BREATHE
“Do you still see him? Is he with you, in this room?” asked The Guru.
The sound of tortured laughing and selling hands closed out in his mind as he opened his eyes and saw a small smiling monkey in comfortable sweat pants and a green and white striped turtle neck sweater standing above him as he lay on his back staring up at an image of orange flowers painted onto the ceiling of a room with brightly coloured walls; bright blue to be exact and he, lying on a white leather couch and it looked as if he were floating on a cloud looking down at the world that haunted his mind and seeing; just as The Guru had said, that he was in fact not there, that he was, above and beyond all moony transitions and that the swinging fist that haunted his imagination was merely his own reflections, caught in the breaking of wave.
Theodore looked around the room seeing colour in everything but with his caliginous eyes, finding only the grey smudges and flickers of black and white where small threads of fabric had wound away like escaping screws from the corners of chairs and the tiny scratches in the paint around the handle of the door where probably an aardvark or a ferret had accidentally brushed its claws when reaching for the poorly shaped handle.
This bothered him.
“Well?” asked The Guru.
Theodore turned his head around to the expanse of colour and accepted that they were in fact without disrupting company, just he and The Guru, alone in the theatre of self-help.
“I can’t see him, no,” said Theodore. “But that doesn’t mean his isn’t there.”
“Is that what you think? That you’re mysterious Badger is hiding under the sofa, behind the blinds maybe, behind my chair even.”
“You wouldn’t get it,” said Theodore.
“Well then help me. This is what this is all about, to learn how to help ourselves so that we can help others. So help me, if he’s not hiding in this room then where is he hiding?”
“Inside me,” said Theodore.
The Guru made some scribbles and notes on the paper in his hands, but Theodore paid no mind. He had once concerned himself with these notes like most of The Burrowers had and still did, wanting so much for everything that he said to sound agreeable and poignant and usually the scratching of pen on paper would bring about some shrill of worry within all of the animals who laid upon this white couch but today; for Theodore, the scratching of sharpened lead on paper sounded no different to his own nails against the coarse sand out in the pits and just as his work ages his expectation and saddled his zest, so too he assumed, must the work of this brightly coloured monkey.
“Are you happy? It’s ok if you’re not. We all get sad you know. We all feel like we could be doing something different, our ears could be longer, our tail bushier, our nose a little pinker.”
“You do hear yourself? You just described a rabbit and you said we” said, Theodore.
“I guess I did,” said The Guru laughing to himself.
“And you see how that makes no sense then… because you’re a monkey.”
“It’s a metaphor, Theodore.”
“Why are we here?”
“On the moon? That’s a very deep question, a very good question indeed. Why do you think we’re here?”
“Is it a good question? Is it, really? It just seems so lazy you know, asking you for the answer instead of finding out for myself. Do you have the answer? Do you know anything at all?”
“You seem sad Theodore. Is your work not satisfying anymore? And sex, how is the sex?”
“See that’s the thing. I know who I am, I know what I am. I know what I’m supposed to do and I know what I’m supposed to like. I see everyone else doing it and liking it, it’s just, I don’t know…”
“I want you to look in this mirror for me.”
Theodore hopped off the couch and over to the far end of the room where the monkey was standing by what was for him an average mirror but for Theodore; a tiny white fluffy bunny, was, in fact, tremendous in its height, like catching one’s reflection at the foot of a glacier.
“I want you to look into your eyes, into the inner you, the true Theodore and I want you to speak to that Theodore. I want you to say. I am Theodore, I am me, I love me and I am special. I love myself and I love being me. I am important and the things I do and say make a difference. Hurray for me, hurray, hurray, hurray.”
Theodore did as The Guru asked, looking himself long in the mirror and seeing his reflection but seeing it not as he had once seen himself, seeing it older, like a face you just can’t put a name to. And he seemed lost, looking into his own red eyes. He wondered; in the instant before he spoke, whether he would ever be able to find himself lost in a crowd, were it that he had found himself separated from his own self.
He said the words the way he was supposed to say them but the sound was strange and their feeling had no effect. Being a burrowing rabbit was so much different to being any other kind of rabbit and for Theodore, being a rabbit of his own making; being Theodore, was so much different to just being a conventional rabbit and he was having such a hard time at doing just that, being just like everyone else and being happy about it.
