Concentrating is hard when you wish to remain in a land of dreams...
The forest was dark and eerie; just a few traces of sunlight littered the ground. The birds sung a tune that seemed to hang in the air and echo through the trees but a note never disappeared just wandered through the vast and endless forest. Somewhere deep in the forest you would find the middle and all the notes that the birds have ever sung, singing, or were to sing would be waiting for you there.
Patrick knew this but he’d never been here before. He sat against a large tree listening to the birds. Finally, Patrick thought.
“Finally what?” Said a steady non-echoing voice above the bird calls.
Patrick looked for the source of the voice but found none. It never crossed his mind to wonder how the voice had heard him think. Anything seemed possibly here, in fact anything was possibly here Patrick was sure of that.
“Finally,” Patrick said, his words echoed through the trees and stared a journey towards the center of the forest “I am asleep.”
“But…if you are asleep, then surly this would be a dream.” The voice said again drawling a bit this time.
“Yes” Patrick agreed. “That’s what this is.”
“Hmm…”The voice paused “And do you usually have dreams in which you are aware that you are asleep and in fact dreaming?”
Patrick took a minute to think about that. “No not usually.” He waited until the echoing of his words had traveled far from him before adding, “This is a strange dream.”
“Perhaps it’s because you aren’t dreaming.” The voice questioned.
“But..” Patrick began before rethinking “We’ve already decided that I am sleeping so there for I must be dreaming.”
“What if you aren’t sleeping?”
“If I’m not sleeping and not dreaming this then how can this exist?” Patrick asked perplexed.
He did think that anything was possible in this place, but this place wasn’t possible so if something that exists that couldn’t possibly exist doesn’t truly…couldn’t possibly exist but within a dream. So therefore this must be a dream.
“Perhaps…you’ve…gone….insane….” The voice said each word slowly.
“Insane? And why would you think that?” Patrick said frowning.
“Well, it’s the only other logical explanation isn’t it?” The voice said smugly
Patrick paused “Perhaps.” He said in a mocking voice.
“But then again this place isn’t logical so therefore logic must be taken out of the equation and then it would be the only other explanation wouldn’t it.” The voice said cheerfully.
“But if we take logic out of the equation then there is nothing to base anything on. We would not be able to figure out where we are or if I’m dreaming or insane.” Patrick complained.
“Well then if there is nothing to base anything on then perhaps we should base nothing on nothing. Or everything on everything or we could even make our own form of a base to compare things to and when we do that everything will make sense and we shall figure this whole mess out.”
“That seems like a lot of work…” Patrick said “Why can’t we just base it off of the logic that we both know.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” The voice sounded as if it was pouting.
Patrick sighed, his head slightly hurting from the concept of logic without logic and existing without existence.
“Voice.” Patrick called out “Where are you?”
“Well, now don’t be silly dear. Don’t you know where I am? We’ve been chatting this whole time and you don’t know where I am?” The voice sounded amused now.
“No. I’m afraid I didn’t.” Patrick admitted looking around. He froze momentarily confused as to what he felt on his back. The hot liquid quickly soaked into his shirt and burned his skin.
Patrick let out a small painful noise as he jumped up and flailed his arms backwards as if to brush away the already soaked up liquid. Patrick looked up with furious gold eyes into the tree. His gaze rested upon the creature sitting in the tree drinking slowly from a pastel pink teapot, a smug was barely visible.
Even though Patrick had admitted that anything was possible here, he still found the owner of the voice to be…odd. The creature wore pale blue ruffles, a dark purple jacket over a bright pink shirt, green pants with purple dots on his right leg while his left donned orange dots. But what caught Patrick’s attention the most was the bright yellow top hat that wore an unwelcoming face on it, few strands of brown hair peaked out from beneath it, and had two tall gray rabbit ears sticking out of it’s rim.
The rabbit man fixed Patrick with his only visible black beady eye and smiled. “Would you like some more tea?”
Patrick with an absent mind rubbed the burnt spot on his back.
“No thank you.”
The rabbit man turned away from Patrick and reached for something behind him on another branch. He turned back towards Patrick and held out an odd looking substance on a dish with a knife sticking out of it.
“Cake?”
Patrick looked at the cake with disgust, the cake was a maroon color and where the knife pierced through the cake an odd, not liquid but not-solid or even gas; substance surrounded it reminding Patrick of the color of blood.
“No.” Patrick said taking a step further back from the cake.
“Well then…” The rabbit man jumped out of the tree and some how managed to land on his feet and not drop or spill anything. “Perhaps we should do something.”
“Perhaps.” Said Patrick mocking the rabbit man again.
“Well, what shall we do?” The rabbit man asked.
Patrick glanced around the forest. “What is there to do?”
