Listen, nobody likes splitting up a bond but you’re gonna have to separate. If you don’t, then it’s only a matter of time before you’ve got a battle of testosterone on your hands. Put them each in their own cage asap, get on the blower to the vet and sort their bits out.

Steve presses POST. It’s the weekly Q&A forum on his website, www.stevedowntherabbithole.com. He’s been sitting with his laptop at his kitchen table. He gets up now, stretches, makes a cup of tea, then returns to the screen and begins scanning for the next question. After scrolling quickly through a collection of requests for new Mr Binklebee videos, he finds a recurring query about litter trays and bashes out a reply.

Non-dusty, paper litter for cats. Less expensive than the small animal brand and no bloody difference. Do yourself a favour: do not be taken in. Whole thing’s a swizz. Your other option is teabag substrate. Cheap as chips.

He gets up, stretches, grabs a milk chocolate digestive and dunks it in his tea. He shouts, ‘Fucker!’ as a great clump of the biscuit breaks off and becomes submerged. Looking back at the screen, he pauses on a particular rabbit photo.

Do you like my mini lop, Loptop, Steve? Isn’t she gorgeous? Isn’t she a beaut?

It’s from jennyinhull. She posts the same picture with the same three questions every week. She’s unhinged, thinks Steve. Like so many of them. But to err on the side of caution (she might be a bunny-boiler for all he knows – God forbid!), Steve always replies with the same five-word answer.

An angel sent from heaven.

Steve’s worked hard on his personal brand of no-nonsense-meets-saccharine. And his Mr Binklebee origin story is his USP. It’s all laid out in the ‘About’ section of the website. The tale of how Steve had been in a dark place in his life – drinking, gambling debts, a string of broken relationships, a shelf-stacking job he was on the verge of losing. He felt like Alice free-falling through a rabbit hole, not knowing where or when he might land. Then one morning he’d woken up – with an absolute beast of a hangover, next to a pool of drying vomit – and stumbled outside to his garden for some fresh air. He’d closed the door behind him, turned and seen a lone black rabbit munching on a dandelion leaf. Its glossy fur had gleamed like onyx in the sunlight. Its little nose had twitched up and down. And it had stared at Steve with a look on its face that seemed to say, Let’s sort your fucking life out, Steve. I’ve come to save you, you absolute cunt.

—

Daily chores? Litter trays. Keep them clean, keep them serene! Then you’ve got your fresh water, fresh hay, fresh nuggets. Yes, I know, I can hear some of you: ‘What about a muesli mix, Steve?’ Do not entertain the idea. They’ll only pick out their favourite pieces and leave the rest. Risk of malnourishment is too severe! Some of my early followers will be more than familiar with my feelings about the muesli mix (and my attempt to get it banned in February 2017).

Don’t forget your ‘salade de jour’ (as I like to say!) – the more variety the better. Mint, parsley, basil and so on. Refer to my list in the ‘Essential Knowledge’ section. Do not give them anything that’s wilting. Show some respect.

Steve presses POST. He stretches, stands up, performs a few slow lunges, makes a cup of tea and gets himself a rich tea biscuit. He dunks it in and pulls it out, shouts, ‘Yes! In your face, you smug fuck!’ before eating the soggy end. Then he settles back down to his laptop. There are more requests for Mr Binklebee videos. He opens a folder and finds an old video of Mr Binklebee playing in a huge cardboard castle that Steve made for him. Steve watches Mr Binklebee hopping to the top – sitting in the highest turret, lording it. The way Mr Binklebee’s eyes had focused in on Steve, staring at him as if to say, Know your place, Steve. Know your fucking place. The way his little button nose had pulsed.

There’s a comment already. It’s from KevinBacon8.

Not another old one, Steve?

Steve circles his shoulders backwards and types.

Lest we forget the memories. Important to look back before looking forward. Life is about learning. Sitting very still with a sense of gratitude for what has already been. Deeply appreciating each and every good time.

He adds a prayer-hands emoji. There’s a comment from jennyinhull.

