Down the Rabbit Hole

New Year’s Day had only just come and gone in Love & War, but in the supersaturated version of the town that Marco inhabited in his dreams, it was spring. The sky was deep and blue, the sides of the roads dotted with the orange and yellow wildflowers that managed to thrive in the desert. Marco was sitting alone at the turtle pond, jeans rolled up over his knees, feet skimming the cool, clear water.

A few feet away, crouched low behind a cactus and watching Marco with intent, gleaming eyes and the occasional twitch of a long, slender ear, was a rabbit.

Something was different about this rabbit. Most rabbits Marco had happened upon shook when you looked at them, their tiny bodies all taut muscle ready to spring at a moment’s notice, and they darted off, uncatchable, if you go too close. (He knew this because many summer afternoons with Alejandro and Cheehawk had been spent trying to catch a rabbit, since Chucho had promised if they caught one, they could keep it. In retrospect, Marco recognized it for the ploy to keep the boys outside and occupied and out of their mother’s hair it was.) But this rabbit was different. He looked relaxed, even curious. And he was so pretty and fluffy. So Marco reached into his pocket and pulled out a carrot. Smiling, he held it out to the rabbit, clucking his teeth as he did so. “Here, bunny bunny,” he said. “Come get the carrot. Come get the nice carrot.”

The rabbit sniffed, turned up his nose in disdain. “Now, really,” the rabbit said, “is that any way to talk to a superior being?”

This was how Marco knew he was dreaming. He dropped the carrot in his lap and cocked his head quizzically at the rabbit. “Wait a second,” Marco said slowly. “I think I know you. I have a drawing of you in my pocket.”

Again the rabbit sniffed, thumping his foot in irritation. “Oh, that’s rich,” the rabbit said. “You have a drawing of me in your pocket, therefore you think you know me? You know of me, perhaps. Is that what meant to say?”

Marco didn’t understand the question, and so felt no need to answer.

“You don’t know as much as you think in any case,” the rabbit continued. “The Japanese girl gave you a task, a mission toward which your sum effort up to this point has been to pass a hastily drawn — though very good, I must admit — illustration of me to a dull-witted fat boy and inquire as to whether I looked familiar. To him.” The rabbit shook his head, bristling as he did so. “As though I have any use whatsoever for such a one as he. Truly, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were daft. I have little use for the mentally impaired, do you understand?”

Marco didn’t understand every nuance of what the rabbit was saying, but he knew that tone of voice all too well and understood that he was being scolded. Cheeks burning red, Marco had the decency to lower his eyes, chagrined. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know how to do what Satsuko told me to do.”

Satisfied, the rabbit shook himself, hopped closer to where Marco sat. “All right. Now that we have that nonsense out of the way, I believe a proper introduction is in order. What is your name?”

“Marco,” he said, shyly.

Flustered, the rabbit beat his foot against the ground, beady eyes glaring from underneath a furry brow. “I didn’t ask you what you are called,” the rabbit said. “I asked you your name. A name is a sacred thing, boy, and you are right not to give it blithely. To own a thing’s name is to own a thing. If you don’t remember anything else, remember that. On the other hand, I am here to help you. And I cannot do that without the magic that is your name. You are called Marco. But that is not your name. A thing is, and a thing seems. What it is and what it seems are not always the same. That is the difference between llamarTo be called and nombrarTo be named. Do you understand?”

Marco licked his lips, nodded. “I think so.”

The rabbit nodded. “Very well, then. I’ll ask you again. What is your name?”

“José Maria Marco Flores Guzman,” he said.

The rabbit smiled, a sight more disconcerting than Marco would have expected. “Very well. And for whom were you named, José Maria Marco Flores Guzman?”

“For my mother’s father,” Marco supplied. He suspected the rabbit would appreciate the precision of this answer over the more ambiguous term, “grandfather”.

“And your mother’s father? For whom was he named?”

Marco shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “No one?”

“Well,” the rabbit said, “surely he was not the first person to be called José Maria, nor Marco, is that right?”

Marco shrugged. “I guess.”

The rabbit said nothing, waiting expectantly. Marco half expected him to stand on his hind legs and cross his front legs over his chest.

“José Maria is for the blessed mother and Joseph,” Marco said after a while. “Baby Jesus’s parents.”

The rabbit nodded. “Go on.”

But Marco only shrugged, shaking his head. “I don’t know any other Marcos,” he said.

The rabbit puffed out his chest, his long ears twitching impatiently. “I have so much to teach you, and such a little time to do it. I do wish your upbringing thus far had been more competent, but I imagine your poor mother has had other things occupying her mind, such as it is. No matter, we shall have to make do with what we have. Now listen up: you, your grandfather, Marco Polo, the month of March, MartesTuesday, the red planet, the martial arts, and all the Marcos for all eternity, or close enough that it makes no difference, are named for the Roman god Mars—once a god of fertility and vegetation, but later and most prominently known as a god of war. You, my boy, have the might of warriors running within you.”

