THE WISHES OF AN ORDINARY MAN

It was somewhere in the remoteness of a far away land, located somewhere in the isolation of a far away time, that a man made his home. He was an ordinary man. He was a man of ordinary significance. He was a man of ordinary abilities. He possessed ordinary physical attributes and an ordinary intellect. He spoke of ordinary ambitions and clung to ordinary aspirations. He was a man, who above all else, had no misconceptions about his own ordinariness. He knew that there was nothing firmly lodged in him that had never been solidly deposited in any other man. In fact, if there was anything about him that was truly unique, it was that he was so commonly ordinary.

 

He was a poor man, a farmer by trade, a farmer by necessity. He lived in a meager shack, located on a dusty patch of land, on which he attempted to grow measly crops in order to sustain his miserable, yet ordinary existence. His clothes were tattered rags, hindering neither the heat of the sun nor the chill of the wind. Everyday he plowed and he planted and he pulled-up and he picked-out. It was a hard, ordinary, meager and miserable existence.

 

There were times, rare though they were, dancing in the shadows of night, while the rest of the world reposed in silence, that his ordinary dreams were overwhelmed by introspections too wondrous for words, and he felt that he could transcend the limits of his ordinary existence. And there were those times when things he fantasized about seemed so fantastic and so authentically real that he had to curtail his dreaming for fear that his heart would explode within his chest.

 

Whenever the dreaming stopped he always found himself locked once more within the confines of his ordinary life, his despair weighing upon him until he felt as if he would be crushed into a fine powder and disperse by the blowing of a gentle breeze.

 

He had a dream. It was a simple dream, an ordinary dream. It was a dream that seemed too fantastic to ever be realized. Yet it was his dream. No one could take it from him. It was his daily dream, his sole dream, a dream so powerful that it inspired him to believe that his life may actually be good for something. On many mornings, it was this dream alone that inspired him to get out of bed and face his ordinary existence. His dream was that one day, someday, he would actually grow enough of something, anything, not just to live on, but to sell. And then, just possibly, purchase a slightly larger piece of meager land, growing a slightly larger amount of something, and maybe, just maybe, sell it to buy a slightly larger piece of land on which he could grow a slightly larger amount of something. Then one day perhaps, if he could get enough of something to grow on enough land, he could hire someone else to plow and plant and pull-up and to pick-out, perhaps he could eventually even grow fat as he aged in a not so meager shack. This was his dream and if he could ever bring himself to hope, this is what he would hope for all the days of his ordinary life.

 

In addition to this ordinary man, who was of ordinary significance and ordinary abilities, possessing ordinary physical attributes and an ordinary intellect, who spoke of ordinary ambitions and who clung to ordinary aspirations, there were a large number of rabbits that lived on the land. Now, to most people, the occasional rabbit may appear to be harmless, but they are the sworn enemies of poor, ordinary men, who live on dusty patches of land, growing measly crops, in a futile attempt to maintain some kind of ordinary, though pathetic, existence. He was at war with the rabbits on his land and his strategy for waging that war was simple: catch as many of the troublesome beasts as he could and eat them before they could eat his harvest.

 

One morning, one ordinary morning, the man discovered, in one of his ordinary rabbit traps, a seemingly ordinary rabbit. The man examined the rabbit as approached the trap. It was on the extraordinarily fat side of ordinary. "You must have eaten well on my crops," said the man, lifting the rabbit from the trap, "tonight I will eat well on you." But then something wholly unexpected happened. The rabbit spoke.

 

"Please don’t kill me," it said, surprising the man so much that he nearly dropped it, catching it as easily as he lost it, unable to camouflage his astonishment. "Please don’t kill me," the rabbit repeated, "If you let me go, free and unharmed, I will grant you three wishes, any wishes, whatever you ask, whatever you want, anything, anyone, any amount. Ask it and I will give it to you."

 

The man was obviously stunned. He held the rabbit by the scruff of the neck, not quite certain if it was the heat of the morning that had gotten to him or if the rabbit itself actually spoke to him. He stared deeply into the face of the rabbit. "Did you say something?" the man ventured after a moment to the rabbit hanging in front of him.

