Week 11, Theme 2

Prompt: Choose an actual or an imaginary creature, like Bishop’s “Man-moth,” and describe it in a way that suggests both human and non-human qualities. This theme could take the form of another fable, or naturalistic description or meditation, or some combination of these modes, as in Sebold’s excursus on moths from Austerlitz, or Woolf’s essay “The Death of the Moth.”

There once lived in the mind of an Advertising Director a furry white rabbit. The rabbit hopped around the brain, munching on ideas, carrots, and the like. One day, the Advertising Director was commissioned to construct a campaign to market a tasteless, “fruit flavored,” cereal sold by General Mills. “Trix” was selling poorly and needed to capture the coveted 3-7 year old demographic. As thoughts of the cereal began to circulate around the Director’s brain, the rabbit became obsessed. He was sure that the luscious fruit cereal would taste most savory, certainly better than the bland mind carrots he had been munching on lately.

The rabbit began to make quite a ruckus in demand of this new cereal. Noticing this, the Director thought, “If every Caucasian child from ages three to seven were to be as obsessed with this middling cereal as my mind rabbit is, why, I’d be rich!” He fetched the rabbit from his mind, described the creature to an Art Director, and thus gave the Trix-crazed bunny life in an advertising campaign. The Advertising Director, being a cruel, greedy man, decided to perpetually deprive the rabbit of any taste of the actual cereal, so as not to dampen the bunny’s loud and desirous proclamations. Instead, animated children would hold large bowls of Trix within arm’s length of the rabbit, taunting him and yelling, “Silly rabbit! Trix are for kids!”

Years passed and the cereal became more and more popular. Times change, though, and soon futuristic robots chasing bowls of sugary cereal became more in vogue than their fluffy animal predecessors. One evening, on his last advertising legs, the old rabbit shuffled toward the now-wealthy Advertising Director and made one last appeal to taste the cereal he had made a hit. The Director, feeling sorry for the old furball, gave him a bowl and spoon and a box of the cereal.

Hands shaking out of excitement and arthritis, the rabbit lifted the cereal to his lips. He chewed for a bit, and then spat the foul-tasting mush out in disgust. Maybe Trix were for kids.