“You know I had a dog in here earlier on with the same problem. He wasn’t happy either. He wanted to be like a monkey, can you believe that? And he’s a canine. But it goes to show you that you’re not alone, everyone has these same thoughts from time to time. We all think of ourselves differently than we truly are. And we’re all the same, we’re all special. We’re all important and that’s what matters” said The Guru.
Theodore gazed into his own reflection watching his pupils swell and recede like a black conspiring tide and he wondered if when other rabbits looked into his eyes, could they see his doubt and would they see him, as in how he felt?
Different, as in, not a rabbit.
“Honestly Theodore, I believe there is nothing wrong with you at all. You’re a health young rabbit. Tell me, how many times per day are you having sex?”
“Sorry?” asked Theodore.
“Sex Theodore, how many times per day are you, you know?” asked The Guru, thrusting his hips back and forth.
Theodore looked droll in the application of his humour. His tired eyes blinked once or twice before he finally gave a slow response.
“Maybe thirty times per day. I mean, that’s normal I guess, isn’t it?”
“Hey, who’s to say what’s normal? We don’t use that word around here. It’s not in my vocabulary. There’s no normal or expected or problem or right or wrong, everyone is unique and special here. But for a rabbit of your age, normal is anywhere from fifty to maybe a hundred times per day.”
“I thought you said normal was not in your vocabulary?”
“Oh no, I was just showing a comparison of, for example, more traditional ways of exploring a problem like this whereas I treat a problem like this looking not at the problem itself but maybe, in the environment, what might be causing the problem.”
“Can I go?”
“But we’re not done. I still had some photos of sad rabbits saying depressive sentiments. It was going to be next and…”
“I’d really like to get back to work. I’m ok, really I am. Look, I’m happy, see” he said, wearing a limber oversized smile like a young child would, their father’s coat.
“You know life is like a…”
“A what?” asked Theodore.
“Oh, where is it?”
“What did you lose?”
“I had a card here. It was a white card. It had all my closing proverbs. I left it right here. You didn’t see it did you?”
“No, I didn’t. But that’s ok. Maybe next time.”
“No, it’s not ok. There’s a science to this. You’re supposed to finish on a life quote. I have to conclude the session.”
“Well, can’t you just give me one off your head or something?”
“I don’t have one off the top of my head. I keep them on the white card. That’s what the white card is for but my stupid receptionist. Ugh, she an
gers me sometimes. She just moves things about like it’s her place.”
“Relax Guru, it’s fine. I don’t think life really offers any real conclusions anyway, not the kind we’re hoping or expecting.”
“Just give me a second. The quote is great. It’s about life and everything being in balance and… it’s here somewhere, I know it” said The Guru.
“Listen, I’m feeling kind of randy so I might go and have some sex now but later, when you find it, you can read me that quote, deal?”
“Sure, yeah that’s a good idea, deal. Hey, have great sex.”
Theodore stepped on a small button by the right of the door and the small button pressed down and the lock clicked and the door paused open and Theodore hopped out into the hallway and headed off back along through the winding corridors passing hundreds of unmarked doors on his way back into the tunnels to continue his work.
“Theodore” yelled The Guru down the corridor.
Theodore stopped and turned his little bunny head.
“Breathe” he shouted.
“What?” yelled Theodore.
“Breathe in the air” The Guru shouted. “When it gets heavy and you’re thinking old in your mind and you feel long in your step, remember to breathe, nothing else, just breathe in the air. And yoga. Do your yoga. It will even out your soul. More yoga, ok? Oh and hey, you’re special and I love you.”
“Ok,” said Theodore dryly.
“Oh, and don’t be afraid to care. The things you love, they won’t leave you, not if you love them and you love yourself enough for them to want to stay. Breathe, Theodore, just breathe” shouted The Guru.
Theodore turned away again and hopped off down the hallway and waited by a large sign of a burrowing rabbit by a large metal track. On his way, he caught the eye of a raggedy but pretty rabbit looking at him with strange affection. And it could have been hunger in her eye or it could have something entirely else and as he hopped past, he looked in her direction as he did every time he passed her stop and he wished he could have done something other than pretending that he hadn’t seen her stare.