Beautiful, Steve.

And then KevinBacon8 again.

Whatever, Steve. I think I speak for everyone on here when I say I want to see a new video of Mr Binklebee destroying a willow ball.

And then Haypster4life chips in.

What he said!

Steve blinks and looks at the pristine litter tray by his back door. His eyes move from left to right and right to left and then blink hard again and again. Letting out a long, slow exhale, he returns to the screen, hovers his cursor over KevinBacon8 and clicks BLOCK. He stands and walks up and down his galley kitchen several times. Then he sits, looks through a series of photos that people have posted of their poorly-looking rabbits and types:

Emergency vet, now!

Copying the comment, he pastes it under seven of the photos. Under the eighth picture, he posts:

I think you are massively overreacting if you think this rabbit is ill??!!

One of the first changes Mr Binklebee had made was to get rid of most of Steve’s clothes. The garments lay strewn about the house on radiators, crumpled over chairs and bannisters. Steve always forgot about them and by the time he remembered to pull them from the washing machine – days after he had loaded them – they had the stench of damp embedded in their fibres. The whole house developed the odour of wet dog. Mr Binklebee had hopped over and, the cuff of a shirt grasped between his teeth, jerked his head up and to the side and flicked it onto the floor to the rhythm of Bin it, bin it, motherfucking bin it.

—

It’s a special on the website today: ‘Rabbit Body Language’. People are posting photos and Steve is explaining what each rabbit is communicating. He posts:

Aye-aye – see no evil, hear no evil – he’s a lad.

Oh ho! You’re in the doghouse with this one.

Ha! . . . sexually frustrated.

Insouciant

Cogitative.

I’m sorry to tell you this but your rabbit is oversensitive.

Then:

Folks, let’s not forget the reason we love our rabbits, whatever mood they’re in: they bring us purpose in our lives. Without them, we risk slipping into a meaningless void of repetition and loneliness until we die. Say it with me: a bunny banishes the bleakness.

Haypster4life posts:

Steve, mate. You alright?

Hareconditioned1972 posts:

Put us out of our misery, Steve. Is there going to be another calendar for the new year?

The calendar last year had been a bigger hit than Steve anticipated – it sold out. Mr Binklebee’s fur could not have looked more lustrous under the hot lights (good job too, given the amount of barley rings he’d been demanding of Steve: They’re a good source of oil, you utter tool. Just keep buying them will you. You want me to look dry and haggard, Steve? You want me to look wispy?). And Steve, in his smooth leather jacket, had lain on the white floor in front of the white backdrop in the photographer’s white studio, Mr Binklebee sitting heavy on his chest and staring into the camera with the conceited look of a hypnotist. He’d taken hay break after hay break with complete disdain for the cost of the shoot – which was by the hour.

Steve now moves his hand like a flannel down his face.

Try stopping us. Watch this space. New calendar will most definitely be incoming!

Then he stretches out his neck by tilting an ear to each shoulder as though he’s about to enter a boxing ring. He sits back in his chair and watches the LIKE count on the comment grow.

—

One of the questions I get asked more than regularly is: what do you cover the playpen floor with, Steve? And before anyone asks, let’s be clear – plenty of other websites advise on outdoor rabbits; this one is strictly house rabbits only. We don’t all think it’s a nice idea to keep our dearest outside where they’ll be bored stupid, you know, cooped up and forgotten about. Out where they can so easily perish in the winter or slowly cook to death in the summer. Out where they’ve got to hear/see/smell what? Cats? Dogs? Foxes?!!? I’m sure most of you will be shuddering as I type. And I’m sure you’ve all got more sense than to mention the ‘h’ word – need I say more? (Rhymes with ‘crutch’, in case you’re new to the website – I appreciate we all start somewhere and that we don’t know what we don’t know.)

So, we give our indoor buns a long playpen for safety, i.e. peace of mind at night, peace of mind if you’re out. And look, if you know you’re going to be out all the time, working long hours, then do me a favour and think twice about getting a rabbit in the first place. Think about that if your plan is to acquire a rabbit and then embark upon wanton cruelty.

