When God Was a Rabbit

It is December again. My birthday. It is also the day when John Lennon was shot. A man went up to him and shot him outside his home in New York, wife next to him. Simply shot him. I can’t understand it; wouldn’t for days.

‘The good die young,’ says Jenny Penny during our phone conversation.

‘Why?’ I ask.

But she pretends not to hear me, pretends that the line is bad. She always does that when she doesn’t have an answer.

I go to bed early that night, inconsolable. I don’t even blow out the candles on my cake.

‘One candle’s already gone out in the world,’ I say. I leave my presents for another day. There is simply nothing to celebrate.