year of the rabbit

“Why a rabbit?”

I look up, from the dishes I am setting out for you. Chicken balls heaped four layers high kick out steam. Prawn toast and Kung Pao chicken ring a fried rice dish containing beef, pork, lamb, chicken and prawn. This is no takeaway. I cooked it all by hand. That last dish is clearly me trying to outdo the rice special you tend to favour.

“Hm? Rabbit? I don’t know. The Chinese have—”

“Not the Chinese New Year. You. Why a rabbit? Your tulpa is a rabbit. Your little sigil used one. Even your avatar is a rabbit. Why?”

I press my lips together and think, though my hands continue laying out food. Shredded duck lies alongside pancakes and spring onions and hoisin. Large amounts of everything. Automatic hands start assembling a duck roll according to the proportions I know you favour.

You accept the first bite from my hand, teeth neatly severing the savoury parcel. Your eyes widen. It’s good. Surprisingly good. Hot and fresh, full of lively flavour. You pluck the rest of the roll from my fingers and take another bite, freeing my hands up to roll you another.

I answer in a snatch of some folk song you’ve heard me sing while out walking. “‘All our defence is in our legs / We run like the wind, the hare said.’ Rabbits don’t have dangerous claws or teeth. They aren’t armoured. They don’t hide well. They’re graceful and fast and that’s all they have going for them.”

You speak with your mouth full, gesticulating with another roll. “So you chose the most prey creature you can think of for your spirit animal?”

I laugh. “More than that. I was inspired by Watership Down. The rabbits have a trickster god, El-Ahrairah. ‘The Prince with a Thousand Enemies’. He’s everything a rabbit aspires to be. Wins through cleverness and trickery. Always one step ahead, though the whole world is full of creatures who would devour his flesh.”

“How’s that working out for you?” You give me the most beautiful smile, eyes sparkling with deep mirth as you watch your rabbit prepare you a feast to fatten you up.

It brings out a smile in me too. As I mull over your jibe that smile becomes a grin, then a laugh, so abrupt it seems to take me by surprise. “That’s the thing. I have no enemies. My flesh is claimed and I love the one who will devour me.” I push the tray of chicken balls towards you, among with a homemade sweet and sour sauce. You fill your plate while I continue to push duck rolls between your lips.

I continue. “So what do I do with the energy and cleverness of a rabbit? Well, I turn it to serving you! Not out of fear, but because I love you, as fiercely as a human or rabbit heart is capable. You who could consume everything, in the fullness of time. I dance with a rabbit’s skill before the wake of your darkness and trick prey into your clutches. Someday I’ll burn out and you’ll overtake me. Blessed day! But for as long as I can, I dance. To remain with you.”

Though you try to remain deadpan, and your comment to my little speech is communicated by biting into a chicken ball held between chopsticks, I think I see a smile in the corner of your eyes. Then you chew, and examine the other half of the morsel. “These are good!”

“I know, right?! I’ve never been able to deep fry, but these are great!”

“Gosh, let me try the rice next.”

I push the bowl closer, displacing the duck rolls. Your mind wanders from the topic, becoming absorbed in the pleasure of consumption. The rice lacks the “breath of the wok” flavour of true fried rice—I’ll nail it next time—but the meats are flavoured and succulent and it is easy to eat and eat until you are forced to belch to make space.

As you eat, and when I think you’re not looking, I watch you with a smile. I’m no El-Ahrairah. He wouldn’t have been caught. But if he had, and if he never wished to be free, even The Prince with a Thousand Enemies could not have employed greater skill and dedication to remaining close to his predator’s side. I watch you eat my food with pride and love. When you grow full and sluggish I dig clawed hands into the expanse of fat moulding around the edge of the table, then feed you by hand, helping pack away helping after helping into your groaning stomach.

One day it’ll be me packing you out. God, what a thought. Maybe tomorrow, and I’ll render down into slurry and be woven into your fat and your soul. Maybe in five years, when you perfect the ritual that will unlock you from this earthly prison and you decide to give me my long-awaited reward. Maybe years after that, when all the Earth’s people have simmered into your avatars’ immense bodies and you wear humanity as a thousand bellies that sag to the ground.

But for now I content myself with this simple act of worship. We fill you up and you boil everything down and grow larger, more beautiful.

I murmur, as you unleash a tremblor of a belch that carries the scent of five spice and fried food, “Gong hei fat choy.” Maybe this will be my year. Year of the Rabbit.