Before Rick’s father left to travel the country, he called me and said he wanted to see his son. He took us to Farmland’s company picnic. We followed the trails in and out of the World of Poultry, and around the Land of Grazing. Rick’s dad unlocked the gates with the keys I’d made and let us pet the animals. We got to go on the rides for free.

We stopped by Farmland’s learning center. Kids could study different animals’ anatomy there, or act out the animals’ jobs on the farm. In one area they had special goggles, like viewfinders, and if you looked into them you could see how a cow sees or see how a duck sees. They fixed the insides with mirrors to take out the color if the animal didn’t see in color, or block out the sides if the animal could only see straight ahead, or fragment it if the animal could only see pieces of things.

I picked up a pair of those animal viewfinders and put them on. I looked at Rick’s father. This is how a dog sees you, I thought. This is how a chicken sees you. I turned to where Rick was and saw nothing. Sky. I looked down to find him, and there were my feet on the ground. They seemed far away. I had to move them to make sure they were real. Shuffle step. Point my toe. Tap, tap the ground in front of me to make sure that was real too.

The last time Rick threw Slim out the window, I was in the yard, pinning sheets to the line. The wind was catching them, snapping them, trying to pull them from my fingers, and I had to hold on hard to keep them from blowing across the lawn. I had one pillowcase left. Two pins in my hand. I heard Rick shout, “Up, up, and away,” and when I looked, he threw Slim out the third-story window.

Slim’s fur was flowing all around him. His ears were back and his body was spread out, the skin on his sides flapping like it was trying to catch air. Rick had tied a little cape around his neck, and I realized that it was an old diaper I’d been using as a dishrag. I watched Slim come right at my face and I thought, That stupid rabbit, he isn’t even looking down.

Slim wasn’t much of a rabbit anymore. He’d been hobbling around on three legs for a couple of weeks. We’d moved his cage inside to help him heal, but it hadn’t done much good. He hadn’t been eating, just sucking down codeine and carrot juice, and his skin had started hanging on his bones. I watched him coming at me, and I knew this was his last ride.