The world was many different shades of red and orange, or so it always seemed in Jasper’s Haven. Located in the deepest butthole part of Texas, Jasper’s Haven - or, Jasper, as the locals call it - was a treeless desert with a ten-mile radius sitting five thousand feet below sea level. The town was so unremarkable and useless that it didn’t appear on any map, nor did the town sign even boast its population count of thirty-nine, much to the residents’ brainless indifference.
A single road of desert sand connected Jasper to the outside world, though it was seldom used. No one ever visited for lack of a reason, nor did anyone leave for lack of a brain. That, and the fact that most of the residents had been born with double clubfoot from generations of incestuous breeding and were therefore unable to walk more than three or four feet without assistance. And if they weren’t born with clubfoot, they likely were born with legs that were pinched off at the knees like soft clay and had to drag themselves in the dirt with nothing but their arms any time they wished to go anywhere. All this because of some thieves that came in the night by silent jet and stole all of the town’s wheelchairs a few years back for an unknown reason.
Running parallel to the road was a river that served as Jasper’s sole source of drinking water. Although unknown by the residents, this river actually originated at a nuclear power plant outside town and contained dangerous amounts of toxic chemicals. Not to mention the runoff from other business’s septic tanks that flowed straight into the same river. By the time the water would reach Jasper, it really couldn’t be identified as water at all. Rather, it’d be thick, discolored, and the taste would be indescribably vile. But to these sand-minded creatures it was, in it’s purest, most satisfying and delectable form, simply, water.
At any given time of day, there were usually at least a few residents that could be seen hydrating themselves in the river. It would actually be quite a spectacle if viewed from an outsider. Residents young and old, limping and clawing their way over rocks and thorny shrubbery until they reached the river’s edge, then slurping up the water until they had their fill and squirming back to their shameful, decomposing excuse they called living quarters. The image resembled that of a bale of baby sea turtles making their way to the ocean for the first time, only the scene in Jasper was unsightly and deranged.
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The night was sweltering hot as usual when Cynthia brought out her big black cauldron and began preparing her water with cabbage and chickpea soup. After bringing the water to a boil, she looked over at her furry friend, who was staring back at her, motionless, with those laser-red eyes. In thinking about it, she wasn’t sure if the rabbit had moved even an inch since she found it. It certainly hadn’t eaten anything. Cynthia walked toward it, took it into her arms, and brought it to the kitchen.
“You’re not going to like this,” she stated darkly as she removed the sharpest knife from the knife block. After giving the blade a good look, she raised it high and repositioned the rabbit in one arm.
Slice.
Screams.
Slice.
Screams.
“No, no! Please don’t kill me, I’m just an innocent little baby cabbage head!” Cynthia pleaded, playing the role of the vegetable she’d just cut into thirds. Giving voices and personalities to vegetables had been her main source of entertainment during dinnertime for as long as she could remember.
Cynthia gave the rabbit a strong-loving embrace and looked at it to see if it was enjoying the vegetable game, which it clearly was not. The rabbit was rigid in the crook of Cynthia’s arm and its eyes were as hard as marble and more fiery than ever. But Cynthia, being about as smart as the vegetables she was cooking, mistook the rabbit’s rigidity for excitement.
“I love you so mu - “
There was a violent banging on Cynthia’s splintering front door, and she immediately knew that she was dealing with a claw-hand. “You’d best make your way outside, Dearie Cyn,” a haggish woman threatened. “That thing ain’t nothin’ but trouble ‘n needs to be dealt with.”
Cynthia’s eyes bulged in rage as she clutched the rabbit tighter. “I ain’t lettin’ you get near Hankle! You stay away, the lotta you!” She shouted back as she drug her clubfeet to the back door and prepared for her escape.
“Don’t you dare try’n escape, Cyn. Yer place is surrounded.”
The old creature woman was right, Cynthia’s home was encircled by the entire town’s population. But what the woman didn’t know was that the back was being guarded by Jasper’s most crippled residents, making it vulnerable to Cynthia’s escape. Cynthia made a break for it, which is to say that she staggered away as quickly as she could while the nub-legs slithered after her.
“Don’t worry Hankle, I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re safe as long as you’re in my arms,” Cynthia reassured the rabbit while simultaneously trying to convince herself that she could keep them both safe.
“Don’t let her get away!” The old woman shouted at her incestuous relatives, who were already going after Cynthia as quickly as their mangled limbs would allow.
The chase wound through rocks, old sheds, and other rusting garbage until the pursuing residents trapped Cynthia in the riverbed that used to hold their drinking water.
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Back at the nuclear power plant where Jasper’s river was sourced, the crew threw up celebratory shouts as the CEO cut a red ribbon with giant scissors. An amazing milestone for the entire nuclear energy community, the event marked the completion of a new pipeline that filtered out greater quantities of chemical waste at a faster rate and made the plant exponentially more efficient. As the ribbon fell to the ground, a plant employee opened a valve and millions of gallons of toxic liquid burst through the pipe and didn’t stop for hours.
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“C’mon, Cyn, we’re dyin’a thirst here! The hare must go. Hand it over!”
“Yer claw will never touch my Hankle!”
“You’d dare put that beast before yer own family? You sick in the head‘r somethin’”?
Just then, the ground began rumbling. The rowdy residents grew silent as the atmosphere shifted from fury to concern.
“Water! I see water!” One of the crawlers shouted from the ground as a trickle of water began soaking his shirt. He began licking the ground in haste, as if he’d gone without for months.
“I see it too! And here comes more!” shouted another.
In a moment of beautifully synchronized horror, each resident looked upriver at the thirty foot wall of water that was flowing toward them with unmatched power. Cynthia, in the abundance of love she had for the rabbit, threw it to safety just in time, and everyone began scurrying like field mice, trying to get out of the riverbed. But the water was too quick, too forceful. It swept up each resident without exception and carried them downriver to a dark place where no one had ever ventured. A high concentration of poison soaked into the skin of each resident before dropping them into desert depths tens of thousands of feet below sea level.
After several hours, the toxic river turned calm once more, and flowed at the reliably steady pace that the newly-deceased residents had always enjoyed.
And the stuffed bunny children’s toy endured for countless centuries.
