RABBIT AND LACEY

A rabbit lived that wanted to be a dolphin.  Don’t ask how he learned what a dolphin was, trust that he knew.

He said “Papa Rabbit, I want to be a dolphin.” Papa Rabbit said, “What’s a dolphin?”

He said, “Mama Rabbit, I want to be a dolphin.”  Mama Rabbit said, “You’re an idiot like your father.”

And so he thumped along a forest trail thumpy thump thump wondering how to become a dolphin.  Since rabbits are R-strategist creatures, his parents didn’t care if he died.

He decided to visit the great yogi Lacey.  Lacey had once been human, but she lost faith in humanity and claimed to have transcended the species.  You see, though Lacey was of the female sex she had meditated her way into learning the art of khoomi, or Mongolian throat whistling,  an art that historically, only males have been able to perfect.  It was her claim to superhuman status, and no one dared challenge it.  Rabbit thought that if Lacey could meditate her way into becoming an expert in khoomi, then he could meditate his way into becoming a dolphin under her tutelage.  

After seven days and thirteen nights of travel, the Rabbit arrived at the great zucchini garden.  Zucchini plants peeked from every corner--zucchini trees, zucchini vines, zucchini bushes, and zucchini lily pads.  These were all made possible by the chakras of the great Lacey, who dwelled in a treehouse deep within the garden.  Lacey would alternate between yoga sessions and reading out passages of The Picture of Dorian Grey to her plants.  On occasion, she would read Lolita, but only to her mature zucchini trees.  It was a deal she had made with Kenny Kehl, the original landowner.  He did not want any of the young plants to be traumatized.

“Oh Lacey, I want to become a dolphin.”  The Rabbit cried out.  Lacey appeared, her dreadlocks grazing the ground and her nose piercing gleaming.  She was wearing a blue hooded robe, and had been in the midst of learning a Welsh chant that for some reason--an important one, though forgotten--had been vital to her existence.  

“You don’t have the dolphin energy.” She said and slammed her trapdoor.

But the Rabbit did not leave, no, he stayed, on his knees in the rain.  And on the eighth day, Lacey came down and said to him,

“You’re blocking my view of my zucchinis.  I will teach you how to become a dolphin.  You must begin with sprouting almonds.”  

Now Rabbit had never heard of such witchcraft in the Rabbit hole and he was dearly afraid.  But the wrath of the Lacey frightened him more and he was most tired of kneeling under her tree, yelling about how Rabbits were a social construction.  So Rabbit learned how to sprout almonds.  

After three years of this he graduated to plum testing.  He was hired out to Kenny Kehl’s farm and forced to eat a plum a day to see if they were ripe.  They never ripened.

Now at this point our Rabbit was thoroughly sick of being made to jump through hoops on an endless trail that never led to dolphinhood, so he asked Lacey

“When am I going to be a dolphin?”  

After being offended, Lacey told him he would, three and a half lives in the future.  She had seen the answer painted across the night sky while drinking her zucchini tea.  

Rabbit would have gone home, but his inner eye told him that his family was long dead.  A life of labour and clear-headedness had given him unnatural longevity.  But after he died a few more times, he did indeed become a dolphin.  He would have thanked the great Lacey, but he found that he could not reach the zucchini garden by way of sea.

tsarina