There was tea, and there were clouds, and I was fairly sure shortly there would also be rain to be in perfect compliment to my mood that morning.

In fact, it was just starting to mist when I took my first sip of tea, and at that precise and poetic moment, Arthur appeared at the top of the staircase leading in to our kitchen and yawned slightly.

It was 11 am at this point.

Clancy stumbled down behind him and came to rest after bouncing off the back of Arthur, obviously not having noticed his cohort had chosen to stop. He rubbed his neck, winced, and swore quietly.

“You two fell asleep at the poker table again, didn’t you?”

“Only Clancy. I read a book and watched the sunrise,” Arthur replied, then hopped down the stairs after taking a moment to survey his domain.

Of course he did, I thought dryly.

The rabbit noted the hot water kettle still steaming on the stove and chirped happily, grabbing a mug and some genmaicha from the tea cupboard and proceeding to craft himself a cup.

Clancy gave up on proceeding and slumped down to a sitting position on top of the stairs, staring at his paws and blinking rapidly to clear his bleary eyes.

I sipped at my fruity, honey-laden tea and gazed off in to space.

“You have been gone from us a lot lately,” Arthur said, eying the timer on the stove so he didn’t over-steep his tea.

“Huh?” I blinked, then frowned, “No, you’ve seen me. Every day I’ve been here that you’ve been here.”

Arthur smiled, then tugged the tea-ball out of the tea right as the alarm went off and dropped it in to the sink. Clancy winced at the noise and barked at Arthur, who hurriedly shut it off with an apologetic glance to his cousin.

The rabbit careful transported his mug over to the small table where I sat, “Not mentally. You have not been with us mentally.”

“Oh,” was about all I had to say on that front. I attempted to descend back in to mindless staring, watching the water droplets grow and coalesce on the glass window that looked out over the back yard.

“Something is wrong,” he offered up gently, before hazarding a sip of the green liquid swirling before him.

I shot him a nasty look before drinking my own rapidly cooling tea (what is it about dumping honey in stuff that makes it cool off faster??) and eying the weak-ass rainstorm outside.

He only nodded in response, then looked out the window to see what I was looking at. Another quiet sip. We could, and had, sat there for an hour before just watching, lost in our own thoughts. I was secretly hoping for that.

Nope.

“How long have you been forgetting things? It is hard to track, as you are normally so busy anyway…” Arthur cocked his head and wiggled his nose at me.

I shot him another look, hopefully twice as nasty, then another sip of tea and more staring out in to the yard.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw him do something I’d never seen before. He looked uncertain. Just for a moment, but I watched it tick over his face. As if in response, Clancy shift at the top of the stairs and stared at the two of us now.

“So it’s bad,” he said finally, quietly.

I sighed and swirled the mug before me, watching the different shades of red wash about in it.

“How bad, my dear?” and the old Arthur was back in full force. He reached out and touched a paw to the arm resting on the table and looked up at me, nose wiggling double-time.

“I don’t remember getting in the car when I’m driving, and I don’t remember where I was going. When I do remember, I don’t remember how to get there,” I said quietly, then closed my eyes.

He squeezed my arm gently, then snuggled up to me and buried his rabbit cheek against my chest, his version of a hug.

“It will be alright,” he said softly.

Eyes closed, I took a deep breath and a long moment to enjoy the rabbit hug. It was nice to know I didn’t have to keep hiding my forgetfulness from him. That alone felt like a ton of stone had fallen away from my shoulders.

He looked up with his large, brown eyes and touched my shoulder now, and I knew from the sudden onslaught of personal contact that he was trying to really get the thing he was going to say next across to me.

“All things are temporary, always.”

I stared at him, trying to parse the words.

He stared back, nose slowing its incessant wiggling.

“…..?”

“This will pass. You are overloaded right now. The overload will pass. The forgetfulness will pass. The embarrassment will pass. The days will pass. Life will pass. The mountains will pass. The seas will pass. The earth will pass. The sun will pass…..”

I understood what he was saying, but not sure how exactly it was supposed to comfort me that the world was going to end one day. The furrowed brow must’ve tipped him off.

“Think. If the mountains themselves will die one day, how fleeting is a state of mind?” he offered, patting my shoulder. “And I saw the doctor’s appointment on the calendar. You are getting help, so that is good. But in the meantime, hold in your heart that this is not permanent. Nothing is. So there is nothing to be afraid of.”

“Fear is fleeting,” I offered up lamely.

