I’m going in to get change for a dollar when what I see is there’s this guy at the shop door asks me, These bubs of mine, the guy asks, are they real?

I say, What the hell is real? Tell me what’s real.

An innocent question, the guy says. Lighten up, he tells me. Take a load off, them both of them.

//

I’m stepping off the curb, broad daylight on my back, when what I see is a shadow laid down on the blacktop. But this shadow of mine is rabbit shaped. Hey Shadow, I ask, are you for real?

What I don’t see is there’s this vehicle gassing through the intersection that sees me, but if you ask me, does not see me before the vehicle hits.

Guy at the shop door asks the other guy, A truckload of bam and the broad’s a dollar to the wind. Both of them guys asking, Did I see what you saw?

//

I’m puking blood, there’s this red hell pooling at my bosom, when this nurse sees me going through the door on the gurney. These sheets of mine, the nurse asks me, how about somebody asks me for a change?

I’m going in and out. I’m going, What’s with the light? These buttons of yours, the nurse tells me, press this one for do not disturb, this button to light out.

//

I’m going, Who buttoned up my skull? Ditto for the bloody sunsets. My head’s a loaded pillow, my eyes going along with whatever the light does. Shadows laying down longer and longer across the hospital walls. Is it these bubs of mine that are making shadows of rabbit ears? 

//

I’m going nowhere. I’m going to disturb the nurse. I’m asking, Who’s in charge of putting my innocence back together? When what I see is this doc at the door asks me, This self of yours, the doc asks, you know you’re a shadow of it, right?

I say, What the hell, doc? Tell me, what is a self? 

//

I’m going out for a change when there’s these cops at my door ask me, What’s the last thing you saw on stepping off the curb? 

A shadow, I say. 

This shadow of mine, this cop asks—

I go, I never said the shadow was mine.

This shadow, the cop at my door asks, did it go with the vehicle that struck you?

I say, Who the hell says the vehicle struck me? Tell me who says so.

The cops are going into it. They are going, Eyewitness, they’re going, more than one. The driver, the cops say, got up off his truck to look at what he hit. These cops asking me, Did you know this driver of mine?

I tell them I don’t even know mine own shadow.

These cops look to be disturbed by my bosom, them both of them, and I ask them, Ligthen up, why don’t you? 

This broad-nosed one asks me, At the time of the accident, was there some trouble with your shadow, ma’am?

I say, What the hell is trouble? Tell me what’s trouble.

Trouble is what showed up on the camera eye-view of the street, the other cop says to me, says, ma’am. Did you see what the camera saw when it saw the collision? 

What do I need with seeing what the camera saw? I ask. You said eyewitness, you said more than one. I say, Don’t ask me. I say, Ask them.

Eyewitnesses we got—

By the boatload, the cops tell me.

I say, I’m stepping out that hospital door of mine you don’t tell me something I don’t know. 

They don’t tell, these cops of mine, they show. They got the camera, the God’s eye view on the street, and what I see is there’s these bubs and there’s this curb and there’s the step down off it and there’s the bam. This truck strikes. That’s when it must of hit him, the person we will call driver, to use his brakes.

I say to cops at hospital doors, I say, You think I like seeing what I see? You like making me watch? Tell me, is getting a broad to watch how God oversaw the hurt the sort of thing gets you off? Take your dicks out, why don’t you? I’m broad minded. 

Why can’t you shut up and look where you’re going, this cop asks me, broad-nosed.

Look at the camera, this innocent one asks me, Do you not see what it saw? 

What I see is people standing around a body laid out on the street, but what it is, what I see there at the peoples’ feet is not these bubs of mine, much less me. These people are eyeballing a brown furred rabbit, the long ears going long on the blacktop. 

I say, Is this real?

What about you, the broad-nosed asks me. Are you real?

I’m going, Press some buttons, why don’t you? I say, This happened in broad daylight, but that is not what I’m seeing. 

These eyes of mine, the cop asks, have they been checked by a doctor?

I’m the one got wheeled into the hospital, got the skull buttoned up.

What caused the injuries may be in dispute. 

The truck caused these injuries of mine, I tell the cop. You want disturbed, check the front end of the truck’s bumper—

You, this other cop says, may be in dispute.

The cop asks, You said you saw a shadow—

Don’t ask me what I saw. There’s the rabbit on the blacktop, ask him—

There is no rabbit, the cops say.

You guys are unreal. 

The rabbit got up, shook itself off, ran.

(winner of the Editor’s Prize in Prose for issue 41)