animal and without notice, I became the rabbit. I was suddenly no more than six inches off the ground, crouched, and silent. I could hear everything. The branches cracking in the forest, the cows grazing in the barn, the river running steady over rocks, I could hear it all. Everything sounded so incredibly loud coming through my long, white ears.

Out of nowhere, I heard this giant crunch. It shook me to my bones. I was standing on all fours, ready to run. I looked all around and then finally, I saw it: a giant boot crunching through the fresh snow. The boot was running at me, and fast.

I almost recognized the face of the small human in the boot. It was a young boy, maybe five years old, with chubby cheeks and bright brown eyes. He wore a dark brown coat that looked like it had been sewn out of an old quilt and his light blue jeans were tucked into chunky red and black winter boots. His rosy cheeks poked out between a cap pulled low on his eyebrows and a blue scarf tied tight around his chin.

To me, this was an innocent little boy running around in his field. To my rabbit body, this was a huge threat.

I leapt into action, my legs stretching wide and leaving the trademark footprints I had come to know so well. I bounded off into the forest, into safety, not stopping until I felt the scratchy brush at my knees. The boy followed with his arms outstretched for maybe ten metres before realising he would never catch up to me.

My heart has never raced so fast in my life and my legs have never moved with such speed. In the small brush at the edge of the forest, I felt safe. I settled back down into my low crouch and waited.

From this vantage point I saw the world completely differently. The grass was a safe haven and the open snow a death trap. I looked around for my friends and saw two of them cuddled nearby, a little deeper in the forest, and one out in the field praying the small child wouldn’t see him.

I was exhausted from running for my life. My eyes slowly drifted closed.

This is when I woke up in my bed, heart racing and palms sweaty.

“Whoa.”