Anyway, we assemble our playpen, but all of a sudden, what did we not think about? Lining! So, the way I see it, you’ve got a number of options. You can leave them on your existing floor – they’re part of the family after all (why wouldn’t you? What’s yours is theirs – is there really any question?!). But folks, I know some people are precious. So your choices are as follows:

• lino (waterproof, easy to sweep, but if they chew it they might die)
• rubber mat (waterproof, easy to sweep, but if they chew it they might die)
• Correx plastic sheet (waterproof, easy to sweep, but if they chew it they might die)
• fleece blankets (not waterproof, impossible to sweep, but if they chew it they don’t usually die)

Steve stops typing, jumps up and starts jogging on the spot. ‘Come on! Let’s do this!’ he shouts, then does one press-up. Jumping back up slowly, he squats and rises and bounces on the spot a bit more before going and making himself a cup of tea. He grabs himself a Jaffa Cake, looks at it, laughs and nibbles it all around the edge. Then, using his teeth, he flakes off and swallows the thicker chocolate doming the orange jelly – which he then peels from its base, waves about like a goldfish and eats. He finishes with the dry, cakey section.

‘Who’s laughing now, you mad bastard!’ he shouts at his empty fingers.

Once rid of Steve’s old clothes, Mr Binklebee had demanded more than one room of the house. He had hopped his way around the whole of the ground floor, pausing every few bounces to thump his back foot to the beat of Mine, Steve, mine. The kitchen? Mine. The lounge? Mine. That dingy excuse for a dining room? Mine. The downstairs loo? Mine if I want it, but obviously I don’t. I’ll need my own place to piss and shit though. And you’ll need to clean it up for me every day, Steve. You’ll love to do it. You’ll look forward to studying my perfectly formed spheres of excrement. They’ll give you the focus in your life you’re lacking.

I’m going to need a shitload of hay, too, Steve. What? You want my teeth to suffer? I need to be almost constantly gnawing. You want a rabbit with curly teeth? Is that what you want? You want me to get an overbite? I’m a lagomorph, Steve. You will fill your house full of fresh fucking hay for me. I want to see the dry, bent lines of it everywhere. Your carpet will never be free of it. I will dig at your carpet, shred it in every corner. Your carpet serves me now.

And so, Steve had begun the slow process of adapting his home for Mr Binklebee. He got hold of some rubber hosepipe to cover all the wires. They just look like fucking twigs and roots to me, Steve. I’ll bite through every last one of them if you leave them unchecked. I cannot control my impulses. You’ll need to protect me from electrocution twenty-four hours a day.

Once the wires were sorted, Steve began thinking about enrichment activities. Nothing worse than a bored rabbit. I’ll be a destructive motherfucker if you can’t think of ways to entertain me. Would it kill you to make a tunnel?

So Steve made a tunnel out of cardboard. Within a week, Mr Binklebee had chewed it to pieces. Make me another. And put some fucking hidey-holes in this time. I like to jump in and jump out. Sometimes I like to act all coy, you know. Wait for you to ask, ‘Oh where can Mr Binklebee be?’ before I hop out all motherfucking charming, pieces of hay sticking out of my mouth, caught in my fur at haphazard angles.

I will make you love me, Steve. Look at your-self. You pathetic creature. You already do. You make me sick. Get in that garden and gather all the dandelion leaves you can find. I want to see you on your hands and knees, getting filthy, getting sore, getting bitten by ants, scrabbling about in the weeds. All to nourish me. All to tend to my every complex need.

—

Steve is hosting his weekly memorial hour on the website. His followers are posting photos of their rabbits with captions like:

RIP my BBF

I can’t believe one minute you were bouncing around, the next you keeled over. But at least now you’re free from bloat and gastrointestinal stasis.