 

"I believe that I said everything," the rabbit replied smugly, "I am a magic rabbit and I will grant you three wishes, if, of course, you let me go, free and unharmed." The man stood motionless with the same kind of incredulous expression crawling across his face that is often induced by the promises of sleazy politicians. The rabbit saw his disbelief and continued, "I know that you have dreams, all humans do. I can make your dreams come true. Whatever you want, whomever you want, I will give it to you, anything, anyone, any amount, it will be yours if only you let me go free and unharmed."

 

"I wouldn’t know what to wish for," the man confessed after the passing of many minutes, "Men like me just live, we don’t have time to wish. Wishing is for children."

 

"That’s far from the truth and you know it. You spend your days wishing. You wish while you plow. You wish while you plant, you wish while you pull-up and pick-out. You spend you life wishing. I am a wish-granter. And I know a wisher when I see one."

 

"Maybe," the man retorted after a few moments, "I am afraid to wish. I’ve heard of people who’ve been granted wishes, only to get what they asked for and not what they wanted. I’ve heard the stories where wishing turns out to be a curse disguised as a gift. How do I know that you won’t trick me, giving me what I asked for and not what I wished for. I may be ordinary, but I’m not stupid. I know that wish-granters follow the letter of the wish but they very seldom follow the spirit of the wish. I don’t want to ask for a blessing and receive a burden, or get what I want through some tragic circumstance or occurrence. If I let you go, and if I make a wish, I want some kind of assurance that you will not trick me."

 

The rabbit smiled a particularly rabbit smile, as only rabbits can, "There are no guarantees. A wish in the long run may turn out to be a curse. But I promise that the curse will be yours to make, not mine to bestow. Don’t be afraid. I am not one of those wish-granters who is obsessed with irony. It will be understood that the true wish resides in the unspoken desire and not necessarily in the spoken words."

 

"How do I know that I can trust you?"

 

"You don’t."

 

"How do I know that you’re a magic rabbit?"

 

"You’ve had conversations with other rabbits?"

 

"Good point. But I don’t believe I can trust you."

 

"I guess you’ll have to rely on faith."

 

"Faith," the man scoffed, "what has faith ever gotten me?"

 

"Nothing," the rabbit said, matter-of-factly, "But it may now get you everything. At least, everything you want."

 

The man juggled the words in his mind. He studied the rabbit’s features. It was large but it looked like a rabbit. There was nothing magical about it. It spoke, but perhaps all rabbits speak when they feel that it is in their best interest to do so. Then again, it seemed far more likely to the man that this was all some manifestation of a mental breakdown that had been long overdue.

 

"Am I insane?" he asked.

 

"That’s not my field of expertise," the rabbit replied. The man scowled in reply. "Look," the rabbit continued, "sane, insane, who cares? I don’t really see how it makes any difference. If you are insane ..." the rabbit trailed off in thought, "Well, lets just say that if your delusion is better than your real life, then you should probably run with it. If on the other hand, your life is better, you should probably go with that. It’s just, if you eat me, you gain nothing. Your belly will be full tonight, but you’ll be hungry again tomorrow and you’ll be forever stuck in this oppressively ordinary life that you could so easily wish away. But, if you let me go ... well, what do you really have to lose by letting me go? If I am real you get three wishes. If I am not, there will be other rabbits to eat."

 

The man considered the rabbit’s words, "Anything?" he asked.

 

"Anything," the rabbit replied.

 

"All I have to do for anything, three times over, is to let you go?"

 

"Let me go, free and unharmed, and I will give you the world if that is what you wish."

 

"It sounds too simple, too easy, there must be a catch."

 

"The catch is simply that you go this day without eating rabbit. Well, at least one particular rabbit--me. And simple? Yes, I suppose it is simple, as simple as wanting. Surely you know how to do that."

 

The man, the ordinary man, who was of ordinary significance and ordinary abilities, possessing ordinary physical attributes and an ordinary intellect, who spoke of ordinary ambitions and who clung to ordinary aspirations, a man who had no misconceptions about his own ordinariness, gradually began to realize that this was no ordinary day. This was, in fact, an exceptionally un-ordinary day. It was a day in which he could trade in his meager shack and his dusty patch of land and his miserable crops and his ordinarily pathetic existence for . . . what? For what should a man like him ask? For what could an ordinary man ask so that he could shirk off his ordinariness?