He nodded and smiled, then squeezed my shoulder firmly before returning to his mug across the table.

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?” I sighed.

“Drink tea!” he chirped, a smile beaming on his face. “The Buddha had many good thoughts on the nature of things, but that is probably his best.”

I nodded in response because, hey, now apparently we were using Buddhism to combat mental fatigue. It was not surprising.

I nodded and went back to my mug, lost in half-thoughts and things I needed to do.

Clancy, now slumped forward and contemplating his toes, reminded me of something as I glanced his way, “Hey Clance, how’s the mech doing? Did you get her tuned up?”

Clancy sat up and blinked at me for a second. Then his eyes widened in horror.

“OH SHIT!”

And he disappeared upstairs in a flash.

Arthur raised an eyebrow as he watched him go, “Fantastic. You’re contagious.”

Without warning, as he always does things, Arthur appeared at my elbow, eyes raised up at me; he was on the floor and I was in my office chair being utterly absorbed in the mind-numbing curiosity that is Pinterest.

I stared down at him. He stared up at me. Then, when he said nothing I opened my mouth to speak. So did he. It went a bit like this:

“What did you…”

“I have something for…”

“Oh.”

“Oh. Please, proceed.”

“No, you go first, I was just staring at the computer.”

“You do that quite often.”

“It’s my idiom. What’s up?”

His nose wiggled for a moment, then he hopped up on my knee, and from there to the computer desk and began to push my mouse around.

“Something to show you, my dear,” he said, and though his voice was serious he still had his little rabbit-y smile tugging up one corner of his face.

“Alright,” I sighed, sitting back and watching him. I could always find that link back to Polyvore, anyway.

He stared intently at the computer screen for several seconds, clicking through link upon link upon link. Then he spoke again, eyes not leaving the LCD glow before him.

“You have said quite often that your understanding of the world is through patterns. That people and events and the natural world all exhibit these things. You are lost when you cannot discern them.”

“Yeeeeah,” I said guardedly, raising an eyebrow, “It’s pretty much how it works in my skull. No pattern? No recognition. No ability to interact.”

“The numbers are the worst for this, too, you have said. They don’t sit still in your mind when you try to work with them,” he continued.

“Yeah,” I said, growing mildly uncomfortable. “But they behave and fall in to place once I know what they’re trying to construct, usually.”

“People… when people don’t have patterns, you poke at them. You try to force reactions out of them, so you can gauge. So you have some information,” He continued, then frowned and double clicked something forcefully. Apparently the mouse was not behaving. “Sometimes to the detriment of your relationship with that person, it would seem.”

“Yet again, yeah. Why?” I sighed, waiting for him to get to the point.

“Well, you place so much time and effort in the creation of these things. These processes. In essence you are doing what everyone else in the world is doing, trying to exert control. A lack of pattern means a lack of control,” he said, then sat back, the smile returning to his face. He turned to look at me, head cocked and one ear flopped to the side.

“Logical. Sure. I suppose that’s what it is. We are coming to the point of this thing, yes?” Couldn’t help it, I was growing irritated with the soul-baring exercise we were going through.

“I wanted to show you… even if you have the patterns, it does not give you control. It doesn’t give you anything but a possible outcome. Here. I have a poem for you.”

And then he brought it up. And he stood back. Waited. I read.

“Patterns” by Amy Lowell

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/alowell/bl-alowell-patterns.htm

It was hot. Racy. Crushing. Sad. And all amazing in the distance of 7 long and typically old skool poetical stanzas. I stared at the screen for a few moments after reading it, then turned my eyes to Arthur. He spoke once more.

“You put a lot of energy in to finding these patterns. And sometimes when it fails you beat yourself up. I see it happen. Your only grasp on the world fails you, and you are awash at sea. But even having these things, these ideas of how things operate… it means nothing. There will be shifts. There will be evolution. There will be times when people simply are not as they always are. And therefore all of this time and energy you put in to these things…”

“Teardrops in the rain,” I said to myself, quietly.

Arthur wriggled his nose for a moment trying to place what he knew was a quote, before recognition dawned. “Ahh. Yes. Yes! Teardrops in the rain.”

“The poem is lovely….” I trailed off, at a loss.

He hopped over the desk to where I sat and caught my gaze, making sure to meet me straight in the eye, “Perhaps watch. Perhaps listen. Perhaps breathe. And perhaps just live,” he said quietly, one paw on my knee. “You have been beating yourself up because you cannot see what comes and goes. The people around you are buoys in an ocean. Float. Smile if it pleases you. Don’t worry about the patterns. Don’t worry about the people who won’t speak with you.”