What a stupid rabbit thing to do.
Beside him; spaced generously, where many more signs stretched out the length of the track before him and each sign housed a different animal; some large some large and some insectually small.
Before each sign stood the animal or insect that was no different as the image itself and all of the animals huddled together and they bickered and they shoved and they pushed one another around, desperately vying to be first to board the afternoon train.
Along the line of the track, waiting for the first carriage down to the last was the order in which the animals were needed, respected and unto the moon, gave their service. The dogs were first, taking the most comfortable of the carriages and the least labour of the work. It had been better, according to the monkeys, to give passage and the right to the dogs so that they wouldn’t eat and make bloodied toys out of all the smaller and more functional animals. The dogs did very little, so better then that the little they did be somewhere upon where there very little did no harm.
Theodore waited with the other rabbits towards about half way down the track waiting for one of the middle carriages. His herd mingled with the dirty paws; the quick talking foxes, the savage and conniving ferrets and the armadillos, which bruised their way to the top of this bottom rung of burrowers. They were paid handsomely and lived a respectful title and position in society, admired but not revered, lesser than the dog and the mole but still higher than The Feelers, those worms and spiders and colonies of ants that tunneled their way through the broken rock, reporting on what may or may not lay ahead.
“Has the afternoon train passed?” said The Mole.
“Not yet,” said Theodore.
“What are you doing? You’re talking to a mole? Are you insane? Are you mad?” yelled a rabbit beside him.
Theodore hadn’t even noticed. Beside him stood a massive creature. Massive compared to him anyway. It was a large brown mole and he was probably lost. Moles were the only animals of whom the signs bayed little importance and they were the most proficient Diggers of them all and the rule said that one could have a mole next to him, but one could never be next to a mole and though a mole might ask one a question, one should never assume that they are expected to respond, not with what they can or cannot see, for how would an animal with eyes ever compare what it cannot see with animal that has never seen before. Thus, the moral right was to pitter patter away.
But Theodore didn’t care too much.
“It’s coming now,” said The Mole.
Theodore looked around, but he couldn’t see anything. The other rabbits looked too and they took the words of The Mole like those of some ancient mystic and the sound of its voice rattled about like cellophane in a light breeze making all of the rabbits feel uneasy and unsettled as they peered over one another to their right, looking into the darkness and then, just as they were about to shrug off his wisdom, from out of nowhere came the thunderous horn and the rattling of the scores of carriages being dragged through the dark tunnel.
“He was right,” said one rabbit.
“They’re always right,” said another.
“It’s magic.”
“It’s mystical.”
“They’re sorcerers. Blind sorcerers.”
“Shhh, they can hear everything, even your thoughts.”
“You’re idiots,” said Theodore, stepping onto the train as it came to a stop and the doors opened.
He thought about helping the blind mole get aboard but then, he really didn’t care all too much so he hopped onto a seat and stared out the window while hundreds of other rabbits piled upon one another, squeezing into every vacant spot.
The train rattled as the door closed and then a siren sounded and the engines started and the train went returned from whence it came, moving slowly at first and then racing down through the tunnels and towards the digging zones near the centre of the moon and as the train sped along, the carriage full of rabbits exploded with converse and shouting and expletive cursing and then as if someone had just flicked a switch, it became a carriage of rampant sex as the rabbits; piled upon one another, engaged in their second favourite past time.
Theodore though just stared out of the window and thought how strange this all seemed. Yet, he had not known anything more different to have ever made him feel this way so how strange it was then, to not know why it was that he felt that everything seemed so patently strange and this was what cursed him, what caused him to feel so different and mad because he had no words at all, nothing had been taught to him to express that the life that he knew and that the role he was born to play, the purpose he would fulfill and the life unto which he drudge his way through was, in some unspeakable sense, absolutely and entirely wrong.
But he had no words.
He had not been educated to think this way and to speak only of what he thought and so this feeling of which burned inside of him, it burned and nothing more. The pain never ceased and its calling never lessened. And though all he needed and all that he wished was to have the way or the meaning or the words to simply say just how he felt, with what he had, which was nothing at all, all he could do was to say “I fell a little bit strange” and for that, for having a feeling with no name, a meaning with no words, he was undeniably mad.
