Holidays Unfolding

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 The Continuing Adventures of Rabbit and Kitty Boy

[8]

Flag Day
Transforming
Kitty Boy dozed, and he had dropped kerplunk into a dream,
except it wasn’t his dream.
He found himself inside one of Rabbit’s dreams: there strode a
tall Rabbit on stilt-like carrot legs. He held a flag and was marching
heroically along. The flag stood out from a long pole that looked
magical, surrounded with energy—surely it would daunt anyone
who thought to stop him or do him any harm. Around Rabbit flashes
of lightning struck ominously, but nonetheless he looked very bold
and self-assured. At that thought Kitty Boy felt a little better.
But then he wondered if he had gone cross-eyed: he saw a second
Rabbit, also striding along on carrot-stilts, but this one was headed
in the other direction with his eyes shut tight, and he was just about
to step into a hole and fall to his doom!

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While the first Rabbit looked confident and purposeful, the

second one looked empty-headed, like he was either walking in his
sleep or stumbling about on too much catnip. Kitty Boy felt bad that
he had ever introduced his friend to Nepeta cataria, since Rabbit had
plenty of herbs he liked already and that could do him no harm.
Then he wondered which of the two was the real Rabbit. Or were
both just dream symbols from Kitty Boy’s own tortured psyche? For
a moment he thought about his mother and then about learning to
use the litterbox (which had taken him no time at all), and then he
wondered if he had any persistent obsessions, dangerous delusions,
repressions of the id, or unresolved unconscious conflicts. Kitty
Boy had never liked Freudian psychology, so he decided to try Jung
instead.
What did his vision mean, to dream about someone who was
dreaming? In his dream he remembered the story of Chuang Tse
dreaming that he was a butterfly or the butterfly dreaming it was
Chuang Tse—nobody knew which. He remembered Poe’s “all that we
see or seem is but a dream within a dream,” but that’s a little silly. If
he believed that, he’d soon fall down the rabbit hole with the carrot-
stilted Rabbit.
Best, Kitty Boy thought, just to settle back to see how the dream
unfolds. So he lay down with his chin on his paws and watched to see
what would happen.
First of all, he noticed lots of lightning. While he’d never let
thunder bother him, Kitty Boy knew well enough to stay clear of
lightning. But there before him the two Rabbits stood right in the
middle of it. The one Rabbit was fearless, holding up his flagpole as
if he were daring the bolt to strike him. It looked like it might, unless

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his flag proved strong enough to ward it off. The second Rabbit,
maybe walking in his asleep, was just about to get his head toasted
by another bolt—he didn’t even seem to be aware it was happening.
Kitty Boy also noticed that the floor underneath the first Rabbit was
crumbling away; maybe Rabbit #1 had enough staunch courage to
keep it firm and supportive. For either Rabbit: he’d need to wake up
or to act quickly to survive.
Maybe it was time for a little Maslow: what did the Rabbits need?
One Rabbit bravely stirring forward amidst the danger, trying to
accomplish something, and the other asleep, about to get struck
down and fall through a hole into nothingness: it made him think of
how humans must feel on Election Day.
The flagpole seemed to be expelling magical flowers that floated
gently down through a hole in the landscape; maybe the second Rabbit
would drop down like that, too: lightly, delicately, in no danger. But
the real Rabbit was a good deal solider and chunkier than a flower.
The drapery in the back—it made Kitty Boy think of The Artist’s
paintings, since she often used wrinkled draperies—had holes,
knotholes, all through it, a perpendicular pathway of plentiful
perforations pendant over . . . what? Behind the drapery lay the Fabric
of the Universe—it was always there, so, beautiful as it was, Kitty Boy
didn’t think too much about it. He had fixed it once and could do so
again. His thoughts focused on how to determine which Rabbit was
the real Rabbit and then how to save him. Then he wondered if the
flag held any clues. He realized that lately he had always been, like
a fictional detective, sifting clues; Rabbit, wherever he was, must be
doing the same thing, trying to figure out how to get home.
Rabbit’s flag had an orange cross with a wide crossbar on a field

