MEANING: A dream
If you can’t find the meaning of life while looking through the holes in your socks then you will never find it.
One morning your search will consist of eating raw plums on the train and throwing the pits at the rush hour commuters pathetically locked
into their scheduled existences. There will never be enough caffeine in the world, let alone at starbucks
that could cure the lethargy that will then descend upon you. Though the massive amount of coffee you do drink
will be enough to stave it off for some time. Confusion will take its toll as your mind races through just about
everything you have ever thought about fifty or sixty times in the space of about the time it takes for the train to get
from Grand to Chicago avenue. Eventually, however you will find yourself much too tempted by Eris’s fatal life-giving
smirk slowly pulling you up into that dreamy weirdness that sometimes masquerades as sleep. And as you start to nod off the thought occurs to you that the coffee
and the raw plums mixing together have offended your hard to aesthetically please stomach somehow. 'Can’t they all just get along?' you ask yourself before the lights go out.
And, as if reality in the city of Chicago wasn’t already sick, pathetic, maladjusted
and surreal enough, you find yourself awakened in some never before altered state of mind wandering
around downtown streets. All the cars are crashing into each other while the traffic cops
stand aside at each corner playing long forgotten jazz solos on trumpets. That would be enough to peak your interest
but then you notice the rabbits…At first, you think to yourself that it’s all in your head, and you watch amused as their numbers grow further up the street.
Their pink and purple fur make them an easy spot amidst the bland shades of business-gray the pedestrians wear. You notice that somehow
some of them are standing upright and holding signs. Just as you think you hear one of the trumpeting cops start to play something
that sounds like Ornette Coleman would have written, curiosity about the bunnies overtakes you. You seem to be unable to recall the words from a poem you heard last night
warning about pink and purple colored rabbits and what to do on the off hand chance you should run across them…."Shit! What was that poem saying?" you ask yourself.
And maybe just maybe, you think, I should have been, for once, paying attention. Why else go to poetry readings in the first place? But it wasn’t my fault. That girl was too cute
and I just had to talk to her. But that’s all moot now. Just what did that poet say about the bunnies?
And, of course, as Eris often would have it just to get a laugh, just as you are about to recall the words of the poem that somehow still made it into what’s left of your long-term memory, you trip over one of the bunnies that, unbeknownst to you in your short little lapse, had been speeding toward you, swearing heartily at the commuters who try jumping to safety. The rabbit bowls right on through. You, of course, trip right over him, or her, or it. After you shake yourself off, you realize a few things…one: The rabbit is standing up holding out some sort of wafer…two: all of the commuters seem to have not noticed a thing, not the bunnies, not the jazz trumpeting cops, or the crashing cars, though on second thought they appear to be just pretending not to notice…typical, you think…three: well just as you are about to make your third realization, the rabbit standing before you speaks in some garbled gibberish out of which you somehow take to mean that you are supposed to eat the wafer he holds. "No way, man," you respond. "I’ve had quite a day already." But you take it anyway. The rabbit gestures for you to follow him to the other bunnies who now seem to be dividing into groups. You note that many are armed with rifles.
'Is that Miles Davis?' you ask yourself passing another of the trumpeting cops. You seem to be able to recall the tune but stop yourself, knowing full well that it would be pointless to try to remember. The rabbit speaks, this time intelligibly, as you reach the crowd, which is starting to look less absurd and more menacing as you see clearly that the guns are not candy-colored and therefore could be real. "This means war!"
"What?" you respond. But the rabbit just takes off into one of the groups. Having had heard enough of war talk for the past mind-fucking year since those gray-faces of one type of father-god decided it would be holy to crash crowded airplanes into crowded skyscrapers, you decide to stand back and watch the militant rabbits. It could be worse, you muse. At least they’re not a crazed bunch of drugged up squirrels trying to gnaw on the streetlights…and then there was that purple monkey mafia incident on the lakefront but you decide to avoid thinking about it as thinking is probably what got you into this mess…and you still have yet to see just what was in the wafer you swallowed.
The rabbits start marching off. Different groups going in different directions. Some of them chanting in weird languages reminiscent
of the garbled sanskrit that many a new-ager babbles. The only parts you can make out
are "Om-something-hari-fuckin-something-fuck-or another!" yet you decide not to confuse
yourself further by trying to understand. You look around and see that the rate of car crashing has slowed due to the fact that the streets are
now jammed with wrecks and the lucky ones are still in their cars honking and shouting pissed off at the slowing of their rush, probably oblivious to the fact that
there is in fact something very unusual going on…unless it’s all in your head. But that’s too frightening of a concept, so you drop it as you start to run.
Best to run with out baggage, you think as you pick up speed. The cacophony of the trumpets, car horns, shouting, and the occasional crash merges into some sort of discordant background hum which threatens to tickle you. You begin to ask yourself why you are running but drop that thought as well. "There will be time enough for thinking after I get there!" you hear yourself shouting out
loud over the cacophony again and again like you mean to make yourself believe it.
And as Eris, the most beautiful one, would have it, just when you think you are on to something, you trip yet again. This time it’s not one of the bunnies, although the gunshots you hear off in the distance clue you in to what they might be up to.
Shaken, but not shocked, you notice that what parts of the sky you can glimpse between the buildings seem to be cloudy and about to rain. And someone has spray-painted fluorescent orange words on one of the older-looking buildings. "There will be enough time for thinking after I get there? What kind of shit is that? Are you a man or a monkey? And if so, are you a slave? The meaning of life was crumpled up in an old newspaper and thrown away last Easter. So why are you still looking? And since this has got your attention, answer me this, you are alive so why don’t you live? The rabbits are in revolt. What say you about third legs on creatures that have four?" and as the last word enters your mind, the letters jumble around and start to fall. Not caring to see what happens when they hit the ground, you run. Again. But you think you hear the sounds of the letters starting to bounce and ricochet around. You duck down into a subway stairwell just as it starts to rain sheets of water. Somehow you forget to connect your feet with the actual stairs and have no time to prepare
yourself for the inevitable crack of reality which will probably follow the thumping as the stairs hand you down so roughly. But the last thing you think about before the lights go out is that you seem to be a klutz today.
You wake up in your bedroom sprawled out across the floor, naked and entangled with that girl you had been talking to. 'What?' you think to yourself as you slowly come to the realization that, despite all the tequila you remember drinking last night, you have not gotten slammed by the hangover deity. Lucky you. 'What?' you think again but this time happily. Worse things could have happened. Not to say that this is a bad outcome even in the least. You notice a small wafer-like object nearby, on your pile of old socks. On it there’s a purple cartoonish rabbit holding a rifle. Then you start to remember.
The girl opens her eyes and starts laughing when she sees the puzzled look on your face. 'What?' you think to yourself now becoming confused. "What?" She responds as if she heard your thought. She grins and says "What say you about the purple monkey mafia? And tell me why, Eris willing, if you please, people search so long and so hard for the meaning of life when they would find it easily through the holes in their socks?" And to drive home her point, she reaches over, takes one of your old socks and pretends to start inspecting it in earnest. The melody of her voice is what makes you smile just before the both of you break out in laughter. And you can swear you can hear The Most Beautiful One Herself laughing with you.
by St. Hugh, KSC
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