 

He felt the pressure of the moment gather in a heap upon him. This was too important to rush into without the opportunity of thought. "What if," he finally asked, "I find that after I wish, the thing that I wished for wasn’t enough? What if my meager existence has only prepared me for meager wishes?"

 

The rabbit, who was an expert on wishes and those who made them, saw the inner debate transpiring within the man’s mind long before had voiced his questions. "As I said before, there are no guarantees. I am in the opportunity business, not the guarantee business. Nevertheless, you obviously appear to need time to consider all that I have said. After all, you’re essentially correct. Wishes are too indispensable to be made too quickly or to be used all at once. Let me go and I will grant you one wish a day for the next three days. That way you will have three well-thought-out, well-considered wishes, with no regrets, no second guessing, no eternal torment of wondering if you wasted your wishes too quickly. Three days, three wishes. I will give you all of today to contemplate your first wish. Tomorrow at sunrise I will return and give you whatever you wish–anything, anyone, any amount."

 

"Oh," said the man with a certain tone of revelation, "I get it now. I let you go and I never see you again. Is that it?"

 

The rabbit’s voice suddenly became menacing, and the man could swear that he heard peals of thunder when the rabbit again voiced its words, "I am not accustomed to having my veracity impugned, especially by someone of your limited position and knowledge?"

 

The man was terrified but stood firm in his doubt. "Look," he said, "I’m sorry, but I need assurances, not intimidation."

 

"You just don’t get it do you?" the rabbit answered. "This is life. There are no guarantees. There are no assurances. There are only opportunities and decisions. And it is now time for you to decide. Kill me and nothing changes. Let me go and who knows? Personally, I normally wouldn’t give a damn, but as far as I am concerned, the choice that you make is quite literally a matter of life and death. So if you don’t mind, I would appreciate a decision."

 

The ordinary man, who had no misconceptions about his ordinariness, closed his eyes. He found that he was crippled, paralyzed by the fear of the choice he was about to make, feeling as if his whole life had come to this one decision, frightened to let the rabbit go, terrified not to let the rabbit go, involuntarily praying to something in which he did not believe that this was no dream and that this was no trick, inwardly twisting, imploding, void of time, unable to shift the slightest muscle, ensnared in the unbearable apprehension of making the wrong choice. The man was motionless for eternity, then much to his surprise, he moved, a motion escorted by an agitated and distraught groan. He slowly loosened his grip upon the scruff of the rabbit’s neck and it plopped to the ground. The man fell to his knees, unable to support the weight of his body coupled with the weight of his decision. His torso also obediently complied with the governance of gravity and he found himself lying face down in the dirt, the still cool morning soil absorbing the warm sweat cascading from his throbbing forehead, his deep breaths pushing his body skyward only to crash once more against the earth. The man lay on the ground, smelling soil, incapable of awareness, his head filled with a whirlwind of thoughts marauding his brain.

 

After the passing of another eternity, a voice broke through the man’s boundary of awareness, piercing deep into his mental warfare. It was the voice of the rabbit. The voice was comforting, as soft as its fur, as penetrating as its gaze, "Now we shall both profit from your decision. I get to retain my life and you get whatever life you desire. Work in your field today. If it is what you wish, toil for the last time. Know that the calluses that form on your hands this day will soon be softened. Live your ordinary and meager life one day longer and I will return tomorrow with the rising of the sun."

 

"Tomorrow at sunrise?" the man said in a hollow, echo of a voice, "What then?"

 

"That’s up to you," the rabbit replied indifferently. "Work today and consider well you first wish." The rabbit then bounced off, concealing itself in some nearby vegetation.

 

The man, the soon to be unordinary man, employed every particle of his strength to push himself up from the ground. He sluggishly trudged to his plow. That day, like every other day, he plowed and planted and pulled-up and picked. But this day his former, ordinarily meager dream could not be found in him. It was now antiquated and outmoded. His entire consciousness was now centered on the activity of imagining what his life would be transformed into tomorrow, wondering if it would be immeasurably different, so that it would be unrecognizable in comparison to his current, ordinary life, or if it would remain familiar, hardly distinguishable from the existence he now lived.

