Bomb The Bunnies
"One Hour to Madness and Joy! O furious! O confine me not!"--Walt Whitman
Angela, an old student of mine, had brought her children to the college to see me. I had insisted. “I want to meet all of them,” I said. “Four’s fine.”
They walked into my office with unselfconscious curiosity, lifting the head off my monk cookie jar, banging my staple-less stapler, looking at my Peter Pan poster.
It took us about four minutes before we went AWOL.
Victor was the youngest, not yet walking. Angela sat him down amidst the merry mayhem of the other three, and he miraculously avoided getting kicked in the head.
Abby, a still-quite-bald 4-year-old, looked like one of the Pre-Cogs in Minority Report, which gave her a strange, otherworldly air. She was full of loving. When she was tired, she put her head on my shoulder.
Christopher, the oldest boy, 7, wore square black glasses on his tiny pale head and a mischievous grin on his face. He was ready for any break-shit idea. He liked to be carried over my shoulder, like a sack of potatoes.
Evelyn, the eldest and the Queen of the Little Court, had a wild look. Within the first couple of minutes, I accidentally poked her in the eye, but she shrugged it off as if it were beneath her to fuss like a little one.
What did we do?
We threw Panda Cookies at each other, trying to catch them in our mouths. We raced up and down the hallway outside the Writing Lab, disturbing the college students at their computers. We raised my umbrellas against the light; if any one of us stepped outside the shade—instant werewolf.
Before our time together ran out, our lawless fun had spread even into my sketchbook. Evelyn drew a self-portrait with a dog, and then she drew a fluffle of bunnies hopping across the landscape.
Christopher drew some planes above the bunnies, and then I couldn’t help myself: I added some bombs raining down on the bunnies. We two Christophers laughed like demons.
Then I kicked the little rapscallions out of my office and got back to work. I had papers to grade.
It was one hour to madness and joy.
Sometimes that’s all we need to make it through the week.
Sometimes you can't just sit back but you are helplessly pulled into the merriment of the children's hour. They, no doubt, will want to come back to "visit" and have cookies tossed in the air while they don't actually catch them...such fun that was!!!!
Magical. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'll read anything you write.