A Different Rabbit by CornFed (the lemonade war series .TXT) 📖

and for the first time she saw the Truth staring back at her. There was nothing wrong about her. Everything was Right with her.

Everything Becka had been taught by The Elders, by the Creed, and by the Tablets were now seen for what they were. Mere words and not life. Control and not freedom. Her mind spun out of control as she tried to understand it all, asking Jack Rabbit question after question....

“But Jack Rabbit…isn’t life about loving the Garden and my rabbit mates?”
“No Becka, life is about being free. Would not Love be a natural consequence of that fact?”

“But isn’t life about worship, about living life in a way that pleases the Big Rabbit in the Sky and the Elders?”
“No Becka. Isn’t being grateful for the gift of the great life you will live worship enough?”

“But isn’t life about giving your life for a great cause? I see the effort the Elders have put into the Garden.”
“Becka, what cause is greater than your life?”

“But shouldn’t I feel guilty when I break the rules?”
“Becka, and that adds what to your life?”

“But isn’t it wrong to do the wrong thing?”
“Becka, who told you what is wrong for you?”

“But shouldn’t I start a rabbit family and build a rabbit home and raise little rabbits after my first year here?”
“Becka, you start a family and then what? You go away? This goes away?”

“But isn’t living my life to be happy selfish? Shouldn’t I give of myself to a mate?”
“Becka, and you would love another if it made you feel unhappy?”

“But what about all the things the Elders told us? The Creeds? All of it?”
“Becka, and you believe everything you hear?”

“But doesn’t the Big Rabbit expect us to do good and punish us when we are wrong?”
“Becka, who told you that? What does the Big Rabbit say? Have you even asked Him?”

“But where is this Big Rabbit? I don’t see Him in the Sky!”
“Becka, you want to look into that mirror again?”

Becka was exhausted. For every clamoring question running through her head, Jack Rabbit answered her back with a question.

And all of his questions required action.

And all of her fears would have to be let go.

And she knew what she had to do.


Chapter 6 – Leaving

As dawn approached, Becka was wide-awake for it. It looked different this time, as if the sun could be reached if she would but reach out for it. The birds singing their songs were not the stationary objects of music she had once thought them to be. They were a benediction, a constantly active impulse of their own Divine Unrest. The stream behind her, it had never stopped moving during the night and appeared to have even more power behind it this morning. The trees actually did grow, never stagnant in size as she was told. It appeared they were trimmed down year after year by the Elders to keep them the same size.

The only thing that had remained the same was the Garden, with all it's beautiful clover filled nurseries. It wanted to grow more, it wanted to extend it’s reach to every corner of the land, but it was fixed, as if some opposing force had required it to only exist to replenish itself for others but not to extend itself as it desired.

Sandra and Sam were still asleep, oblivious to dreams.

Becka took one last bite of clover and headed to the one place left for her to visit. The Southern Border, the entry to the Land of the Evil Rabbit, the place all rabbits were taught to fear the most.


Chapter 7 – The Journey

The wolves guarding the southern part of the garden were menacing as The Elders had intended them to be. But upon closer inspection, from a distance of course, the wolves were obviously made of stone. Not that it would have mattered to Becka at this point anyways. Wolves or no wolves, help or no help, fear or no fear, Becka was going to meet the Evil Rabbit himself.

A few minutes after passing the wolf statues, Becka came to a large brick wall, as tall as a tree and appearing to be as long as all of the Land that existed outside of the Garden. She followed it for days, trying to find either the end of the wall or a way through the wall. The wall was seemingly endless and had not a single hole in it big enough for a rabbit to pass through.

“I wish I was a squirrel”

, Becka thought, imagining herself climbing a tall tree and jumping over the wall.

“Or perhaps a bird”

, as she envisioned how, with just a few flaps, she would be perched high upon the top of the brick wall.

“Or maybe a bear!”

, realizing how easy it would be for a bear to continually bang on the wall until a hole appeared.

But Becka was none of those. She was a rabbit and rabbits cannot clear walls in a single bound.

And as Becka lay there on the ground, wondering just how in the world she would get past this last barrier to meet the Evil Rabbit, she noticed a hawk on a limb above her, his talons glowing as if sharpened for the primary job of hawks: eating animals, especially rabbits.