 

The morning crawled into the afternoon. The afternoon inched into evening. The evening plodded into night. Dinner was eventually prepared, discarded uneaten. There was endless pacing. Time, that once fluid entity, now congealed. The passing of seconds, once unnoticed, pricked at him, taunting him. The still ordinary man, desperately attempting to force the morning, climbed into his Spartan bed, fruitlessly seeking sleep. He prayed for time to flow freely once more, but the dam that had halted its passing refused to be moved by his words. The man groped into the deep darkness with his eyes, endlessly reciting the litany of the morning’s events, which had become almost dreamlike, almost fraudulent in his memory. This unremitting rehashing of events only made him question his sanity and time seemed to mock him all the more. He felt as a fish must feel when removed from its comfortable, waterlogged surroundings, furiously struggling for breath, flapping from side to side, hoping to somehow stumble once more into the familiar confines of the damp deep.

 

Unexpectedly, shadows began to lengthen. Morning was coming and the interminable, insomniatic night now seemed to be mere seconds. The man lifted himself from his tiny bed and walked out of his meager shack. He went to the exact location where the previous day’s events occurred. He rotated, intensely scrutinizing all directions, watching, waiting. The world appeared void of color as the first few rays of the sun struck the meager limits of his ordinary world. Time passed, more light, additional color, a distant rooster cry, scattered chirping of birds, added light, mist dissipating, more light. Suddenly, and seemingly without warning, the morning completely unveiled itself, startling the man with its final manifestation. Then, just as suddenly as the morning revealed itself, the rabbit appeared, standing before the man as if it had always been there.

 

The man and the rabbit examined one another. For a ling time neither of them spoke. The silence was eventually splintered by the rabbit who said, "Don’t look so damned tortured! Jesus, you’d think that I were chaperoning you toward your execution. Smile! This could very well be the happiest day of your life." The man appeared unconvinced, his demeanor unchanged. The rabbit continued, "Before we begin we have to establish a few ground rules. First, you’re not allowed to wish for more wishes. People are always trying that one and they always act as if I am ripping them off when I tell them that it doesn’t work that way. Three wishes means three wishes. Second, you’re not allowed to make your wishes and then eat me anyway. Malice on your part toward me nullifies the wishes. You think you can handle that?"

 

"I guess so," said the man in a befuddled manner.

 

"Good," the rabbit went on, reaching into its fur, producing a piece of paper, "I need you to consent to this liability waver."

 

"Do what to what?"

 

"Consent to this liability waver. It’s just your standard form," the rabbit explained, handing it to the man. "It’s for insurance purposes."

 

"Insurance?"

 

"Yeah, you’d be shocked if I told you of all the enterprises that were regulated by the insurance industry. I tell you, if I had a wish, it would be to get those damned insurance companies off my back. But, anyway, that my stuff . . ."

 

"I’m not certain that I under . . ." the man sputtered, "What exactly is it that you want me to do with this?"

 

"Just read it and sign it. It basically says that this is a one time wish-granting transaction, in which I am only responsible for granting the allotted amount of wishes to the best of my ability. It also states that I am in no way responsible for any unforseen circumstances or consequences of said wishes. Satisfaction is NOT guaranteed and I have made no promises to the contrary, neither have I influenced nor have I guided you in your choice of wishes in any way."

 

"But you said yesterday that there wouldn’t be any consequences."

 

"Oh, no, no, no, three times no," the rabbit said, shaking something like an index finger at the man, "I never would have said such a thing. Everything has consequences. I merely assured you that I would not deliberately attempt to trick you or employ some kind of twisted irony. But make no mistake, your wishing will have consequences and I will not be held responsible for those consequences in the slightest way, whether they turn out to be auspicious or inconvenient. Do I make myself clear?"

 

"I guess so," said the man.

 

"Do you give your consent?"

 

"Yeah, but I don’t have anything to sign it with."

 

"That’s okay, just confer verbal consent and the matter will resolve itself. Do you understand the terms of our agreement and do you give consent?"

