Dream

I had a strange dream in which I was a younger boy. My father drove me to the
dentists and went upstairs to arrange an appointment for me.
Meanwhile, from downstairs outside the building, I curiously peered through a
stores glass walls and saw a bunny-rabbit and a dog. The run-down store decorated
with nothing but old rags and brown thatches of straw, seemingly deserted, as if it
were near bankruptcy.
I admired the bunny, who was pretty cute, though I really wanted the nicelooking, warm fluffy dog. My parents always refused my requests for a pet, as they
considered animals dirty (wait, arent humans technically members of the animal
kingdom too?), and if the shopkeeper caught me poaching, I would get in big
trouble.
But I just couldnt resist! This was my chance of a lifetime. So I pushed open
the glass door of the store, and out came the bunny.
Ah, get back in you little bunny I dont want you!
Why didnt the dog come out? I suddenly realized something and closed the
door, locking the bunny out with me. If the oh-you-think-youre-so-clever dog sees
the bunny, probably its close friend, outside, wouldnt it want to jump out too?
That said, I held the bunny with both hands near the ground, not so close that
it could get away but close enough that the dog could see it.
Muahahaha success!
The dog widened its eyes, round and dark, slightly elevating its body level as
it wagged its shaggy tail. I opened the door, but the dog still seemed suspicious of
me.
The bunny isnt trapped here, you know; Im a friend to all animals.
I let the bunny back in, and while the furball pitty-patted its little paws about
a foot into the store to chew on some brown grass, it changed direction, and the
dog followed it out too.
NOW! I slammed the door shut!
Wait no, no! Augh, after I blinked, the dog wasnt outside. Maybe it ran
away, somewhere far. Nah, it had probably leapt back the instant I was about to
close the door, with the same quick reflexes as a squirrel.
I saw my father coming back downstairs, so I picked up the rabbit as he
opened the door, and I stuffed the rabbit into the pocket of my jacket. A rabbit was
better than nothing. He opened the car door, and I sat in the back seat as he drove
us back home.
On the car, I wondered what I was going to do with this pet. Is it running out
of breath in my pocket? I opened my pocket just enough so that I could see the
rabbits head poke out of the hole, and it wiggled its round head at me. It was still
alive and well.
When we got home, my mother was cooking. My father went back into the
garage to do his business, in which I never involved much. Like that, I was left alone
well, not really alone, considering that I had my bunny friend with me on the
carpet in a room close to the kitchen.
I took out the bunny with both hands, the lower half of its fat and plump body
swinging in front of me. As I tickled it, its body, soft as a cotton meatball and fleshy
as a soft pillow, squirmed in my hands.

There appeared hovering over its head and over its neck (or, at least close to its
neck, as I couldnt exactly identify where the fat rabbits neck was) two bars with
numbers next to them.
I remember a science-fiction graphic novel in which the protagonist wore
some magical wristband whose colour indicated how she feels happiness, anger,
love, or sadness and could be used by her futuristic robot boyfriend for
psychological data collection. How creepy. She doesnt mind. Shes a human. My
rabbit wont mind either. Nobody told me what these bars on my rabbit meant am
I dreaming? This is so strange though I think it had something to do with the
aforementioned emotions of that girl from the manga.
When I hugged the rabbit, the top bar went completely green 100% and the
bottom bar hovered between 70% and 90%, though I couldnt get it to fill up. The
rabbit rolled up into a ball in a fetal position. I let go, and it came out of the ball. As I
grabbed its ears and yanked on them as a test, the rabbit started panicking,
frantically flapping its limbs for me to let go. The bars went down to the red 20%s to
30%s. I let go again, and as it crawled on the ground, the rabbit crawled around, the
bars bounced back to around the yellow 50%s. No matter with how much love I play
with and cuddle it, the rabbits lower bar could never fill up the brink of the max.
Why?
Maybe it was hungry. I sneakily ninja-ed my way into the ceramic-floored
kitchen, my alert-though-too-occupied-to-care mother glancing at me for a sec, and
I arrived at a counter with two brands of cereals.
In one box, there were crispy corn flakes shaped like mini-circular potato
chips, and in the other, there was a mix of round cracker balls and other oddlyshaped assortments of breakfast addendums. Both varieties were about the size of
marbles, though I chose the former, the crispy corn flakes, because I thought it
would be easier to chew on for my rabbit. I brought a handful back, and oh god, the
rabbit ate them all in no time. It mustve been really hungry!
That afternoon, my father came back and brought over a few guests,
including my sister thinking about that now, I am surprised that I didnt notice
anything weird about having an extra sister, even though it was only a dream and
knowing that my sister would probably make a huge fuss about the small rabbit, I
hid the rabbit in my brown leather jacket and put it in a dark, black corner of a pitch
dark room.
Poor rabbit.
Anyway, I entertained the guests, and however long it took whether it was an
hour or several hours, after they were gone, I was relieved to be able to get back to
my rabbit. As I reached into the coldness and pulled out my rabbit, two awfully
scary things struck me.
The first was that my rabbit was quivering cold, and shaking all over in
hunger, for I hadnt fed it in such a long time. It was shivering so badly, and in a
brief moment it disappeared from my hands. Oh no! It mustve run away! If I didnt
find it in time, it would be lost forever, probably starved and dead before it can find
food again.
I felt so sad. Depressed. I was indoors, but I felt like it was raining outside.
Somehow, I knew.
What couldve I done? I searched and searched, but found no rabbit. Then, I went to
the kitchen and prepared some typical rabbit food so the rabbit can eat them when
it comes back to me: small and soft lettuce and baby carrots.