“Ah, the question is what isn’t there to do.”
“No, my question is- “
The rabbit man quickly interrupted “Yes that’s what you asked and to answer your question I answered what isn’t there to do.”
Patrick gave the man a confused look. “There are a lot of things we can’t do. We’re in a forest.”
“But we don’t have to be for long.”
Patrick hesitated “And if we left to go somewhere what would that do to help us figure out if I’m dreaming or insane?”
The rabbit man once again fixed him with the black beady eye “You’re still on that? Come now, we’ve changed the subject entirely.”
Patrick folded his arms over his chest and pouted, “You may not find this as important as I do probably because your sanity isn’t on the line.”
“Well technically if your seeing this you’re no longer on the line but completely insane. Also I haven’t had to worry about my sanity for a long time.” The rabbit man broke into a crooked grin. “But if it’s such a worry for you then we shall get other’s opinions on the debate of your insanity.”
“Sanity.” Patrick corrected him.
“I’m sorry what?”
“Sanity, we’ll get others to debate on my sanity not insanity.” Patrick corrected him more sternly.
“I see,” There was a tense silence as the rabbit man stared at Patrick with an unhappy frown upon his face. He lazily reached up and balanced the pastel pink teapot on his yellow top hat. “My apologizes, shall we get going?”
“Where will we be going?” Patrick asked. Something about the rabbit man’s voice made him suspicious.
“Does it really matter to know where we’re going? If your dreaming you’ll wake up in no time and if your not…well we’ll get to that when we come to it.” The rabbit man said with a grin and held his bright orange cane firmly in his hand and had the disgusting blood cake in the other.
“If we come to it.” Patrick muttered under his breath but it didn’t matter the rabbit man narrowed his eyes at him and turn his back to Patrick.
“Shall we get going then?” The rabbit man asked coldly.
Patrick followed the rabbit man’s lead, pushing another low hanging branch out of his face so that he can see where he was being led.
“Where are we going?” Patrick cried out through the thick forest leaves. The words left his mouth and were sucked backwards away from the large ears he wanted to hear them.
The ears twitched and the face that belonged to them glanced backwards towards him.
“Did you say something my good friend?”
Patrick nodded and stumbled across the forest floor. Roots kept popping up, as soon as he pulled himself up he felt the tug on his clothing. A thorn bush had wrapped itself around his waist holding him in place. Patrick groaned and tried to untangle himself from the bush but only cut his hands in the process.
“Perhaps you are not meant to leave this forest.” The rabbit man whispered in his ear.
Patrick jumped frighten by how suddenly the rabbit man had crossed the length that had been between them.
“Perhaps,” Patrick spat out. “You should help me out of this mess.”
The rabbit man smirked and held out the orange cane for him to grab. Patrick did and was instantly jerked free. He turned around to where he just was; the thorn bush had vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
“I don’t think the forest wants you to leave.”
Patrick turned his head to stare at his brown haired companion. “Why doesn’t it want me to leave?”
“That’s a good question. One that I can’t answer. The forest does what it pleases. Like steal your words for example. It can make it so that no one can hear you scream if you get lost or worse.” The rabbit man smiled. His eyes focused in the far off distance as if thinking of some fond memory.
“That’s not true.” Patrick said.
The rabbit man tilted his head at him. “What’s not true?”
“The forest doesn’t steal your words-“
“Ah, but I am the exception. For you see-“
“It collects them.” Patrick interrupted with a frown.
“Collects? What do you mean?”
“There’s a clearing.” Patrick pointed behind him towards the place every sound but the rabbit man made was drawn to.
“In the middle of the forest. It holds every sound made here. If you find it you can get it back.”
“A place where everything is kept?” The rabbit man stared at where Patrick had pointed. “ How do you know of such a thing?”
Patrick shrugged. “ I just know.”
Patrick took a few steps forward ready to get out of the forest that was in high spirits to hurt him.
“What’s your name?” The rabbit man asked still unmoving and staring where they had already been.
“My name?” Patrick said with a laugh. “For some reason I though you would have already known that. My name’s –“
He didn’t get to finish. His words not allowed to echo through the trees as he didn’t watch his step and was sucked quickly into the pit of wet sand. He gasped for air only to let wet sand in, his hands stung as he tried to reach for the opening the wet sand slipped it’s way into the cuts the thorn bush had given him.
He shot out of bed, gasping for air. Sweat dripped off his long nose and landed on the covers. He brought his hands to his face as he wiped beads of sweat that hadn’t begun their expedition down his face.
“I told him it was just a dream.” Patrick muttered
...But even in your dreams you can't control everything.
quote by Henry Bromel
Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991
Picture by dirtyfeet on flickr
Title: Even the most vibrant bunnys can lose their happy
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