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of circled pears. The pears had lined up so that the tops on one side
of the cross pointed toward the tops of the pears on the other side of
the cross. Then he noticed that the flag was also a hole in the drapery,
opening space again to the bigger, universal fabric behind, concealing
or revealing. Hmmmm.
So pears. In one of the knotholes a white drapery had wrapped
around a dried, black, wizened pear, as if to shelter it. Was that what
would happen to the pears in Rabbit’s flag if he didn’t save them?
Was Rabbit one of the pears, and would the lightning burn him to
cinders? Did the pears stand for the growing, healthy environment,
and the lightning meant whatever forces are destroying it? This line
of inquiry wasn’t making Kitty Boy feel better at all.
What else could pears mean? It could be a pun: pears mean pairs,
duos, partners, buddies. Maybe Rabbit was out there standing up
against the world for pairs, for friends. In that case Kitty Boy must
find him immediately and stand up with him, even if that meant
standing right under the lightning, because that’s what friends do
for each other.
The flag had energy, just like the flagpole, so maybe it had enough
strength to stand up against the lightning—that would take a lot of
strength. More than I have, he thought.
He wished, not for the last time, that Rabbit had stayed home.
Right now, he thought, we could be having a nice cup of tea and some
treats together. Instead, I’m here worrying and Rabbit is out there
in the lightning, in who-knows-what kind of trouble. And I should
be there with Rabbit, and Bo-Doggie should be there, and we should
plant the flag together to celebrate all sorts of pairs everywhere.

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The Continuing Adventures of Rabbit and Kitty Boy

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 The Continuing Adventures of Rabbit and Kitty Boy

[10]

Friends Day Hiding

Kitty Boy was hiding under his bed at home, worried
about Rabbit.
Bo-Doggie had stretched out on his front porch with his chin sit-
ting sadly on the cement, worried about Rabbit, too.
Rabbit had crunched himself back under a deep shrubbery at the
end of someone’s back yard to get away from a group of small chil-
dren who had been throwing little green apples at him.
At least he had caught one of the apples and was nibbling at it as
quietly as he could, waiting for the children to get tired and go away,
hoping they wouldn’t run home and get their dogs to flush him out.
He’d learned that not all dogs are as friendly as Bo-Doggie, and not
all cats are as pleasant and adventurous as Kitty Boy. He thought of
how lucky he’d been that they’d gone to the Hare Salon with him and
that they’d been such good friends.
He’d decided that adventures without Kitty Boy, and without
supper and a nice drink after, weren’t fun at all, regardless of what

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anyone else might say about them.

That rabbit is luckiest who has the best, most loyal friends, he
thought, and he hoped he hadn’t said it aloud, since the children
were still circling the shrubs and hadn’t gone away yet. He kept nib-
bling quietly at the apple.
When the children got bored and wandered away, Rabbit be-
gan to wonder what Kitty Boy and Bo-Doggie were doing and about
whether they thought about him at all.
When the way looked quiet and clear, he finished his apple and
then dashed out of the shrub and toward the woods, and he didn’t
stop until he got there.
Deep in the woods he’d made a tolerable home for himself. It
wasn’t like The Artist’s home where he had comfort and friends and
food and clean water. But he’d collected strips of old roots, fallen
limbs, and spheres of grasses and mosses, and pliable leaves that
still had living moisture in them, and he’d rolled some stones over to
set up and disguise a nice, dry hole under a rogue crabapple tree that
would drop its fruit in the fall, and he’d kicked smooth the space and
hidden it from view so it was good for sleeping or just hiding and
looking out. Once he’d learned how to do it, he could shinny up the
tree and hop from tree to tree if he ever felt afraid, just as the squir-
rels did—he wondered why figuring that out had taken so long.
As lonesome as he felt, Rabbit had gained something from his
time in the woods: he had acquired a new cuisine. He sorted through
all sorts of plants and fruits and herbs by smell or, at most, with the
tiniest lick of his tongue, to tell if it was safe. He’d found a number
of different grasses he’d never tried before and had liked most of
them. Of course, we’ll eat foods when we’re hungry that we’d pass

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over when we’re we’re well fed.

But he never slept very well: he always felt as if he had one eye
open, to keep watch, and his dreams took him immediately to the
brink of waking.
Rabbit sat looking out of his den and nibbling on some sprigs of
wild parsley that he’d saved. The sky had grown as dark as when you
have your eyes shut tight and then cover them with thick patches of
cloth. Finally he dropped off to sleep.
Kitty Boy lay, sad to the heart, under The Artist’s bed with his
paws over his eyes.
Bo-Doggie remained stretched out on the porch, where he had
fallen asleep in the hot, August air, and he dreamed of biscuits. They
didn’t taste very good, though.