 

"Yeah, I think so."

 

"Yes or no?" the rabbit demanded.

 

"Yes," the man blurted, his name and his signature suddenly appeared in the appropriate places on the form.

 

"Excellent," declared the rabbit, folding the document, stuffing it once more into his fur, "We are ready to begin. What is your first wish?"

 

The man surveyed his meager patch of land, rubbing the back of his neck, which was stiff from the previous night’s failed attempt at sleep. He knelt, grabbed a handful of mostly dusty soil, slowly pouring it from his hand, watching as it fell. He examined the withered produce struggling to become something more than sprouts. He remembered his dream, deciding that it had always only been the meager musings of an ordinary man. He had now moved beyond it. Clapping away the remaining particles of dirt from his hand, he simply said, "I want to be rich."

 

The rabbit, in spite of what may have been its best effort to the contrary, betrayed an expression of disappointment. "Is that your wish?" it simply asked.

 

"Yeah, that’s it. That’s my wish," the man proclaimed.

 

"Done."

 

The man felt his heart leap somewhere into his throat and an involuntary smile pounced upon his face, looking like someone who recently had a lobotomy. He giggled a giddy sort of giggle. But it soon passed. He looked around, nothing had changed. His clothes, his land, his shack, everything was exactly the same as they had always been. "Nothing’s happened!" he accused in the rabbit’s direction.

 

"Patience, patience. In cases of extreme poverty it sometimes takes a while for the seed of wealth to germinate. Listen ... don’t you hear it? It’s happening."

 

The man listened carefully. "I don’t hear anything," he started, but while the words were slipping from his lips, he began to hear a faint, whisper of a rumble, almost imperceptible, growing slightly louder, then a little louder, then even louder. The man definitely heard a once faint, now audible rumble. "Wait a minute ..." he began to say as his voice was swallowed into the sound of the once barely audible, but now deafening, rumble.

 

The meager shack stretched in every direction, splitting apart as it expanded. A mansion grew out of the seed that was once the shack. The mansion continued to stretch upon the land. It was a mansion that appeared to have been twenty mansions, which had been assembled into one enormous mansion. It was built out of gold bricks. The doors were mahogany. The doorknobs were cut diamonds. Redwood-sized columns supported a portico at the main entrance. The once dusty patch of land transformed into a well-kept courtyard, line by neatly trimmed hedges, in which fountains spewed water high into the sky. Marble steps led from the courtyard to the gold-bricked portico of the mansion. In the distance the man could see acres of orchards growing everything that could be imagined and a myriad servants could be seen tending to it all.

 

The man’s clothes were also changed. The rags, which had neither hindered the heat of the sun nor the chill of the wind became silk with buttons of pearl and cufflinks of gold. The man felt suddenly conspicuous. He looked to the rabbit for an explanation.

 

"You are rich," the rabbit simply said. "You are now the wealthiest man in the world, perhaps even the universe. The distance that once separated the wealthiest man in the world from you has become the measurement for your new wealth. When compared with you, that man now seems as impoverished as you once were. Make no mistake, economic power is the foundation of all other power. You now have all the power in the world. You are a god. Enjoy your new status. I will return tomorrow for your second wish." With that said, the rabbit bounced off.

 

The man inspected his once dusty patch of land, where a meager shack once stood, and which once grew miserable crops, unable to form a single thought. He stood. He looked. He occasionally attempted to breathe. Raucous laughter periodically erupted from within him, only to fade once more into an acute silence. He attempted at a step. Then another. He stumbled forward, moving through the courtyard, climbing the marble steps, passing through the mahogany doors.

 

That day he strolled through hundreds of rooms. He saw thousands of priceless paintings. He discovered rooms that were crammed with currency, others that were stuffed with jewels. When he felt confident enough, he asked his servants for something to eat. By the end of the day he was barking orders to his servants as if it were a habit borne out of a lifetime of wealth. He ate fabulous meals and drank expensive wines. It was a very good day.

