a true story

Locking his friend in the rabbit cage seemed like such a good idea at the time because it would provide them a certain degree of realism and drama as they pretended to be superheroes. He pretended to be Superman and his friend was going to be Batman. The rabbit cage may just have been an old empty rabbit cage but in his imagination it was much more. The fact that his friend could actually fit inside the cage and that he could lock his friend in there from the outside elevated their imaginary play to something more real than it had ever been before. It was as if they were a little closer to actually being Batman and Superman. The rabbit cage, however, wasn’t entirely empty. It was just mostly empty with a small beehive taking up a fraction of space. He could have seen the bees as a problem but the realism the cage provided far outweighed in his mind any potential risk the bees might have presented. It was too perfect to pass up and he imagined that if his friend kept still and didn’t bother the bees that the bees wouldn’t have any reason to bother him. His friend did suggest that the bees might pose a more significant risk than he was appreciating at the time so they reasoned with each other each discussing the matter from each of their perspectives but he couldn’t accept allowing the bees to ruin the potential offered by the cage especially when it seemed that neither of them could know for sure that the bees would actually sting his friend. It also seemed to him that it would have been very unreasonable of the bees to sting his friend if his friend would stay still and not bother them. Eventually his friend relented and got in the cage. He closed the caged and even locked it to prevent any escape as a supervillain would have really done.  The plan was that once he imprisoned his friend, he would pretend to fly around the house one time and then return to free his captive superhero friend. It all made so much sense to him. His friend wouldn’t be in there long, the bees would have no reason to bother his friend since his friend wouldn’t bother them and it would be as if his friend really had been a superhero that had really been captured by a supervillain and that he would actually save and help escape. Once the latch was turned, he began to run around the house, pretending to fly by outstretching his arms in front of him.  As he ran, his heart beat from the excitement caused by all the elements coming together to complete what he had envisioned. It was so perfect to him except for a certain uneasiness that began to creep into his heart. He ran faster at the urging of his uneasiness and when he finally returned, his friend was crying. He had been stung by the bees. Neither of them were sure how many times he had been stung but just one would have been enough for him to regret ever having even wanted to convince his friend to get into that old rabbit cage. It had seemed like such a good idea to begin with but in actuality, it was not.

follow your heart

something went wrong

Their confidence in him had always surpassed any confidence he had in himself. People had told him on a few occasions that he would be good at whatever he did and to not worry about the future. He hoped they were right and found a lot of comfort in what they said but he never found what they said to be true. Had they all been wrong? Did they just extrapolate what they saw in a nice likable person beyond the usefulness of likability?  Maybe in the end they just saw what they wanted because they liked him so much and they didn’t recognize the false positive their affections generated. Later in life he wondered what they had all seen in him and wondered why ultimately not everyone saw it because if everyone had seen it, he would have had different opportunities and his life wouldn’t have turned out the way it did. Things would have been different and maybe he would have accomplished whatever it might have been that would have provided that elusive sense of satisfaction he had hoped to achieve. Maybe they were right but something somewhere along the way went wrong. Maybe he went wrong somewhere and he wondered what he might have done wrong. Among the realm of so many decisions where there was no wrong or right about them, maybe there were still right or wrong decisions. He thought maybe beyond the universal truths of everyone’s existence there’s a right or wrong in the kingdom of self.  And maybe he just chose wrong exiling himself, causing himself to be banished from the wealth and treasure of his own kingdom forever leaving him with a longing to return to where he felt at home and complete.