Free A Handicap of the Devil? by Allen Lyne

come into our yard."
    Rabbits are very sure of their position in the world and certain that the world revolves around them and nothing else.
    God sighed. “It's a little more complicated that that. Everything sort of depends on everything else down there. It's the way I set it up."
    "If you ask me you could have done it much differently.” Peter looked at the bunnies and back to God. “Almost everything down there has to kill something else in order to survive. You could have set it up a lot better."
    "It was groovy when I first made it."
    "You should never have allowed them free will. Look what they've done with it. Everything kills everything else."
    "You were a fisherman, weren't you?"
    "I know a lot more now than I did then."
    "Okay, okay, I stand corrected. Next time I design a world, I'll ask your advice."
    Both bunnies nodded in agreement, thinking He meant them rather than St. Peter.
    "Here's the deal, guys. I've got your ... staff member, on a mission to save the world from itself. There's far too much violence and nonsense going on down there."
    Thumper nodded. “So you're going to kill all of the cats?"
    God frowned. “No, no I'm not.” His look softened. “I need you to do a job for me. When Jonathan wants to talk to me, he has to ask you to make contact."
    "Why don't you just let him talk to you himself?"
    "Because he'd be at it all day every day, and I'm a very busy God."
    Peter sniggered. He knew that if God was more organised, he could cut his workload by half. He said nothing and let God continue to outline what he wanted from the bunnies.
    "The point is that this way he can only contact me when he's at home and close to you. I want you to limit him to no more than two contacts a week. If it's an emergency, you can get in touch anytime."
    "How do we know if it's an emergency?"
    "Listen to the tone of his voice. Check his body language. You rabbits are experts at telling if people are cool by the way that they are acting.... Hey, you can do this thing."
    "Will we get some extra carrots or something if we do a good job?"
    "I'll do better than that. If humanity continues to screw up, you can have the whole box and dice."
    The rabbit's confusion was evident on their faces.
    "The next go at running the world, man. I'll wind up the world and you'll inherit it. You can have it all."
    "Wow, the whole world? All to ourselves?"
    "You'll have to share it with the other animals."
    "Some of them want to eat us."
    "We'll think of a way round that. Hey, I can do anything.” God was a broad-brush strokes Being. He didn't want to get involved in too much detail until he had to.... And then he would pass it off to St. Peter. “When you go back on Earth, dig your burrows as deep as you can. Those crazy humans are out of my control. There's just a chance they will press the button and blow themselves and everything down there all the way to hell. If you've got nice, deep burrows, you can survive, and we can work out what happens next."
    Bugs and Thumper nodded again. They both liked digging burrows and had a whole network of them under the earthen floor of the shed in their backyard.
    "So, what do you say, little dudes? We got a deal or what?"
    Bugs and Thumper agreed to the terms and conditions required by God. They both hoped that they could remember the instructions.
    "Well.” St. Peter stood with finality. He would be glad to get the bunnies out of his space. They were nice little creatures, but as far as he was concerned, they belonged outside. “Let's go then, and I'll get you back to Earth."
    "We're a bit hungry. Can we have some dinner before we go?"
    God smiled. One of the quirky things he had done with the world was to give little rabbits huge appetites for food and.... “You can graze on the lawn for awhile. I reckon you'll really dig the grass out there."
    "We don't want to understand the grass.” Bugs was confused again. “We just want to eat it."
    "Okay, okay. Forget I spoke. Just get a tummy full of