Life With William

 

There were more than I’d been expecting.  The night before, when I had left my jeans on the floor, there had been four holes in them.  And now, in the morning light, there were six.  The four old holes were getting a little larger everyday.  But the two new holes were small.  Small and in the shape of a little bunny mouth.

            I looked over at William.  He was looking innocent.  He was not innocent.  He munched hay, as I talked to him.

            “That’s it.  No Star Trek for you today.”

            William is a weird little bunny.  Not because he likes to chew holes in things.  That is a very normal bunny activity.  William is weird because he likes to watch Star Trek.  And he knows his Star Trek.  The Original Series.  The Next Generation.  Deep Space Nine (his personal favorite).  Voyager.  He does not, however, consider Enterprise to be a valid Star Trek series , but who among us does?  He understands that all of these things are Star Trek.  When I turn on Star Trek, he comes running into the other room and stares intently at the television.  During the commercials, he cleans his toes and ears or snuffles around.  But he understands that’s not Star Trek.  He doesn’t watch any other television shows.  Not even other science fiction.  Just Star Trek.  Weird little bunny.  So every day, at 4:00, I turn on the SciFi channel and we watch Star Trek together.  But not today.  Today, William is being punished.

            I put on my jeans, the ones with the holes in them and a tee shirt, which also had little bunny holes in it.  I padded, barefoot, into the kitchen.  William followed closely behind me, anticipating breakfast.

            Walking through the door of my kitchen, I found myself in the Oval Office.  There was a nice looking gentleman behind the desk.  No president I knew.  But, hey, anyone sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office had to be the president, right? 

            “Good morning, Mr. President.  I’m just getting some coffee.” I said to the man behind the desk.

            “Security!” the man said into an intercom.

            I walked over to a coffee trolley and poured myself a cup.  Just as I was taking my first sip, several Marines with guns were standing around me.  I walked slowly backwards, showing my hands and the fact that they held nothing but coffee.  I kept backing up.  William was circling my feet, making it hard for me to not trip and fall down.  Tripping and falling down would definitely be a bad thing.  William and I continued our slow movement backwards.  The Marines continued to point guns at us.  And then we were back in the hallway of my apartment.

            “Well, I’ll have to get your breakfast from the grocery store, but you’re going to have to wait until I drink my coffee,” I said to William.

            I went to the front door and opened it.  I was looking for my newspaper.  Instead I found an alien vista of some sort.  William continued to snuffle around my feet.  He looked up at the vista but quickly lost interest when he figured out that if wasn’t Star Trek.  I closed the door.

William and I went into the living room.  Standing there, looking quite confused was a Roman solider.  I smiled and pointed to the porch door.  

            “You want to go out there,” I said, which was silly, because he couldn’t understand what I was saying. 

            He looked at me, looked at the door, looked at me.  I walked over to the door and opened it for him.  Through the door I could only see my own porch, but I had a suspicion that it really lead to some part of the Roman Empire.  I motioned to the soldier that he should go through the door.  He seemed to understand and went through.  William tried to follow him, but I put out my foot to stop my bunny from ending up as Caesar’s dinner.  I closed the door and went to sit on the couch.  I turned on the television and leaned back to drink my coffee.  William jumped up on my lap, causing me to spill my coffee.  I sighed.

            “You know you have to stop chewing holes in the space – time continuum,” I said to William, who was licking up the spilt coffee, “And my jeans.”