tame & hiding

I’m visiting a brother-sister pair of friends who are moving away and giving me their pair of pet rabbits—big fat bunnies—and I accidentally let one escape and am scared to catch it, afraid it will bite me, but the little girl just sighs and scoops it up and I realize they’re quite tame.

I go with friends to some kind of dinner event in a masons’ lodge or church, and when we arrive, there’s room at the table for all but me, and it’s assumed I’ll just sit at the next table over—but I thumb my teeth at them and keep on walking, go and search out a hiding place in the basement where I won’t be found or bothered until the whole thing’s over—it’s clear that I’m trying to punish them by removing myself but also effectively spiting myself. I go into a bathroom in the dark downstairs hoping for seclusion, but there are two old ladies in the stalls, chatting across to one another while they pee, so I have to be very quiet—I see an alcove of tiny chairs all stacked up and put away and go in there and sit down and lay my head down over them, but I’m not hidden enough—so I get up and crawl under a table with stacks of blankets piled up underneath and wriggle in toward the back, trying to tangle myself up and quiet my breathing—but the minister comes in and busies himself with paperwork right on top of my hiding place—I lie there wishing he would just go away and afraid he’ll find me—and then there’s a shift in the air, a hanging silence, and it seems like he may have seen some part of me sticking out—and I wake up.