The meeting room is buzzing with conversations as the clock strikes midnight. The Chamberlain clears his throat in an attempt to attract the attention of the assembly.
- My dear brethren, I demand some quiet, please. We are here to discuss a serious matter. I've been told that some of us have emitted some concern about the validity of the human tradition of invoking us on the first day of every month. Our elders are offended to know that a faction of our younger members, calling themselves "Leporidae Potentia", want to deny human beings the right to be blessed by our luck. We decided it was time to discuss the problem, and what better time than tonight, on all hallow even, to bring the matter forward?
- Dad, I mean, with all due respect, Mr Chamberlain, I'd like to be the first to voice my opinion, said Alba. The practice you mentioned hasn't been revised since 1420. We are now in 2008, and things have changed. Humans don't respect us as much as they used to. This rule is obsolete: they don't even believe in us anymore! So why should we bring them good luck just for the sake of it? The tradition has lost its meaning!
- They can't even agree on the invocation anymore! said Candidum, with all the revolt of his youth. "Rabbit, rabbit", "white rabbits" or just "rabbits", even "hares"; and what about that "tibbar" nonsense of saying it backwards! They can't remember why they're saying it, and, which is worse, we can't remember either!
- I hear you, said the wise Chamberlain. I agree with you, Alba: humans don't really believe in us anymore. But they do respect us more. Only 40 years ago and your legs would have been turned into keyrings. And you're mistaken about the lack of revision: the Balliol amendment has been created to prevent the type of abuse as performed by Harold Nicolson. As for you, Candidum, you do have a point. Nobody knows why...
- We should go on strike! interrupted Blanche.
- but we should work together on finding the origins of our deal with the humans, finished the Chamberlain. As long as we don't remember what we're getting in exchange of the luck we give them, we shall keep our promise. For all we know, not fulfilling our side of the engagement might cause our doom.
- What makes you think we're getting something in exchange? said Candidum.
- I know what we're getting, shouted Shiro from the back. We're getting drowned in boiling wine and experimented on!
A clamour spread across the hall.
- Silence! bellowed the Chamberlain. We shall vote. May the ones who want to maintain the tradition raise their ears. I will take into account Hvit's unfortunate encounter with a lawn mower that left him short of one ear.
A rustling sound echoed in the galleries.
- The majority has spoken: we shall continue with the tradition. Meeting is over.
* * *
Back in 1420, on the early morning of November the first, the White Wizards and the White Witches of Somerset travelled and gathered by a rabbit hole just outside a place they called Oxenaforda. John, a young sheperd, was hiding behind a tree.
- But white habits bring good luck! said one of the wizards.
John ran back to his home and woke his sister up:
- White rabbits, white rabbits! he said.
- White rabbits, white rabbits? she repeated.
- I saw the White Wizards grouped around a rabbit hole saying that white rabbits bring good luck!
- Really? said Alys. So we shall call on the rabbits for good luck too! Let's go and wake Mum and Dad up, and let's make it the first words they say, so they have a lucky day.
Meanwhile, in the rabbit hole, the rabbit they called Stein woke up with a start.
- Mister Chamberlain, Mister Chamberlain! he shouted, running in the galleries.
- What now, Stein?
- I've been invoked! I'm the chosen one!
- Calm down, Stein...I've felt it too.
- Have you? Wasn't it amazing? What shall I do? Shall I give them some luck?
- Whatever Stein, if it makes you happy. They might invoke us again if you do, and I have to admit I found it quite pleasant.
- Great! I shall tell all the others! said Stein, as he ran to spread the word in his most debonaire way.
Your turn:
A bookseller becomes allergic to printing ink.
- Isn't it the guy who wan £8 million you just served?
What is he doing with his life? when and where did he lose track of what he really needed? Five years ago, the first time he was sent to Frankfurt, he had thought: that's it, I'm quitting, that's not what I want to do with myself, I deserve better. And there he was, on his way to Frankfurt again, hating himself for having become that numb shadow of a human being.
Startled by the start of the motor,
When I was a child, I used to sit on the edge of my bed and bounce,
Her: 
She looks at the lollipop.
Hundreds of people all willing to connect because of some harmonious vibrations. Me, alone against them, held in place against them, with no will to interact with them. I can feel the vibrations reaching me and dying inside of me as if were some sort of earth wire in a plug.
A man and a woman sit on a park bench near a bycicle path in Dorking.
- Prick up your ears. Give your eyes away to the glittery twilight and focus on the sounds.
There is a loud thud at the front door. A brown envelope scrapes its way through the bristle-like fringe of the mail slot and falls to the floor. Brisk footsteps retreat down the stairwell echoing in the bleak emptyness of concrete and chipping paint. Before I have walked the length of the livingroom, I hear the door to the street groan on its hinges and bang closed again.
He's one. You can tell be the way he swaggers down the platform eating that jelly doughnut, it's viscous innards oozing onto the tips of his pudgy fingers. I wonder if a woman has ever let those fingers near her cunt. I doubt it. Not without money up front. See the way he studies the tube map in a disinterested fashion? That's the habit of someone who knows where their going but can't stand to stare into the middle distance, afraid of catching someone's eye. I'll bet in his head he's imagining some impropiety he's planning to commit later. Look at him - suckling his jam covered fingers, slightly trembling, like he were sucking the toenail of some cheap whore. I'll bet he's some quack. Calls himself an IT specialist when really he's the guy who does the nightshift in some fancy office tower cleaning keyboards, peeling off stickers and other crap those city boys leave cluttering their computer stations. I'll bet if he doesn't leave them sparkling he gets hauled into the office and belittled by the Boss man just like his father used to, before he died of lung cancer. The father who made sure he knew from an early age what a useless bag of crap he is at everything. I'll bet he lies in bed at night dreaming of the day he'll get revenge by droping his sorry ass in front of a Waterloo & City train making all those self-important office twats late for their morning meetings.
On August, 6th
