The old grey rabbit led Nin through a meadow and over a hill towards a small hamlet by the sea. They scrambled over a stone wall and into a small flower garden.
“Look, but do not touch,” said the old grey rabbit. “There is food here, yes, but if you eat it the humans will realize there is a warren nearby, and they will come to destroy us.”
They crept through a patch of hydrangeas until they came upon a human, digging in the dirt with a trowel.
The old rabbit flattened his body against the earth. “This is what I wanted you to see,” he said. “That human is the master of this place. They have tilled and prepared the earth, brought in flowers, planted seeds and bulbs.”
Nin watched the human. They were moving here and there, squatting down, standing up, bending down again, all the while pulling up certain plants but leaving others.
“What are they doing?” asked Nin.
“They are weeding,” the old rabbit said with a grimace. “They are removing weeds.”
“What is a weed?” asked Nin. “They look like ordinary plants to me.”
“A weed is a weed for it grows where it pleases, rather than where the gardener wishes it to,” said the old grey rabbit. He turned his head and spat on the ground. “This is why I despise humans so! To tell a flower not to bloom—to kill it for doing that which is most natural and good—that is tantamount to blasphemy! What filth these humans are!”
And Nin saw in the eyes of the grey rabbit a hatred like no other.
Crosstown Gate 