But she knew of nothing else to do and she had nowhere else she wanted to go except over that wall. If she couldn’t do that, then she would be content to meet her fate at the hands of a hawk or a bobcat or whatever creature took her life upon itself. She relaxed and waited to see what would happen next.

Swoosh!

Becka glanced up and noticed the hawk coming at her full speed, with his talons tucked backwards, waiting for the right moment for them to swing forward and grab her. Becka closed her little rabbit eyes, quieted her little rabbit mind, and accepted her fate as she had put everything she had all on the line and was only left with this moment. She could accept that.


Chapter 8 – The Great Carrot

The other side of the wall, at first glance, didn’t look any different than the Garden side did, although Becka was too occupied checking her body for missing pieces of flesh to really notice how much had actually changed, that while clover is still clover and a tree is still a tree, on this side of the wall everything was in fact different.

With all body parts in tact, Becka began to become more aware of things. The clover never seemed to end and everywhere she stepped, clover mingled with her paws. The trees were of differing heights and sizes and as she looked up at them, she could find the tops of the younger ones while the older trees seemed to reach heaven. Hawks, owls, and other singing birds she recognized from the Garden and it’s borders, mingled in the trees with peacefulness.

And the bears! There were large brown bears near her, each of them practicing standing on their hind legs and roaring loudly, as if the bears were rehearsing for the role of being a scary creature form on the Eastern border of the Garden.

The bobcats and the squirrels were busy playing together and the reach of the bobcat’s claws always seemed to just miss the fur of the squirrel. The squirrels were noisy as usual but their noise was in fact a vocabulary of humorous jesting and good-natured humor.

It was as if every other “animal form” she had been told was “outcast” and "bad" was actually good…that each form of animal had only been playing the role of “outcast” and “bad” because that is the picture the Elders had painted them to be.

And the Garden…it wasn’t really a Garden anymore. There was no beginning and ending to it. It was as if the Garden had been released of it’s name and therefore it’s boundary, free to just move as it had always wanted to.

But what surprised her more was the rabbit staring at her.

It was Jack Rabbit.

Although, at first, the rabbit didn’t look like Jack Rabbit. The gray was gone and the fatty deposits under his chin were replaced with pockets of muscle, as if something had literally stolen his age and replaced it with youth.


It was as if the Garden and the life she had previously known, both of which were created by the Elders, didn’t exist anymore. She was seeing life behind the scenes.

“Hello Becka. I am the Evil Rabbit everyone warned you about. Welcome to my Garden!”

“Becka, it takes more than being on the verge of killing yourself to be willing to see the Truth of things. That is why I came to you. I haven’t met anyone who was willing to reach that point of truly fighting all they could fight in order to know Who they really are. That is, until you. And all you needed to see was a mirror in order to complete your journey.”

Becka realized that the Evil Rabbit, through many days and nights of struggling against The Elders to truly be Whom he was, had decided one day to simply give up and to end his own life. And in the ultimate paradox, his giving up was the last step required for him to see Himself clearly and be a part of creating his new Garden, one that was unique to himself, without all the boundaries and rules of the Elders.

Becka realized the Evil Rabbit was never evil as she had been told. He was just free. And that frightened others, the fear of being free. The Evil Rabbit wasn’t banished from the Garden, he created his own Garden but no one dared to enter it for fear of their own fear.

The Evil Rabbit shocked others as Becka had shocked The Elders. He didn’t fear putting himself in harms way because he knew what death brought, the same thing he had in life and even more.

The Evil Rabbit had been considered selfish, a rebel, and a loner as he didn’t care what others thought of him and all he knew was to do things in his own way. He was content just being whom he was, living unto himself but willing to share to those who considered his kind of free life one worth living.

The Evil Rabbit didn’t kneel down to pray, which had led others to see him as a follower of false Gods. His every action and thought was a prayer and his every Action and Thought was God and that was all the form of worship he ever needed.

The Evil Rabbit was in constant conversation with the Big Rabbit in the Sky who lived directly inside of himself and in everything around him. The Evil Rabbit was, in fact, The Big Rabbit in the Sky, just in a different form.

Becka was looking at Jack Rabbit, the Evil Rabbit, and it wasn’t until Becka could look into the living mirror of herself that she could realize what she truly was made of, the ability to discern truth from false. She needed Jack Rabbit and he came during the only time she had the ability to see.

She understood her dreams of the Great Carrot as the ground erupted and hundreds of beautiful carrots starting