Marco looked skeptical. “I’m not a warrior,” Marco said slowly. “I’m just a little kid.”

“Cartesian philosophy,” the rabbit interjected, “will be the downfall of mankind; mark my words! It is possible to be more than one thing at a time — I know creatures who are a dozen things at once, so to manage two should be a small feat. Especially for one such as you, who has been set aside for such great things.” He glanced at Marco, and upon seeing his distress and confusion, shook his furry head. “But I’m getting ahead of myself,” he said, a smile creeping into his voice. “I’ll take that carrot now, if you don’t mind,” the rabbit said, motioning with this nose to the vegetable in Marco’s lap. “All this talking makes my mouth a little dry.”

Quickly, Marco retrieved the carrot from his lap and passed it to the rabbit. He waited patiently, kicking his feet in the pond water, while the rabbit munched. When the rabbit was finished — he’d even finished off the greens — he sat back on his haunches, satisfied. “Thank you; that’s quite a lot better. Now. Where was I?”

“Mars,” Marco said.

But the rabbit shook his head. “In point of fact, we had gotten off that subject, though I do not doubt we shall have to return to it at a later date. What we were actually discussing was the ability to be more than one thing at a time,” the rabbit said. “I, for example, am a rabbit. But I am also a god. I am a brother, a husband, and a son. And each of these things that I am has a story,” he said. “If you only know me as one thing — say, a rabbit — then you only know one of my stories. You would know that I like carrots and that I like to run and jump. But if all you know about me is that I am a rabbit, then you wouldn’t suspect that I am also a great lover of alcohol, would you?”

Marco waited a long beat before saying, “You don’t look like a god.”

At this, the rabbit chuckled, bending one ear playfully toward Marco. “How would you know? Have you ever seen a god before?”

Marco hesitated. “No, but we have pictures of Jesus Christ at my house and you don’t look like him. Not at all.”

“And why would I?” the rabbit asked, indignant. “Jesus Christ is a man; I am clearly a rabbit, and under no circumstances do rabbits and men look alike, even if they are both gods. You see, Marco, your problem, and the problem with all of humanity, I daresay, is that you aren’t very good thinkers. Your propensity for logic is terrible. There have been exceptions, of course, but overall you are much better storytellers than you are thinkers, though you, José Maria Marco Flores Guzman, will have to learn to do both equally well, for that is what you have been destined for. Blessed with two purposes!”

Marco stared at the rabbit a moment. Finally he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The rabbit laughed and winked at Marco. “No, I don’t suppose you do, but keep listening; it will all make sense by and by. Now. My point, Marco, is that you are a boy, and you are a warrior. You are also, it would seem, a go-between. You have one foot in your world and one foot in mine,” he said. The rabbit’s voice had gone softer, more stern, as though the mirth had all but seeped out of it. “But other things are more than one thing, too. And if you only know a thing in one way, you’ll never have the whole story. Everything has more than one story, and every story has more than one point of view. There is nothing more important than story, Marco. Not even logic. If you know the stories, you can access all the power of the universe.”

Marco’s head was swimming. He could make neither heads nor tails of what the rabbit was saying, but it seemed that the rabbit liked to talk, and Marco had nothing better to do, so it seemed wise to simply let the rabbit talk. Besides, it wasn’t so often that he had the pleasure of talking with rabbits on warm spring afternoons by the turtle pond and he had enough of his wits about him to realize he shouldn’t pass such an opportunity by.

The rabbit cocked his head to the side; his ear perked up and turned. He was listening to something. “Do you hear that?”

Marco stood as still as he could. At first all he heard was the sound of cars in the distance, the beating of his own heart. Then, softly, like a whisper on the wind, he heard it — a sweet soprano, a melody he recognized but couldn’t quite place.

“That’s my Aunt Conchita singing,” Marco said.

The rabbit nodded. His face was solemn. “You are going to have to wake up soon.”

“I’m not ready. You never told me your name,” Marco said.

Again, the rabbit smiled. “You may call me Two Rabbit,” he said. “But for now, I’m going to keep my name. I have faith that you will come to discover it on your own. And once you do, our real work will begin. But there is one more thing you must know before you go. The Japanese girl.”

The rabbit rubbed his front two paws together while he thought of what to say. After a moment he licked his lips, if you can call what a rabbit has lips, and said, “There’s much you can learn from that one,” he said. “Take care to pay attention to her. Stay close. And whatever you do, keep her talking if you can. She’s got more stories than Scheherazade.”