 

That night he climbed in the exact opposite of his once Spartan bed, enshrouded in satin sheets. It was the best night’s sleep he had ever had. Yet, occasionally during the night, he awoke from his dreams to a stinging realization, a realization that had not yet found words to be articulated. It was merely the awareness of a certain feeling. He was beginning to realize that he was alone. Except for his servants, he had no one. And to be fair, the servants did not count because they were being paid to be there. He noticed that his expansive bed, which was larger than his meager shack had been, felt like a wasteland. He could not remember the last time he heard someone speak his name, neither could he remember the sound of another’s footfalls upon his floor. It was then that the now extraordinarily wealthy man, who now lived in a mansion of gold, which was settled on a vast stretch of land, where servants labored and attended to his every desire, felt so unbearably alone he feared that he would fade from existence–not necessarily die, but merely cease to be.

 

He slipped out of bed, throwing on an expensive robe, inserting his feet into soft slippers. "What’s the point of being the most powerful man in the world if I don’t have anyone to share it with?" he asked no one. It was then that he realized that he had stumbled upon his second wish. He slowly ventured down the long stairway and wandered out through the mahogany doors to greet the rabbit. The rabbit was waiting for him at the top of the marble steps.

 

The rabbit smiled a particularly rabbit smile, as only rabbits can, stood tall on its hind legs and threw open his front legs as if they were arms, making a grand gesture as he said, "Well? Can I cook or what?" The man paused, searching for an appropriate response, which would be impacted with both wisdom and insight, but he merely found himself clearing his throat, smiling a weak, unwise, uninsightful sort of smile. The rabbit’s grand pose shrank, clearly discouraged by the man’s response. "Well, anyway, I’m here for your second wish."

 

The man cleared his throat once more and attempted to speak, but he could only manage to fumble the occasional word. He was clearly straining in the attempt to arrive at the correct pattern of articulation.

 

"What’s the matter?" the rabbit asked in a parental tone.

 

"I don’t know," the man confessed, "I don’t know what to wish for ... I mean, I know ... but ... I can’t find the right ... I just don’t know how to ask for it."

 

"The way to ask for it is simply to ask. There are no right or wrong ways to wish. It’s like breathing; if you do it, then you are doing it right."

 

"But I don’t know exactly what I’m wishing for. I just know that I’m alone and I don’t want to be."

 

A flash of comprehension streaked across the rabbit’s face, followed immediately by an expression of vast bewilderment. "What do you mean? How could you possibly be alone? You are rich. Wealth buys company; in fact, endless company is often the liability of possessing great wealth."

 

I don’t want company," the man blurted, "at least, I don’t just want company. I just know that I don’t want to feel alone anymore. I feel hollow. My stomach feels like it’s shriveling into a large raisin. I just want to matter to someone."

 

"You want love," the rabbit succinctly stated. It paused for a moment, considering the ramifications of the now exposed reality. "Take my advice," it continued after a moment, its tone softened, touched with a hint of compassion, "leave well enough alone. Love isn’t worth the effort. It only leads to pain. You may feel isolated now, but you will feel a far greater sense of separation when love inevitably comes to an end."

 

"I could wish for endless love," the man said, neither making a statement nor asking a question.

 

"No such thing exists," the rabbit answered coldly. "It would simply be a waste of a wish. The man was obviously not satisfied, imploring the rabbit with his gaze. "Look," the rabbit expounded, "Love is not what you think it is. Love is an opiate. It’s a drug. It is an ointment that temporarily eases pain but ultimately causes more, and it generates such a craving that people will do anything for another fix. It is the worst form of addiction. Do yourself a favor, shoot up, smoke crack, but avoid love. It is the source of the most vile of human conditions: prostitution, murder, warfare, injustice, poverty– people will try to tell you that these conditions are the result of greed or some such thing, but they are all deceived by their own addiction. They are living in denial. All these things are the result of chasing after love. The quest to feed the addiction, to feed the craving, is the source of all misery. It is nothing to be sought after. It is something to be shunned. It is at best a questionable commodity that has received good press. And humans will throw everything away in the hope of tasting it. Believe me when I tell you, there are many other worthwhile wishes awaiting to be uttered. Don’t waste one on love.

 

"I don’t care," the man replied to the rabbit’s rant, "I don’t believe you. And even if I did I still wouldn’t care. You said that I could have anything, anyone, any amount. I want ..."

