Welcome to Super-Short Storytime, fellow fans of flash fiction!  I am Eduardo Soliz, the writer and narrator of the splendidly short story that you are about to hear.

Something that one quickly discovers upon purchasing a home is that keeping it up can be a lot of work.  Like many of you, I found any work involving its exterior particularly tiring and time-consuming, with mowing the lawn being the most unpleasant.  Fortunately, in addition to exercise, a nice looking lawn, and a few wasp stings, all of those hours spent behind the lawn mower resulted in this tiny tale of toil that I call: “Lawn Care.”

It was another fine Saturday morning, and once again, I was spending it mowing the grass in my backyard.  As was usually the case, I had waited too long, so after a half hour, both my lawn mower and I were huffing and puffing under the strain of foot-tall weeds.  I stopped to catch my breath for a moment, when I thought heard a voice.  I turned around.  Nobody was there.  Huh.  I stood still and listened for the voice, and again it came.

“Hello?”  A soft voice said, but it was coming from…below me?  I looked down and saw a rabbit sitting on the grass staring back at me.  I looked over it for some sign that it was a toy; a seam, glass eyes, or weird colors.  Nothing.  As far as I could tell, this was a real live rabbit, just one that could talk.

“Hello?”  I replied. I slowly raised a hand and waved my fingers at the bunny, not wanting to frighten it.  To be honest, I was feeling a little frightened myself!

The bunny gasped.  “You can talk.”  She said, her mouth and eyes opening wide in astonishment.

“You can talk?”  I replied.  Okay, this is weird.

The bunny blinked, shook her head slightly, and regained her composure. “Oh!  We wanted to ask: Why do you kill the grass?”  She asked.

“Kill the grass?”  I asked back.

“Yes.  You kill the grass.  What you are doing right now.”  The bunny nodded her head towards the freshly-mowed area I had just finished.

I thought about my words for a moment, doing my best to simplify the concept:  “I cut the grass to make it short.”  I put a hand on my chest to emphasize my next point.  “We also don’t like some kinds of grass, like the skinny ones with the yellow flowers on top.”

The bunny recoiled in shock, her ears folding back. “But those are yummy!” She insisted.  “We like the tall grass because we can hide there and be safe.  Short grass is…” She closed her eyes tightly and shuddered. “scary.”

I waved a hand out over the portion of the yard that had been cut and said: “Well, people like me think it looks prettier when the grass is short.”

The rabbit gazed back at me with wide eyes and asked:  “But aren’t we pretty, too?”

I don’t mow the lawn anymore.  You know, I haven’t seen any dandelions around, either.

THE END.

I live alone, Dear Listener, so I don’t know if ‘because of the bunnies’ would work as a good excuse for not cutting your grass.  That said, you are more than welcome to try.  This has been Super-Short Storytime!  Visit eduardo soliz dot com for more stories and podcasts and remember:  Talking bunnies are people, too!