See ya, Chomsky, you were always my favourite rabbit

Steve adds a few words of his own:

One and all, let us collect our thoughts. Until we meet our dearest again in the abundant meadows reserved for them in heaven. May they feast upon the lush, green grasses that grow freely as they wish. Blessed be their binkies. Always in our hearts, which they have stolen forever. Be there softness under paw wherever they choose to hop. Forever in rabbit eternity.

jennyinhull echoes this final line.

Forever in rabbit eternity.

She adds:

I don’t know what I’d do if my mini lop, Loptop, ever left me.

Steve grips his kitchen table, pushes the chair backwards and places his head between his knees. ‘Aaaargh! Come on!’ he yells at the linoleum tiles beneath his feet. Shaking his head from side to side, he makes puffing exhalations as if trying to blow out a candle, and pulls himself back up. His hands drumroll on the table and then he makes himself a cup of tea. He takes a ginger nut from the biscuit tin. ‘Oh yeah, think you’re a fucking hard nut, do you?’ he shouts, before snapping it in half and eating it in two separate bites.

A message pops up from Hareconditioned1972.

Steve, I can’t help thinking there might be something you need to tell us about Mr Binklebee? Something you’re holding back? He’s not been seen for a while? I don’t mean to pry but you’re among friends here.

Steve starts doing a set of star jumps, counting, ‘One, two, three, four, five. Huh! One, two, three, four, five. Huh!’ He runs on the spot, holds his hands in fists and begins punching the air in a one-two rhythm.

Then Haypster4life leaves a comment:

Steve, mate. I’ve been thinking. They’ve got it wrong haven’t they . . . Man’s best friend isn’t his dog at all, is it? Is it, Steve? It’s his rabbit! . . .

Man + Rabbit!

Steve focuses on this last sentence. He looks at it for a long time and then types:

Man+Rabbit. You’re on to something there, my friend. Yes!

He looks at the words again until they begin to blur together.

Man+Rabbit . . . Man+Rabbit . . .
Man-bit. Man-bit! Man-bit!

Lunging forward, he slams his laptop shut.

—

Steve is flopped on his kitchen floor, one bare cheek against the cool lino. This is where he stays for the entire summer afternoon. Occasionally turning and swapping cheeks. Occasionally bending his legs upwards, foetal, and then suddenly kicking them back out and laying them long.

Mr Binklebee liked to wash himself before taking his daily rest. He would sit up with his weight anchored on his back feet, lift his flossy paws towards his nose and lick and nibble them before launching into a smooth rhythm. Tilting his head, he would then slide his paws along each ear as though ringing out a cloth. After washing each ear repeatedly, he would bury his face in his paws like he was playing a game of Peekaboo, except instead of saying, Peekaboo, he would say, Life’s a shitting ball ache. Life’s a slag. Life’s a real stiff shit, Steve. Not that I’d know – mine are powdery, really quite inoffensive. But yours? Yours are putrid. Festering. Stink the whole fucking house out and make me want to puke. And then Mr Binklebee would blink and continue washing his soft, lovely, fluffy little face.

There is a knock. Steve startles, sniffs the air and stands up. He walks past his kitchen table, the laptop still closed, and heads for the front door. A parcel lies at his feet in a hutch-sized box. He carries the package back through to his kitchen table.

Once he’s checked the contents, he sits and waits until daylight is just beginning to fade. Then he stands up and carries the box to his car and places it on the passenger seat. He drives away from his street, away from the suburban surroundings until he meets country roads. Soon, he finds a gate with a place to pull in. Taking the box with him, he climbs over the fence and enters a field. He looks at the colour of the night sky. ‘Lilac otter,’ he says. ‘Such a sought-after shade of grey for a rabbit.’

Now he crouches down, opens the box and pulls out its contents: a set of height-adjustable hurdles. He scatters them around the field and then he wastes no time. It will be completely dark soon. The wind bathes his face as he runs and jumps. The grass underfoot cushions his feet. His heart races. For the first time in weeks, he feels alive and he feels free.