 

"I know what you want!" the rabbit snapped, "Remember to whom you are speaking. I am a wish-granter. I know what makes a wish a wish. You think that you know what you want but you haven’t got a clue what you’re asking for?" The rabbit released a long sigh, not making the slightest attempt to conceal its frustration with the man. "It is done," it said.

 

The gold mansion, the courtyard, and the surrounding grounds were suddenly alive with activity. A steady murmur of voices hovered like a dense fog over the grounds. Sporadic laughter spilled from various locations. Glasses clinked. Music played. Congregations of well-dressed people littered the landscape. "These people are your friends," the rabbit explained. "They all care about you. Well, not so much about you as it is that they all care about your money. There are hundreds of women of many varieties. They all want to be with you. And I am certain that they would want to be with you even if you were an ordinary man of ordinary significance and abilities, who lived in a meager shack, located somewhere on a dusty patch of land," the rabbit’s voice had become a taunt. "In essence," the rabbit continued, "these people are your property. They just don’t realize it. Go! Do what you must with that which is yours." Once more the rabbit abruptly bounced away.

 

All that day the once-lonely man conversed and cavorted and consumed and carried on. All that day people pushed and clamored for his attention. The women, who were all strikingly beautiful, did and said beautiful-woman-things whenever he migrated in their vicinities. The well-dress men shook his hand and patted him on the back, commending him for being so fabulously extraordinary. It is possible that the man was still hollow, but now he had little time to reflect upon it. His mind was filled with endless flatter, mindless chatter and beautiful women.

 

Time had escaped him and the morning arrived unnoticed. The rabbit had long since been forgotten and the man was startled to see it enter into the room in which he was so eloquently conversing. The rabbit beckoned the man to fallow. The man was hesitant. He did not want to miss one second of being the center of everything. He nodded, raised a finger toward the rabbit, implying that he would be along shortly, but continued with his conversation with a the sycophantic crowd. The man eventually ventured outside, finding the visibly annoyed rabbit waiting for him in the courtyard. It seemed eager to finalize their last order of business together and be on its way.

 

"I trust that all is acceptable?" it asked the man.

 

"Yeah," the man laughed, "everything is better than acceptable. It’s even better than I wished."

 

"Good. Then there’s no reason to delay what we are here to do. Tell me your wish and I will leave you to your life." the rabbit emphasized the word "life" in such a way that made it sound decidedly ironic.

 

"Damn," said the man, "I really haven’t had the time to think about anything at all, let alone another wish." He struggled to concentrate but his mind was too distracted with getting back to all of the conversing and cavorting and consuming and carrying on. He found that he could think of no other wish, except for possibly having more. Then a notion sprung upon him. He was no longer a young man. He certainly was not yet an old man, but he had to admit that he was clearly no longer young. He wanted to experience and enjoy all he had for many years to come. "I guess," he finally began, "that I wish to have a long life filled with happiness."

 

The rabbit reacted as if it had been shot by a bullet. Its eyes narrowed, its voice becoming chilling,

 

"Consider," it said, "carefully consider for what it is you are asking?" The rabbit’s words were cautious and deliberate. "Are you certain that this is what you want?"

 

"I want to be happy. I want to have a long life. What’s wrong with that? Why are you acting so strange?" the man demanded.

 

"Are you certain?"

 

"Yes, damn it! I’ve never been more certain of anything in my whole life."

 

"Then," said the rabbit, "It is done."

 

Suddenly all of the activity, the conversations, the sound of clinking glasses and laughter, everything, stopped and the scene became perfectly still. Gradually, then more quickly, everything began to blur and appear distorted. Then the people, the mansion, the orchards, the courtyard, the women, had evaporated. In their places stood a small house on a respectable patch of land. From within the house appeared a woman, not a beautiful woman, but certainly not and unbeautiful one. Two small bags of gold appeared in the man’s hands.

 

"What have you done?" he demanded of the rabbit, unable to reconcile in his mind what had just happened.

 

"Your wish has been granted.," it replied sharply.

 

"But ..." the man stammered, "I don’t understand." he fell silent for a moment of reflection. "You’ve tricked me!" he declared after a moment, "You said you wouldn’t do that!"

