The Rabbit Hutch

by Tess Gunty

But the most enraging aspect of all the aspects is the Situation’s banality. Blandine is thereafter cursed with the knowledge that one of the defining events of her life was nothing more than a solution to a tired equation. The internet pummels her with proof: an actor sleeps with his nanny; the head of the International Equestrian Games has fucked at least sixteen participants; yet another intern blows yet another president; a philosophy professor proposes to an advisee who was born when he was fifty. One nation flashes its nuclear weapons at another. Most of the world’s debt belongs to one guy. Rich countries are fucking up the weather in poor countries. In a nature documentary, a low-ranking chimpanzee rises to power by wreaking havoc in his community for a week, until the other males begin to submissively groom him. In the Valley, Blandine overhears three preteen girls tell a fourth preteen girl that she smells like socks. The redevelopment will begin its renovation of Zorn Automobile factories this summer, and demolition of the Valley will begin after that. At the Vacca Vale Zoo, the male polar bear eats one of his cubs while the mother looks on, too depressed to intervene. The moment Blandine felt most alive, she was nothing but a variable. The rage shovels her out of herself, like it’s mining her for something to burn.