The train arrived at the station deep in the tunnels after some arduous time alone with his thoughts and in that time he had cursed himself a thousand times over and thousand times more and he had listened and fended the mockery and taunting jeers of his common peers, cackling like drunken witches in his mind; the type of laughter that wouldn’t just get under your skin, if left unattended, it would peel it right off.
And in the time it took for his thoughts to turn on him, his companions, his fellow rabbit commuters had copulated some scores and tens of scores of times and they all hopped off of the train with some obvious perk and spring in their step and none
of them looked tired, not for an inch of the sex they had just consumed.
The rabbits all poured down into the caverns and took to their obligation, savouring nothing more than digging their dirty little paws into the moon rock and burrowing away as they did, throughout each and every day. Theodore plodded along slowly feeling as if the spring he was told he should have, were rusted so that when he moved his little paws and his little legs, he was pained up along his back and in his mind and it felt like the feeling was burrowing its way inside his mind and he wondered if there were an animal or a sentiment like he, inside his mind right now, with its duty to burrow until it had found some appeasing light and he wondered if that sentiment felt as heavy as he felt now and maybe that was why he felt so heavy, for he was labored by a sentiment that was feeling sad, for it too had a sentiment of its own that had grown tired and strange to its purpose.
The siren sounded.
The rabbits all started their burrowing and they all sang out loud in contented harmony as their little paws and tiny claws scraped at the rock and dug into the dirt and shifted piles of grey moon sand behind them.
“Hey you.”
It was Florence, Theodore’s girlfriend.
“Do you want to burrow with me today?”
There was a perfect response, the perfect word he was looking for that would best represent the aversive feeling in his stomach. What was it?
“Sure,” he said.
That wasn’t it.
“Theodore I’ve been thinking. You know, maybe it’s time we looked at maybe moving in together. You know, we’re not getting any younger and, you know…”
And she said ‘you know’ like she was attaching some whimsy towards every ideal just so she could back her way out of it, should in the light of its saying, it be wrong or not agreeable.
Theodore hated it.
“So anyway, were going to Irene and Steven’s engagement on Friday and I thought, you know, maybe we could have some news for ourselves because I really want to have something to tell everyone and you know, nothing really much has happened and I love Irene, she’s like my sister but I really want some attention for myself, you know? Theodore?”
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“Burrowing,” she said.
“No, us,” he said.
“We’re burrowing,” she said.
“Are you happy?”
“Of course hunny bunny. Aren’t you?”
Theodore paused for a moment. He saw his entire life, scratched into the face of a grey moon rock and he could see, etched in the sand, the footprints of the rabbit he pretended to love and the friends he pretended to admire, having all been partied about him throughout the entirety of this farce, cheering him along.
“I am, yes.”
There it was. Those contrary words, the complete irregular meaning to the opposition he felt in his stomach and what was it that made him this way? What made him so horribly, polite?
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, I was having sex with these guys earlier this morning and they were telling me about this great band we have to check out, you’re gonna love it. Apparently they’re really good. You guys could maybe try to introduce yourself you know and try to get a gig with them; it’d be great for you. They have like, the new sound, you know, like apparently it’s the next thing. We should really go. Ok, we’ll go. I’ll call Irene and Steven and we’ll get Greg and Tracy too and Yvette and Jonathon and oohh, what’s that guy’s name? You know the one? He has that like limp kind of when he hops, you know.”
He could of known and maybe he did but he went somewhere else in his mind when she said that they, for the last ten years, had been burrowing and what a thing he thought, to be digging away at oneself, looking for nothing in particular.
Florence kept talking. She couldn’t stop. Her little bunny mouth moved up and down like talking mouths did, but it didn’t at all sound like she was speaking. It sounded like a truck reversing and that’s how every word sang to him, like a warning, telling him to keep his distance and be careful when overtaking.
“No,” he said.
“And it was so big I just couldn’t believe myself I mean, you won’t believe me if I tell you and really you had to be there to understand what I’m talking about, words really don’t suffice but I’m gonna tell you anyway cause I mean, you know, you’re never gonna get an opportunity like this ever again, not for this type of thing and….”
