Ben - Chapter One

Ben woke in his self made hutch each day as any rabbit would, soaked in tea tree oil and self confidence.

A master cabinet maker, Ben also enjoyed playing the Bavarian tin whistle and drinking savoury Vietnamese whiskey with his friends when not running his ruddy paws along a length of storied oak wood.

Rubbing the rabbit sleep from his eyes, he rose with anticipated exuberance and emptied his metal smoking pipe from the night before, feverishly filling it with fresh tobacco after wiping away the excess greyed-ash from the well.

He picked his trousers, a crumpled and discarded heap on the floor, and proceeded to grunt and let out a raspy and loaded cough as he struggled to fit his jaded legs inside.

Fetching axe, hacksaw and milling-plane, he packed his suitcase with owl sandwiches in tow and briskly left his dwelling, carefully closing the gate behind him. Like clockwork, one could see wafts of pipe-smoke billowing from behind the hedge like a pre-millennial Chinese steam train.