I blinked in surprise when I realized what he was saying.

“Patterns are shit. Just live.”

“Just live,” I replied, nodding. Smiling.

It had been several weeks since I had seen either Arthur or Clancy, who had chosen to go on a roadtrip instead of help me pack for the move to a new place. Or, as Arthur put it, “get out from under your feet while you sort your many things.”

Their whereabouts were vague, and I got a postcard from Biloxi, Mississippi about a week and a half ago with nothing on the back but a smiley face. No calls, no anything. I was actually beginning to worry that my leporine companions might have decided to fall in love with the Way of the Road and never come back. I was also trying to figure out what to do with 5 bottles of single malt Scotch and a pack of Cuban cigars that were probably very illegal, while also trying to unpack my many things and get them on shelves so I could stop stubbing my toes in the dark.

Per usual, the worry wasn’t necessary. I awoke from a nap on the couch to find Clancy sitting on my chest peering down at me intensely, nose scrunched up tight from concentration. When I blinked and frowned in confusion, he looked up and hollered “Nope! Breathing! We’re good!” And without another word he hopped off and made his way to the kitchen.

Arthur wandered in to the living room looking a touch worse for the wear but with his trademark huge smile. Did you know rabbits can grow stubble? He had stubble all over his face, and a decided set of bags under his eyes -or at least the one that could be seen, I couldn’t tell with the eyepatch on the other.

“My companion!” he said, with a voice sounding exhausted and on the verge of a sleep-deprived high like those experienced when studying for college finals. “My companion! We return to find all well managed! And you….” he trailed off and gave me a once over. I grumbled and straightened my sweatpants and t-shirt and ran a hand through the mop of hair gone crazy, “….you’re clean.”

“Welcome back. How was Biloxi?” I asked.

“That was just a postcard left in the glovebox,” Clancy hollered from the kitchen, accompanied by the clink of ice cubes going in to a glass, “I figured we should send you something.”

“Oh gee, thanks then,” I muttered sarcastically, “Where did you guys go, then?”

“About. Around. On walkabout,” Arthur said, wiggling his nose conspiriatorily. Then before I could press him further, he announced “Presents! We have brought you presents!” and disappeared out the front door.

“Wait, Clancy, you have a car?” I asked, seeing him manhandle one of the 5 Scotch bottles until it spilled golden liquid over the ice.

“Rental,” he grunted, then re-capped the bottle.

“So you sent me someone else’s leftover postcard??”

“Presents!” Arthur chirped, interrupting. He carried over his head a giant box, intricately wrapped up with a large bow. It bobbed as he hopped toward me in a way that I couldn’t help but to giggle at.

With a flourish he presented it to me, then hopped on to the couch and watched me, his tail twitching in excitement. I had never seen him so obviously happy.

Tearing in to the box, I found mounds of fluffy tissue paper, coming out in handfuls to make a giant mountain on the carpet at my feet. For a moment I thought perhaps that was the only thing in there, that I was accidentally tossing some rarified Japanese rice paper on the floor and he would be chuckling at me shortly in my confusion…. then my hand tapped against something solid.

What came out was a delicate, hollowed gourd with an intricate silver rim. On the rim were the finest of etched lines, in obviously ethnic patterns. Who’s ethnic patterns, though, I did not know.

“More, more! Keep looking!” Arthur urged, grinning.

Continuing further down I found a second cup with the same rim, different only in the natural coloring of the gourd. After that were two strange silver straws ending in what looked like spoons with holes in them. And under THAT was a wooden box with a worn latch.

Confused as to why he’d bought me strange cups and funky spoons, I popped the latch to see what was inside. As the lid rose, the scent of light smoke touched my nose. Inside was a pile of olive colored ground leaves that smelled wonderful. I ran my fingertip through it lightly and the scent intensified.

“Mate tea leaves,” I said knowingly.

Arthur did a full body wiggle in excitement. “And mate cups! And bombillas to drink the tea with!”

“Wow. Thank you Arthur…. that’s actually really awesome,” I said, smiling.

“Tonight you and I shall boil water in that lovely glass kettle you so adore, and we shall drink mate to cement our friendship upon returning!” he grinned at me, collecting up the cups and the bombillas.

“Sounds awesome. Just let me know when you want to do it,” I smiled. It was good to have him back.

“Whenever you can be sure to lock all the doors so you can’t wander too far after we’re done,” he called from the kitchen.

