The Rabbit Hutch

Eighteen-year-old Blandine Watkins, who lives in Apartment C4 in the Rabbit Hutch—the La Lapinière Affordable Housing Complex—“exits her body” one hot night (8). As she experiences this ecstasy, she feels that her being expands and encompasses first every other tenant in her apartment building, then the rest of the world, including important people from her past. We learn that her mother had an opioid addiction, that Blandine has lived with several foster families, and that a man raped her when she was 14 years old. Blandine does not disappear when she exits her body; rather, she is in an attentive state. She thinks she sees a glowing man as part of her vision.

This chapter presents a snapshot of activity in the different apartments. The jaded older man in C12, the teenager in C10, and the young mother in C8 all go online to find connections and distractions from real life. The mother, Hope, who is struggling with post-natal depression “has developed a phobia of her baby’s eyes” (12). She considers that they look too round and outraged, and they remind her of unpleasant things, such as the man who used a shovel to hit her window.