You alright, pet? Steve jumps now, but not over a hurdle. He spins around and squints into the gloom. Somewhat camouflaged by the dusky light and their earthy colours sits a line of wild rabbits. One is sitting centre, a little further forward than the rest. Its mouth is closed but moving methodically, grinding up some grass. This small but precise movement fits with the words Steve hears: Are you alright, pet? Not a bad spot of hopping you’ve got going on there. Are you alone? The rabbits either side of the middle one chew neatly, and stare at Steve. The middle rabbit continues. It’s not safe out here, pet. Not safe to be solitary. He takes one hop forward towards Steve. What’s the matter, pet? Fox got your tongue? The rabbit then chuckles even though his mouth is still closed, still munching grass. I know, Dylan. He looks at a rabbit to his left that only has one ear. I shouldn’t joke about foxes. It was a right cunt of a fox that took Dylan’s ear. But we stick together, see. Why don’t you join us? Not safe out here on your own.

The night is nearly black. The stars above start to pierce. Steve feels cold, like his body is beginning to stiffen. He quickly collects up his hurdles. Despite his hurry, he decides to leave the box for the wild rabbits in case they might like to hop in and out of it or claw it to tatters. While he can still just about see the gate and his footing back through the field, he stumbles towards his car. All the time grasping the awkward shapes of the height-adjustable hurdles, all the time hearing the shouts of the rabbit behind him: Suit yourself, pet. But we’re here if you need us. Awfully difficult being a creature on your own out here. All manner of dangers to watch out for. There follows a chorus of discordant voices all asking the same question: Is everything okay, pet? Is everything okay, pet? Steve keeps moving forward until he reaches his car and then he jumps in, locks all the doors and puts it into reverse. As he moves backwards, his loud breathing begins to slow. The line of rabbits are visible through his rear-view mirror – one beside another beside another, not one of them alone. Steve struggles to pull his gaze before changing gear.

There is a post on the website from jennyinhull:

Do you like my mini lop, Loptop, Steve? Isn’t she gorgeous? Isn’t she a beaut?

Steve?

—

Steve is lying in a tent – a very cheap one, with a very thin ground sheet. Grass ends are pricking his flesh through the fabric. His sleeping bag lies open beside him. At some point during the night, he’s kicked it off as though shedding a cocoon. He sits up and stretches his arms. His hands press against the canvas slopes above him. Then he unzips the entrance flap. It’s still pitch black, but dawn seems imminent and so he begins to ready himself. He wears a fawn-coloured T-shirt and khaki combat trousers that have become loose. Piled in one corner of his tent are thirty-one sealed Washed and Ready to Eat Bistro Salad bags (down from fifty). In another corner are a couple of twenty-five-litre water tanks and a cup. He pulls on his walking boots but winces as he does so. His stomach is cramping severely, and whenever he leans forward he becomes acutely aware of a drilling pain in his head.

Alright, pet? comes the wild rabbit’s voice from somewhere in the darkness, a little way ahead.

On the website, Haypster4life posts:

Steve, you alright, mate?

The day Mr Binklebee left had begun like any other – with him rising with the sun and yelling at Steve to get out of bed. Get your sorry arse down here. It’s time for you to delight in my uninhibited self-expression. He then charged up and down the kitchen aisle, leaping and twisting his body at wild, implausible angles. His legs had stretched out one way, his neck and head another – like a salmon launching itself up river. Did you see that binky, Steve? Did you fucking see it? I am incredible! How can I continue to outdo myself? It shouldn’t be possible to be this fucking original.

Then he had hopped and hopped and thrown himself upwards, higher and higher, over and over. He had jackknifed his little body again and again whilst Steve remained seated at the kitchen table eating his Weetabix. I need to be seen beyond your poxy website, Steve. Don’t you think? The wider world needs to digest this. I’m pioneering something here. Don’t you agree? Why aren’t you filming this? I’m a fucking genius! You can only dream of being this breathlessly aerobic. You great, useless growth of a man. You’re not worth my time. You’re not worth my warm, adorable presence in your life. You’re nothing, Steve. Nothing. Now open that door and let’s get some air in here, for Christ’s sake.

Steve sits hunched in the tent entrance. He wraps his arms around his stomach. He wills for the pounding inside his head to stop.

