The story is very loosely based on the author Rachel Ament’s neighbor’s stories shared with while living in the Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood, Boro Park. Here’s an excerpt:

Ms. Rivkin and the class waited in silence for me to complete the monologue. “Mother of death!” I yelled again. The pain finished off and my body enjoyed that cool, sinking, after-pain feeling; the grand reward “I’m really sorry,” I said. “I think it was food poisoning. I’ve never been in so much pain before.”

Ms. Rivkin just stared at me in silence. She let her eyes, which were a pleasant navy color, orbit around their rims for a bit, and then ordered me to walk to the front of the class. She gestured me to get down on the ground, on all fours. “Vands in front! Palms facing the floor!”

I did as I was told. I felt a tail wagging out of my hindquarters and bunny rabbit ears rooting upright.I looked at my reflection in the window, just to make sure I wasn’t really an animal. I wasn’t. I then looked past my reflection, through the glass square, and watched all the wobbly autumn greens and oranges in the sky. The world was still a special place every now and then, I reminded myself.

(Read the entire story.)