The other issue at hand was that I had stolen something from a convenience
store. Okay, it wasnt actually a convenience store; it was more of a retired shack,
though I like to call it a convenience store. I telephoned one of my good buddies
who was a badminton player.
Ah, dont worry about it, man! Itll be fine! Who is stupid enough to spend
their time trying to find a useless rabbit? And even if the guy wants his rabbit back,
hes not going to be able to find you.
Even after hearing his reassurances, I felt like a criminal. I had stolen
something, and therefore I was a criminal. There is no excuse for stealing. Never. It
is what it is.
Yet the cute rabbit had my heart torn, and I couldnt stand going back to the
store to return my awesome friend. To justify my actions, I tortured myself with the
shame the storekeeper would scorn me with, the disappointment from my parents
in my evildoings, and the mistreatment the guy wouldve given the rabbit in that
dirty place.
To be honest, I was probably abusing my rabbit even worse by malnourishing
it. When it came back, I would be sure to feed it as much as it needed and never let
it be hungry again. Okay, maybe I should limit its food portion to some extent at
least so that it wouldnt kill itself by overeating. Animals dont know when to stop
eating, and if they get too fat, they can die from their digestive systems
overloading.
If only it would come back! That idiot rabbit! How you kill me with guilt.
I dont think the police could and would bother to narrow down a list of
possible suspects. Since I only told myself and my friend, one of my close
confidantes who I didnt think had any reasonable intention, no personal benefit he
could gain, for ratting me out, and also because I knew he certainly isnt the kind of
shallow friend to do such a lowly thing no, I had full trust in his benevolence I
was at ease.
At that instant, my rabbit hopped back into my lap.
Lord, thank thee! How can I thank thee enough? I was at that moment
enlightened to heaven.
Okay, no, get back down to earth. Youre still an earthly petite human being.
Now, first things first. My rabbit was still quivering, so I ran over to my food
stockpile hidden under a childrens green plastic table and retrieved for it the food.
It consumed it all.
I ran into the kitchen my mother was gone by now, for she may had gone to
sleep, though whatever reason it was, I was not seriously concerned and grabbed
a few more carrots. My rabbit continued nibbling on those, though it stopped
shaking and slowed down its eating. I was afraid of it overeating, though I also
didnt want it to die yes, a hyperbole, though thats how I felt inside when it was
so badly quivering and lost from my sight either. What could I do?
Water. It needed water.
I scooped up a jug of water, and dumped it over my rabbit. Oh geez, what
have I done. The water soaked the rabbit, as it shrunk to about one-tenth its original
size. Now it was small and hard and un-furry and shaped almost like a carrot. I
picked it up, and accidentally broke off half its body.
Oh my god. What have I done? Im so sorry.
I tried to re-attach the two orange, carrot-shaped halves of its body, but it
didnt work. Have I committed murder? This is the worst dream ever.

The rabbit still slothed its body parts around, so it seemed alive for the very
least. Maybe, like one of those weird lizards, it can regrow its body parts if I feed it
enough. Okay, thats reasonable. Sigh. If only I hadnt dumped that bad, bad bowl of
water! I shouldve used less water, instead.
I got some tiny picklets of carrots and put it in front of my carrot-rabbit. It no
longer, by this time, had the bars over its carrot body. It ate the carrots. I sat there. I
couldnt describe it as heavy misery or sharp pain, but rather like a long-lost
melancholy. It was like a slow boredom that had left me hanging for several years.
What was life about?
This was so awful. I had a nearly-paralyzed rabbit in front of me, and all it
could do was weakly and stiffly budge its rock-hard body, and all I could do was sit
there and act dumb. I was no vet for pets, and if I brought to them this odd-shaped
thing, they wouldnt believe it was in fact a rabbit. Its all my fault. If only I had left
you in the store, you wouldnt be like this today. I dont know how, but somehow a
day had passed since I stole that rabbit.
Anyway, this is a bad nightmare. Im waking up.
Good morning.
What a beautiful sunshine!
Its a gorgeous day outside.
Why am I still lying in bed?
Get up, lazy seventeen-year-old teenager.