Epilogue to a Children’s Book

And behind her, the crowd roars like thunder. Behind her trails her whirlwinds of story, worthy to be etched upon tapestry, hung in this golden palace in glory. The girl—with blades sharper than the papers of her books—slayed the king in his fury. And the citizens of this world had cheered over the cruel king of magick’s demise. Even the Quite Quiet Painter promised her tale on canvas, twice the castle’s size. Yet the girl laughs. She wouldn’t meet such art; to home, Black Rabbits lead her— and her eyes. Up the Rabbit Hole, gravity’s defied as the girl and Black Rabbit walk the walls when slivers of sunlight shower the roots from the dead tree’s base like a starlight fall. The cheers of the countrymen from that place o’ wonder fade, bouncing through the dirt halls. And as they reach the top, the girl laments: “‘Twas a delight to meet you and your hop!

And the friends I met and places I went, it’s a memory I shan’t ever drop!”

But Black Rabbit just stares with beady eyes colored ink, screeching: “This is your stop!” He hops in fervor away from the girl, Who, unnerved, peeks past the dirt of the world

—red.

Not like a strawberry. Not like fruit.

But a red like blood. Or human anatomy.

Or a heart. Skinned for all to witness.

And black—not like velvet or chocolate breaking against white teeth but smoke, finding home and deathbed in your lungs. The sky before her— shaded like a deck of cards that she’ll never learn how to deal. A sweet holler o’er her shoulder that would only reach, not wonderland, but oblivion.

The porcelain girl breaks through the crust of this ghastly ground finds the dead tree even deader and the dead end living up to its name. No books or tea or the blanket they laid upon. What once were gardens and greeneries, now only a burning wasteland did her once-fresh eyes meet —before settling upon a hunk of concrete hurtling through obsidian clouds like little girls through rabbit holes wishing there was something better at the end.