It was quiet. The cell was maddeningly silent; the kind of silence that can shatter one’s eardrums and drive a man to the brink of insanity.

Rabbit sat at the corner of the white room, the numerous red veins visible in his rapidly-blinking, wide-opened eyes as they scoured every inch of his 8x8 padded cell he was locked up in, like something was there to be seen. The straight jacket strapped onto his body limited his movement, but that didn’t stop him from continually bashing his body against the reinforced cell door a few hours back.

Rabbit couldn’t take this much more. He was on the edge.

The quiet solitary atmosphere was broken however, when the sound of a rattling key chain was heard from the outside, followed by the sound of a single key being thrust and turned inside a lock. The reinforced door swung open, and a bespectacled man wearing a white coat walked into the cell, a briefcase in hand. Two asylum workers were standing by the door outside, along with the screams and wailings of the other mentally-ill patients of the asylum. When the bespectacled man closed the door behind him, all the screams and wailings stopped, everything returned to silence once again.

“So how are you doing today, Mr. Rabbit?” the man greeted. Rabbit’s eyes now turned towards the man, staring cold into his eyes as if begging for mercy.

“I can’t take this no more, Doc. I just…I just can’t…” Rabbit begged with desperation in his voice. “Please, let me out of here Doc..I didn’t do nothin’ to deserve this!”

“You now I can’t do that, Mr. Rabbit” the doctor replied, trying to calm Rabbit down. “If you want to get out of this as soon as possible Mr. Rabbit, then I suggest that you get with the program. Now, are you ready to begin today’s session?”

Rabbit slowly moved a little away from the corner and towards the doctor, the poor soul’s face filled with despair. Rabbit wouldn’t dare to act violent this time, for he knew that such misdemeanor would be punished with a syringe full of valium from the good doctor, along with the rough hands of the two workers outside the door that would rush in and subdue him with the most unforgiving force, just in case the whole ordeal gets a little too nasty. The doctor opened his leather briefcase and took out a notebook along with a stylish pen which he uses to jot down important notes during sessions with his patients

“All I wanted was…the cereals…those damn cereals,” Rabbit said in a shaky voice. “That’s all I ever wanted, Doc…I saw the cereals in my dreams…every time I close my eyes I saw them…I keep hearing their voices in my head…always calling to me…”

“I thought we’ve been through this before, Mr. Rabbit. We discussed about the obsession you have with the Trix breakfast cereals and how this obsession has driven you insane. Did you remember the last session we had, Mr. Rabbit?”

“Insane? No…I’m not insane…not insane at all…but you wanna know what’s insane, Doc? I’ll tell you what’s insane…those little brats who deny me the cereals…they’re the ones who are insane!”

“Is that so, Mr. Rabbit?” replied the doctor, his voice growing sterner. “Does that justify the heinous crime that you’ve brought upon those poor innocent children? Do you think they deserved to be brutally murdered just because of your mad obsession towards a breakfast cereal? You were lucky the court accepted your insanity plea, otherwise you’d be in prison serving a life sentence by now.”

“It ain’t my fault, Doc…it ain’t my damn fault!” Rabbit shouted before he suddenly jumped up and began to move erratically back and forth in front of the doctor. “Those kids…those damn kids…they kept holding me back from the very thing I desired most…’Silly Rabbit’ they say…’Trix are for kids’ they say…well they ain’t saying anythin’ now since I’ve killed every last one of those little bastards. Hah!”

Despite Rabbit’s insane ranting and his growing erratic behavior, the doctor remained calm and continued to jot down notes based on what he saw in Rabbit’s attitude. He knew that poor Rabbit has a long way to go before he can get out of this asylum as a free individual.
“I see,” the doctor replied calmly, Rabbit still walking back and forth. “Now Mr. Rabbit, can you give me the earliest account regarding this obsession of yours? I once asked this question in one of our past sessions, but you seemed hesitant to answer me. Are you ready to tell me now, Mr. Rabbit?”

Rabbit suddenly stopped and collapsed to the floor and crawled back to the corner of the room, his body turtled against a wall. His eyes turned away from the doctor and started to stare on an empty space on one of the padded walls in the cell, as if looking back to his sweetest memories…or the worst.

“It was the year of 1960…” Rabbit said as his mind took a walk down memory lane. “I was just an average wood critter…I used to have friends…I used to have a life…often I would go snatch a few carrots from a nearby farm…but soon it all changed…everything changed…yes it did…”

“Exactly what happened, Mr. Rabbit?” the doctor questioned curiously.