“Why?” I asked in confusion.

“Well, you see, this particular mate tea is very strong and… well… they used it for visions….” he seemed suddenly shy on the details. “It’s unadulterated. Just smoked.”

I blinked, as is common these days when dealing with the rabbits. “I didn’t think you could get that stuff in the United States.”

Clancy looked up from his empty glass and efforts to pour a second, “We kinda went further south than we were supposed to. Rental company’s gonna kill me when they see how many miles we put on that car.”

It had been a particularly frustrating day, and it had seemed to me that the best way to deal with this would be to hole up in the office and terrorize the internet while possibly purchasing very fancy chocolates for delivery that would be consumed with great guilt later on. It was in the midst of this, with me hunched over my keyboard like a vulture over roadkill, that Arthur sauntered in, whistling happily.

I must have given him a dirty look, because he stopped short and gave me his now infamous wide grin. I swear he does it to piss me off, even though he says it’s just to counter my negativity.

“Rough day?” he asked, smile still in place. His good eye perused the screen and twinkled in amusement to see I had the truffle website up again.

“The bank keeps asking for more paperwork, there’s something wrong with the place we want to move in to so the closing’s put off, they changed the policies at work so there is literally nothing to do except sit there and twiddle your thumbs, sometimes for 10-15 minutes at a time….” I trailed off in frustration, shaking my head. I then turned my attention to the important decision of having champagne truffle or mint morass bon-bons in my assortment box.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” he chirped.

I blinked.

“Wonderful?” I asked incredulously, “I have friends and family who are very sick. I have a massive change in employment coming up that means I might not see the love of my life for several months. We’re stuck in this place longer, and the ceiling is falling down in places! How is any of this possibly wonderful?!”

“Isn’t it wonderful that your friends and family are still here to be loved by you? Isn’t it wonderful that you have a job when so many others out there struggle to find employment? Isn’t it wonderful you have a home to keep you warm and someone to love you and hold you at night when there are so many out there cold and alone? And isn’t it wonderful that you are achieving the American dream when you thought you never would? Nevermind the wonderment that you get to have a place to yourself with grass around it, so few in the world get such luxury in their living quarters,” he said, his small nose working. The smile faded just a touch, a signal he was truly thinking these things, not just being argumentative.

I blinked again.

I cleared my throat.

“When you put it that way, yes…. things are very well off,” I said finally.

“I am glad to have you as a friend. I get to watch you with all of these happy changes coming,” he said, wrinkling up his eyes in that goofy ultra-happy rabbit grin he had. Then he turned and headed toward the stairwell. “Oh, and Clancy is firing up the cocktail bar downstairs. We’re making Manhattans, if you care to join us.” Then he disappeared down the stairwell with the tiny fwup fwup fwup of bouncing rabbit feet.

I thought for a moment, a small smile on my lips.

I decided on mint morass. Then I decided on a Manhattan.

The night was done (or at least the part where the tiny ones came out of the woodwork for handfulls of ill-gotten chocolate and sugar) and Arthur whistled happily as we dropped the candy bowl on the kitchen counter and retired to the living room, collapsing on the couch with a sigh. It had been a particularly rough run, with just as many teenagers smelling of Marlboros arriving at the door as there were little ones who didn’t understand why they were dressed like a dog and being forced to knock on the doors of strangers who towered over them.

Arthur smiled contentedly and his nose began to wiggle double-time. I have learned this means he is exceptionally happy about something, so I grinned and asked.

“What’s got you tickled so much?”

“The time of year!” he answered, his smile widening. “The melting pot of society’s concerns and psychological needs distilled in to a single evening where we are released from all expectations! It’s wonderous to see what people do and what they don’t do given the lone freedom of today.”

I chuckled. Of course he would dig the Freudian aspect of kids showing up as Batman.

“Truly, if you think on it, it is miraculous. Society exists because of an agreed upon set of behaviours. When one steps outside of it there are sometimes grave repercussions for doing so. The ostracized know well of this. And of course recently this country has taken to celebrating those who are ostracized for their ability to build their own code of conduct. The honor among thieves, if you will,” he said, his nose slowing to wiggle at ponderous-levels of motion.

I nodded, “Like bikers. And gamers. And the otaku.”

“Ohhh I love to watch the otaku…” he said breathlessly, “a subculture built upon a subculture from a different culture entirely, redefined through the lens of America’s norms and mores? So fascinating!” he said, gleefully rubbing his paws together.

“You were saying about Halloween…?” I tried to draw him back to his original thought.