Rabbit woke standing on a stage covered with some sort of

blanket or drapery. No—he wasn’t standing; he was dancing.
And he was singing. What was the song? He knew it, but couldn’t
remember its name. He was playing a banjo. He wasn’t sure why he
was doing it, but he seemed to be having fun.
Best of all, who should be there next to him but Kitty Boy, who
was dancing and singing and playing the banjo right along with his
old friend.
“Kitty Boy! How did you get here, and where are we?” Then he

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noticed eyes: eyes of people all around, watching and listening as he

and Kitty Boy played and sang. Kitty Boy winked at him and kept
dancing.

Kitty Boy had also fallen asleep, and he immediately began

to dream. He dreamed of flying with Rabbit, of listening while
strange, metamorphic nuns sang sorrowful chants to them, of fish-
ing meditatively by a river as Rabbit looked for him, of sewing up
the tear in the Fabric of Being—he felt sure that as soon as they had
flown away it had torn again of its own accord. Then he found him-
self drifting downward, half awake, regaining consciousness in the
midst of singing a song he didn’t even know. He was dancing and
playing the banjo, and there beside him, signing along happily, was
his dear friend Rabbit.
Lots of people were watching them through holes in the Fabric
of Being; some seemed attentive, some looked to be enjoying the
song, some looked confused, and a couple even looked angry.
“Tough audience,” Rabbit said, and winked at him.
“Rabbit! But you don’t look so well.”
“Neither do you,” Rabbit answered, looking his friend up and
down. “You have a patch over one eye, and some cuts and scars.”
“So do you,” Kitty Boy replied. “But you know what? We’re singing
anyway, and playing the banjo, so we must be doing all right.”

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“I didn’t even know I can do that,” Rabbit said. “Where did I

learn, and when?”
“Must have been the same place I did,” Kitty Boy said, “wherever
that was. But I must tell you: I’m so glad to see you, just to know
you’re alive!”
“Am I alive?” Rabbit asked. “I don’t recognize this place. Does it
look familiar to you?”
“I don’t recognize it at all,” Kitty Boy said. “Hey, as I think about
it, I was dreaming, sailing around in some of our old adventures,
and I floated down, and here we are. How did you get here?”
“I’m not sure, other than . . . . I think I must be dreaming, too.”
“We’re having the same dream!” Kitty Boy said.
“Far out,” Rabbit mused.
“Where did you get than old expression?”
“Oh, I’ve used it before. I’m sure I must have. Hey, look at you.
You’re all blue. Did you jump in the water like the bluebird and coy-
ote in the myth?”
“Blue? Am I? I hadn’t noticed.”
“There you are: Kat B’lue. Singing, dancing, and playing the banjo.”
“And when did you turn orange, or is it red? Rabbit red-paws,
red-dukes, re-dux: you’ve come alive again, though you look like
you’ve had tough times. You have some scars of your own. Make sure
your heart doesn’t give out on you!”
“Do I have red paws now? Well, yes, I suppose I do. You didn’t
happen to bring anything good to eat, did you?”
“To our dream? No, sorry: I didn’t.”
“You should have brought Bo-Doggie along. He dreams of
biscuits, and maybe he’d have brought enough for all of us.”

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“Are you very hungry, wherever you are?”

“Oh, yes, but not so much hungry as lonesome.”
“I’m sorry, my old friend. Why don’t you come home?”
“I’ve tried, but I got lost. I keep hoping that you’ll find me.”
“Where did you get lost?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you to find me.”
“You didn’t cross the other road, did you, the one in front of The
Artist’s house?”
Rabbit thought for a moment. “You know, I think I did, but that
was a long time ago.”
“Then I will search there until I find you.”
“Thank you—I knew you would. Listen: I think the people want
us to play another song.”
“I’m not sure they want us to be here: I think they were about
to pull us off the stage. But if they want us to play, should we try
another song?”
“Let’s do.”
“And let’s have fun doing it.”
Rabbit nodded. “What song should we play?”
“Whatever comes to mind.”
Before they knew it, they were singing and playing a spirited
new song, and all around them butterflies were floating happily.
One, just above, poured down blessings on them.
Kitty Boy looked at his friend and smiled. “I’ll find you, Rabbit.
I’ll find you.”
“I know you will, Kitty Boy.”
They danced, played the banjo, and enjoyed themselves.
Once again they both dropped into darkness, and each one slept

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through the night.

Bo-Doggie dreamed that he had three biscuits. He planned to
eat them one by one. Then he thought he would share one with Kitty
Boy and one with Rabbit. In his dream he smiled.

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