“During early spring, a man came to me…he claimed he was a representative from General Mills. I didn’t know what General Mills was back then…but he asked me whether or not I would like to be one of their breakfast cereal’s mascot…oh yes, the breakfast cereal…”

“What happened then?” asked the doctor as he continually wrote down notes.

“At first I didn’t want to have anything to do with them…but then the man gave me a sample box of Trix cereals…as soon as my tongue touched those precious drops of heaven, I knew that Trix was all that I’ll ever need in my life…I wanted more of it…more…
“So you agreed to be the Trix mascot?”

“Yes, I did…but I did it for the cereals… those crunchy, mouth watering cereals…but they lied, Doc…those sons of bitches lied…they never gave me any more cereals…as soon as they’ve finished filming the commercials, I was thrown out of the building…those heartless bastards…”

“You have to admit, Mr. Rabbit, that you have no one to blame about that except for yourself. It was nobody’s fault that you didn’t read the contract papers carefully before you so hastily signed it.”

“Dognamit Doc, I’m just a freakin rabbit for cripe’s sake! I don’t even know how to read…I didn’t know there was a clause in there that stated that I can’t have anymore of their products…but I signed anyway…just to have another box of those precious…ahhh, my precious…”

“Still, all that does not justify your obsession towards the Trix cereals. I’ve studied the ingredients on the side of the cereal box and I found no traces of any addictive substances added to the mix, so I suspect that your addiction is in fact psychological. Have you any repressed memories that could possibly be connected to this obsession? Do you have any maternal issues? Tell me about your mother.”

“What do you mean repressed memories? I knew that that Trix was the best thing that happened in my life…and I wasn’t about to let it go so I…”

Rabbit paused for a moment; his eyes suddenly opened wide, his mouth gaped as if he just realized something.

“Wait…if you’ve studied the ingredients of the box, then…then…you must have one of the Trix boxes with you right now! Or at least you’ve put it somewhere near around here!” Rabbit shouted with ferocious anxiety.

“No, Mr. Rabbit. Neither did I bring a box of Trix along with me nor did I keep it somewhere near here. Now, if you want to be cured of this mental illness of yours you must understand that…”

“Liar!!!” Rabbit shouted angrily before the doctor could finish his sentence. “All you psychologist are the same…you’re all liars! I want the Trix boxes… I want them here and I want them now!!!”

Before the doctor could speak another word, the rabbit suddenly leapt towards the doctor, who was taken by surprise by Rabbit’s sudden manic behavior. The doctor caught a glimpse of the psychotic look in Rabbit’s eyes as he fell back to the floor on his side, the padded surface of the cell cushioning the fall. Although Rabbit was in a straight-jacket, he knew in his now uncontrollably insane mind that, as a rodent, his teeth was his most powerful weapon. Thus, before the doctor knew it, he felt an agonizing pain on the side of his head, as if something had bitten off his ear, which was exactly what happened as Rabbit hopped on top of the doctor and gnawed the doctor’s left ear off his earlobe.

As soon as the doctor cried out in pain, the door burst open with the two asylum workers outside rushing in to help the poor doctor. They were talking about last night’s football results when they heard sounds of struggling and screaming from inside the cell, and when they got in they were horrified to find the doctor sprawled on the floor with blood gushing out profusely from where his left ear was supposed to be. Rabbit crouched next to the doctor, his eyes blood red as he hissed at the two asylum workers with much scorn, as if preparing for another violent attack. The two workers quickly jumped on him, one of them trying to pin Rabbit down while the other one brought out a syringe from his pocket to sedate the mad rodent. The sedative wasn’t enough though; Rabbit still hissed and struggled violently even after receiving two shots of valium. In order to get the injured doctor out of there to safety, one of them had to drag the motionless doctor out of the cell while the other one tried to hold down Rabbit as long as he could. When the doctor was safely laid down outside the cell, the worker who was pinning the rabbit then gave a knuckle sandwich right between Rabbit’s eyes, knocking him off for a while, before letting him go to race out side the cell and closing the reinforced cell door behind him as fast as he could.

In mere moments after the door was locked and shut, loud banging sounds were heard from the inside the cell as Rabbit kept banging his straight-jacketed body into the door, his mind drained of what little sanity he had left. “Trix…Trix…I want the damn Trix!” Rabbit cried, but to no avail. Then, as the sedatives in his blood started to sink in, he stopped banging on the door and gradually slipped down against the door and into the onto the floor, his eyes slowly closing as his lips murmured something incomprehensible. A few seconds later, Rabbit fell asleep, his insane mind finally laid to rest.

And everything went quiet again.

THE END