“Oh yes! Halloween! Think on it, will you? That an entire society gets together and realizes at its base level that there is this need for release from our roles, even if only for one day. This is the pressure valve. And we teach it to children the moment they can stand up and take part with any sort of understanding! ‘This is necessary for societal sanity’, we seem to say. And they embrace it fully. Each generation makes it their own, their own means of celebrating and of adjusting What Should Be in their personas.”

“So you approve of the slutty costumes that come out?” I grimaced.

“You have no idea how repressed American culture is,” he said, waving a paw as if to dismiss our prudishness altogether, “and we are all sexual beings. The woman who shows up as a cheerleader is finally free to express that she enjoys something considered taboo. It is an act of freedom and rebellion far more so than attention seeking.” Then after a moment he cleared his throat and said in a slightly lower voice “Also, I can’t complain, it is very lovely to look at….”

Can rabbits blush? I believe he did.

We sat in silence for a moment. I was thinking of the York peppermint patties left over in the candy bowl. Arthur was pondering personal roles within extrapersonal relationships or something of equally long name. Then a thought occured to me.

“Arthur, if you love this holiday and its freedom some much, why don’t you dress up too?”

He blinked and stared at me with his dark little eyes for a long moment before raising a paw and motioning to the bad eye.

“Do you not see the patch? I’m a pirate.”

nawasaka:

fuckyeahmoleskines:

nawasaka.tumblr.com

I still don’t know how something I scribbled in a hurry at 3am got so many notes in the space of a day? Shakespeare is clearly too awesome. I spelt “bated” wrong, awk :) Someone said this looks like a serial killer’s notebook, which made me laugh a lot. They’re not wrong, I’ve been a sleep deprived zombie lately.

Continuing with the thought that my leporine roomies and I are passing ships in the night these days, I suppose it should not have surprised me to find them in my living room crashed against my squid-pillow (reference picture, we call it Dolce) and watching the Travel Channel.

I was understandably taken aback, for two reason; A.) I hide Dolce behind the couch so people don’t start using him as a footrest and B.) the Travel Channel seemed sort of redundant when you’d lived the sort of life Arthur kept hitting at.

Clancy waved, first to notice me wandering through the living room, though the smile was distracted and lasted perhaps 0.05 seconds before he was back to staring at the screen with glassy eyes. I noted the same look on Arthur, who only blinked when Clancy elbowed him in the side and muttered something. He then smiled brightly at me before turning back to the screen.

“A show on Barbeque?” I asked incredulously, once I realized what was on the screen.

“Absolutely,” Arthur said, his eyes intent on the grills and their various cuts of smoking meats.

“Okay… why?” I was at a loss.

“Of all the food traditions in the world, it is the ones that require slow cooking and intense preparation that are being lost. As we strive for a hamburger in 2 minutes so we can continue with our work and not die of starvation, the true love for and ability to work with food is disappearing,” Arthur said, eyes not leaving the brisket being sliced for the barbeque judges.

He must’ve heard me blinking in surprise at his response, because he spoke up a moment later.

“Barbeque is considered a most common food in this country because it is something that nearly everyone has experienced. It is a seasonal food as well, though, and therefore holds the same love that all comfort foods do. Further, it has reached nearly a religious fervor in this country in terms of quality and preparation. When a man stakes his entire life’s savings on his ability to cook one thing, and derives immense pride from the result, then that result is nothing but art. Art crafted with love,” and he paused watching them spoon pork on to a sandwich, swallowing hard, “Lots of delicious, delicious love…”

That last part came out of his mouth just as creepy as it sounds.

There really wasn’t much else to say to that, and I was seriously hoping he wasn’t going to elaborate on the delicious love part. So I leaned against the wall to the kitchen and watched for a bit myself.

The results of the judging were announced and Clancy chirped triumphantly. “IN YOUR FACE! I TOLD YOU SOUTHERN HUSTLER WOULD WIN!” He then proceeded to do what I suppose is the rabbit’s hip-grinding version of a victory dance.

Arthur sighed and fished a five dollar bill out, handing it to Clancy. “These judges have no sophistication. Sophie’s Red Hot was clearly superior in preparation.”

“You’re just bitter that I called it,” Clancy said, smirking.

Arthur shrugged, then looked at him longways, “So… the bar with the brisket on a roll and the 3 alarm sauce?”

“HELL yes,” Clancy grinned.

A second later they were gone from my living room, gone from my house, and I was left there starving for barbequed anything.