Are you alright, pet? asks the wild rabbit again. ’Cos, you know, we’ve been through this, haven’t we? We’re prey animals. We stick together. We don’t show any weakness, any vulnerability, any kind of ailment. If we’re ill, we tell ourselves we’re not. We tell ourselves we’re hunky dory. Else we’ll invite a predator. Else we’ll be picked off. We can’t be just advertising ourselves as easy targets, can we? Now, see the sun’s rising? Let’s get out there and begin our hopping and jumping back and forth across the field, until the morning’s properly begun, until the sun is settled high in that sky. Are you ready, pet?

—

Steve crouches just inside the open tent. It is dusk. He is down to thirteen bags of salad but the wild rabbits keep assuring him there’ll be berries soon. We get some cracking blackberries off them bushes, pet. Big, bold, juicy fellas. You’ll see. Wait until you try them. You’ll be okay. You’re fine. Remember: you’re alright; we’re all alright.

Hareconditioned1972 comments on the website:

You know you’re among friends here, Steve. If there’s anything you want to get off your chest?

Steve had hesitated about opening the kitchen door on the day Mr Binklebee left. I’m not pissing about here, Steve. Open that sodding door so I can get some air. You want me to collapse from heatstroke? Very common in rabbits, you know. We very easily spill ourselves into the category of dangerously overheated. Open the door. And when you’ve done so, go and fill my bottle with chilled water – none of this room-temperature crap.

Steve had complied. He’d opened the door and then left the room to fetch the water bottle. He couldn’t have been out of the kitchen for more than two minutes.

It’s time to leave that tent now, pet. See how it’s already twilight? We need to be getting on. We need to be doing our hopping and jumping down the field, and our hopping and jumping back up the field. You need to be setting out your hurdles. Jumping over them. Before the black of night falls.

When Steve had returned to his kitchen after those two minutes, his gaze had fallen straight to the open door where he’d glimpsed a fleeting, low shadow of movement. A last dance of black fur. He had hurried then, crashed into the chair at his kitchen table, hurdled clumsily over it, pushed another chair out of the way. But by the time he had reached the doorway, Mr Binklebee had already hopped to the end of Steve’s garden, found a small gap in the fence – just big enough – and jumped out of Steve’s life. He didn’t look back. There were no final words. He was gone in a blink.

jennyinhull posts:

In the absence of Steve, for this memorial hour, let us all recall his words. Blessed be their binkies. Forever in rabbit eternity. Forever in rabbit eternity.

Steve struggles to stand. He has become engulfed in a permanent state of light-headedness. His stomach feels like something’s being twisted inside himself, like claws are scraping against the emptiness. You’d better be alright, pet. You can’t show weakness. Steve stumbles forward. You’ve just got to find those hurdles and jump over them before the darkness descends. Steve lurches, backs up, lurches. His vision narrows to tunnels of black. He falls to the ground. He slides his hands forward slowly, hops his feet gently up to meet them. He feels more stable like this. He can barely see. He slides and hops, slides and hops a few more metres beyond the tent. And then he collapses.

—

There is an announcement of a special live feed about to happen on the website, followed by a single post from Steve.

Binky: the special twist and jump a rabbit does to express a feeling of release.

Then the video begins. Steve can be seen, his back to the camera, walking away from it very slowly. His T-shirt and trousers hang from his gaunt body as if he’s a scarecrow; they match the earthy tones of the field he’s in and the rolling hills beyond. Ahead of Steve lies a sequence of height-adjustable hurdles. He lowers himself onto all fours and begins to hop over each one, getting lower in the camera’s view as he heads downhill. In the last moments that Steve is visible, he launches his body up while twisting it round to take one last, gasping look towards the camera, and then he lands. Out of shot. The camera continues to roll. The grass gives way to a mass of movement. Rabbits. Hundreds of rabbits. Rabbits covering every space within the field until it’s teeming. All hopping forwards in one direction, all hopping towards Steve, purposeful, wild, free.

---