You and that Rascally Rabbit

You’re born in a rural hometown, in the backroom of a mom and pop hardware store because your mother’s water broke three weeks early while they were shopping for a new hammer because your dad needed, he just needed, that new hammer because he couldn’t get the baby room finished just right.

Your dad is both the vice principal and head coach for the baseball team at the high school. Your mom is chief of emergency medicine at Pteetneet Regional. Your grandpa lives two houses down in a brick and timber bungalow.

When your parents are busy, which is very often, you spend all your free time with Grandpa Joey and his magical fairy cage. It isn’t just the two of you; you also bring your imaginary stuffed rabbit Ty, who’s come to life as a six foot four inch rabbit person who leads you on adventures through the wild imaginary landscapes on whacky adventures in his magical retirement village golf cart.

There was the one time that you and Ty went to outer space where you fought a regime of brain eating aliens bent on taking over the world with nothing but the mustard from your hotdog lunch.

There was that one time where you and Ty travelled through the bloodstream of your cousin Chance and saw how the heart worked to beat inside your chest.

And that other time when you and Ty had to ninja battle giants in the deep dark raspberry forests of the Greater Olselandia!

Then you grow older and you have your first kiss.

You visit grandpa just a little bit less.

Then you grow older and get your first job.

You might go and visit grandpa next month.

You go and you meet the love of your life.

You move away. You start a new life.

"Jag saknar dig, mitt barn."

And you say, to your love, one day you just stop and say “you’ve got to meet my grandpa some day. Let me tell you about the aliens and the ninjas and you’ll never guess how I know so much about the bloodstream these days and… hold just a moment, I’ll answer the phone.”

“You’re grandfather passed away last night.”

Next thing you knew you were finding the best three-way flight back to Idaho, northern Idaho, so that you can help your mom clean out grandpa’s house and your love, your new love, has joined you for a meet-the-parents-for-the-first-time situation that is sure to get comically out of hand at any moment.

Now, right now, you have your hand on the doorknob of the miniature half-sized moon gate door that leads to the fairy room under the stairs and all the memories flood back to you. Grandpa Joey had built this door just to spark your imagination.

You twist the knob, but it sticks. It’s made of iron. It’s rusted shut.

No one has been in this room in a long time.

A very long time.

You twist harder. You brace your foot against the door and you use both hands and you grit your teeth and you tense that little muscle, you know the one, the one that always gets bent out of shape no matter what you do, you brace that one too and you… BOOM, the door, it opens wide and darkness rockets out from inside with a light hint of breeze.

You reach inside and feel for the beaded chain that turns on the:

FLICK

of light. The chain rocks back and forth and you squeeze inside the little door. You push with your hips and you kick back and forth and think to yourself, “How did I ever just slide right through that little door!”

The room is a box, a big empty box, with a carve out of upside downstairs at the top. The floor has a few of doodads and tinkets and some kind of things that fell through the walls or out of the seams and you sit and hold tight with all of your thoughts.

You let the shadow of the chain swing back and forth and your life comes back fast and your breath becomes short as the walls begin to close real tight and the exit, the exit, the exit, the exit… the exit is no where in sight.

Pop goes the light and all goes dark. The real kind of dark, the dark that scares darkness, the dark that smells of moist cement and secrets.

You throw your hands out and grasp at the planks and the loose floorboards above you and you hit something hard, something round, something… a button?

Then the aliens, they’re back and you’ve not come prepared. You haven’t eaten hotdogs in how many years?

You panic. You reach. You push at the button and you’re back in the forest, just outside the town limits of the Greater Olselandia.

The giants. The giants! You can hear the giants coming and storms start approaching with thunder and lightning and the light go outs and the door.

It’s wide open.

“Is this the room you told me about? Scoot over. There’s room. Don’t make a fuss. There’s nothing to fear when a loved one is near. Scoot, scoot, scoot, scoot on over,” they give you no choices as your both bump your noses.

The door closes and you let out a tear. Your imagination, it died, became fear.

You don’t want your love to see you here. You sit in the dark quiet and shaking.

Click goes a button.

“Oh. I see what you’ve done in here. Geez, how many settings are there? Like 36 different settings didn’t you say? Sure your grandpa didn’t do the occasional substance in here? Just joking, but this is really cool. I like the beat this one has, like I know you can’t hear it, but you can kind of feel it right. The way the light pulses. It brings the room alive. I want to. I want to choose one. What’s this one?”

“Which relative here do you want to get swallowed by?” you let your eyes twinkle.

You press the button three more times and you take each other by the hand and you walk through the forest just outside the town limits of the Greater Olselandia on the lookout for giants when you come to a crest in the hill and you find.

You find.

It can’t be, but you’ve found.

The clear outline of bones. The bones of a rabbit, from tiny rabbit toe bone to the tip of floppy ear bone, a rabbit that stood at least six foot four inches.

You thought you had shed all the tears that you could, for the loss of your grandpa and the loss of childhood, but the tears keep on flowing and soaking yourself. Your loved one holds you and squeezes you tight.

“Turn it off, let’s go.”

There’s a real world out there, but the two of you sit and you wait just right here. In the dark. In the silence. It wraps you away and the light from the keyhole beckons your way. To your life that you made and you reach for that doorknob just as a sight.

A brilliant white light like the point of a pin appears and slowly it grows big and begins to light the whole room in a blast of clean slate.

“The world in here is still yours to make.”

You give them a hug and your next tear is for you. As you lean closer, as you snuggle in, there comes a loud sound, from deep in within.

“Blahhhh,” the blasting scream of a goat.

“I like that. Can we be at a farm? Oh, my phone has kind of a cool disco ball feel to it. Want to try that one? Or we could maybe just make out a little? Too soon?”

“My grandpa Joey would’ve loved you,” you say.