 

"I tricked no one." The rabbit’s voice was a calm deflection of the man’s desperate tone, "I merely gave you what it is you wanted.. Face it, the amount of wealth that you had would neither have been conducive to a long life, nor would it have provided much happiness."

 

"But I was happy," the man declared, sounding unconvinced by the rabbit’s candor.

 

"You were distracted! Perhaps, for the moment, you were happy, but how long would it have been before you began to wonder if anyone truly liked you for who you are rather than for what you possess? Could any woman ever really get to know you after you began to suspect that she merely desired to get to know your bank account? How long would it have been before your own children conspired against your life just so that they could possess what it is you have? How long would it have been before those who alleged to love you betrayed you? Do you really believe that you would have been happy? Do you really believe that you would have lived to see old age? Are you really that naive or are you just that stupid?"

 

The man merely responded to the rabbit’s questions with a pout that betrayed hurt feelings.

 

"But ..." he finally blurted in rebuttal.

 

 

"No, no," the rabbit interrupted, "there’s no ‘but.’ You asked for a long life filled with happiness. The truth is that neither are mine to grant; nevertheless, I have placed you in a setting that will best foster them. In this life no one will attempt to take what you have. In this life your children will not plot against you. In this life no one will kill you to take you wife. In this life you are neither rich nor are you poor. You will work hard ..."

 

"But I don’t want to work hard," the man interrupted, "I’ve spent my life working hard. I don’t want to do that anymore."

 

"It’s supposed to be hard, didn’t you know that? You should be grateful that it’s hard. That’s what makes it all worthwhile. What you had before wasn’t hard, it was impossible. Don’t worry, your life will not return to its previous state of impossibility. But make no mistake, you will sweat and you will cry, but you will also have moments of leisure and joy. You will know the joy and the exasperation of having a good piece of earth and a respectable house to call your own.

 

"See that woman over there?" the rabbit asked the man. He nodded, looking in her direction. "She loves you. Moreover, she loves you for who you are, not for what you can provide. You’ll find that if you go about your business, doing what it is you are supposed to, happiness will come. But if you make being happy the goal, you’ll never find it. Happiness is like the horizon. You can walk toward it, but it always lies far off in front of you. It’s like a shadow. If you chase it, it runs away, but if you ignore it, it follows. You are once more an ordinary man, but you are certainly more interesting than when you were the wealthiest man in the world."

 

The man, who was once ordinary, then quite extraordinary, and now ordinary again, surveyed his surroundings. He exhaled stiffly. His face twisted, displaying brief sparks of understanding. His new reality was so much better than days before, but so inferior to only moments before. He walked toward his new home, toward his new, not unbeautiful wife, toward his new life, a little hurt but hopeful, never once looking back at the rabbit who was still watching from behind him.

 

"Goodbye," the rabbit said silently, almost to itself, "may you find what it is you’ve been looking for." then the rabbit bounced off one last time.

 

It was somewhere in the remoteness of a far away land, located somewhere in the isolation of a far away time, that a man made his home. He was an ordinary man. He was a man of ordinary significance. He was a man of ordinary abilities. He possessed ordinary physical attributes and an ordinary intellect. He spoke of ordinary ambitions and clung to ordinary aspirations. He was a man who, above all else, had no misconceptions about his own ordinariness. He was not a poor man. He was not a wealthy man. He was a farmer by trade, a farmer by decision. He lived in a respectable house, located on a respectable patch of land, on which he grew substantial crops, in order to sustain his happy, yet ordinary existence.

 

 

 

Reviews

[kav]

We have so much to learn from animals that can talk.

"He knew that there was nothing firmly lodged in him that had never been solidly deposited in any other man."

That is truly excellent. In one sentence you captured the essence of the character that the reader can carry throughout all that follows. There were times when I wished the rabbit remained more consistently urbane, but then I realized what he probably has to put up with every time he is snared (by accident or otherwise) and his frankness made sense. Please forgive me for not rating the story as I haven't really put together a meaningful way to do so in my head. Just know that this was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and even though I believe the story has been told before, to my knowledge it has been in less interesting ways. Thanks!