“No,” he said.
“I didn’t ask you anything silly billy.”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No to this, no to that. No to what you didn’t ask me. No to what you will. No to what you haven’t said and no to what you’ll never say. No, no, no. Just no.”
“Am I missing something Theodore?
“Yes, yes you are. You’re missing so much.”
“You’re scaring me, Theodore, are you ok? You look…… sad” she said.
“No.”
“No what Theodore.”
“No, I’m not happy but I’m not sad either, I’m just… blahh”
“Do you want me to hug you?”
“Not particularly no.”
“Do you want to have sex?”
“I’m bored with sex, of doing it all the time, it’s just become…. blahh”
“But it’s what we do.”
“And I’m tired of all of that too.”
“Do you want me to call someone. You should speak to The Guru.”
“I did.”
“Oh did he show you that picture of the sad bunny, you know, the really pretty one and she had like a tattoo or ink or something on her arm and her face and it said ‘I feel ugly’ and ‘I’m not good enough’ and there was more stuff as well but I can’t’ remember what it said but it was so effective. I saw that and just went wow, like it was so moving and deep because it’s not just untalented people who feel like they don’t have talent because there’s other rabbits too, like really pretty ones you know? I felt so good about myself. Whoever made that picture should get a reward or something it was just like so moving.”
“Yeah I think I’m not gonna do it anymore.”
“What are you on about?”
“Everything. The self-help, the exercises, the dieting, the book club, the yoga.”
“The yoga? You want to stop yoga? But how will you attain corporal and spiritual balance? I mean, you can’t just stop you know?”
“I think I will. I think today was my last day. Yeah, I’m gonna stop.”
“Theodore you sound crazy, I mean this is how a crazy rabbit would sound, you know?”
“I think I need something different.”
“But what? Everything that there is is everything that we do. What else could there be?”
“I guess I wanna find something, anything.”
“Did you do the mirror exercises? Oh, they always cheer me up when I remind myself how unique and special I am.”
“You see, that’s the thing. If everyone is so unique and special then it goes to say that being unique and special is something common and if that’s the case then you’re just back to being ordinary again.”
“You really are sad.”
“I’m not sad. I told you. I feel empty, deflated, like my body is too big and deformed for my soul if I even have one.”
“Now that’s crazy talk hunny bunny. You just need to see The Guru. Trust me, self-help cures all ailments, even the ones in your mind, you know. It’s like food for the soul.”
“My soul is starving.”
“Well then, have a slice of Zen pie.”
“It doesn’t work.”
“Of course it does, it’s soul food.”
“Self-help and those stupid proverbs, they do nothing. Soul food? It’s like trying to cure starvation with a sugar cube. It might taste sweet on the lips but once it dissolves, the emptiness is still there.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing will suffice.” r />
“We should start burrowing. If we don’t get some distance done we won’t get our rewards. Where should we start? I think tunnel 186B will be great. What do you think?”
“They’re all the same. They all go in the same direction. Does it matter?”
“Breathe Theodore. Just stop hopping, for one second.”
Florence gripped his fluffy fur and dug her little claws into the grey soil, keeping him from hopping away.
“Breathe.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?”
“Just breathe Theodore, breathe in the air.”
Theodore stopped his rant. Maybe he was crazy. Maybe this was just some virus. The two hopped together down through a series of tunnels heading towards 186B but when they neared the right door and as they passed a small group of beggars, Theodore had a change in his heart and change in his direction.
They stopped by a young rabbit who was mangy in his appearance, his fur all tattered and knotted, not of any specific breed at all, just a blemish in their direction.
“Please, sir. I’m ever so hungry. Just one penny would do” the young rabbit said.
Theodore put his hands in his pockets and though they jingled the tune of a rich rabbit, he held the coins in his grasp and shook his shoulders and his instinct said, “No, I don’t have anything, maybe next time kid.”
And they hopped along.
Florence opened the door to usher her boyfriend through, but Theodore just looked at her as if he couldn’t understand a single word she was saying.
He turned and went through the door beside him, to the left.
“Theodore” she screamed. “We only burrow on the right. Theodore, what are you doing? Theodore, are you mad?”
The door closed behind him and he found himself somewhere he had never imagined being.