Bunny Brite
by Padiddlecar, aka Erin Fencil
1-28-00
Dedicated to the mailing list rainbowbrite@onelist.com
Disclaimer: All characters involved are property of Hallmark, except Bunny Brite, an original character.
Redistribution: This may be placed on your website, but please credit the author as "Padiddlecar" instead of my real name, and put my email as "Padiddlecar AT Yahoo DOT com" so I don't get spam mail. The character of Bunny Brite is public domain and can be used in any (appropriate for kids, please) fanfiction.

***

Mrs. Dismal sat at her kitchen table, sorting a box of her son's childhood toys. A radio played softly in the background and sunlight streamed in the window of her cottage, and she tried to keep her spirits up by remembering not her son's current state but his happy childhood demeanor. Murkwell had been such a happy and content infant, and these qualities had only intensified as he progressed to toddlerhood. She looked at the toys spread on the checkered tablecloth before her, and picked up a box of crayons. Absently she opened it and let the chunky crayon stubs roll onto the table. She had given them to him on his 18-month birthday, and when she closed her eyes she could still recall how his eyes had lit up with joy. The cake had barely been eaten when he began drawing on some sheets of paper she provided, and that night she had found him asleep in his crib clutching several of the crayons in each hand.

From then on, she had showered little Murky with the brilliant colors he loved. He would pick wildflowers with his chubby fingers and admire the colors before giving them to her. He loved the brightly colored toys she sewed for him, especially a purple bunny with rainbow ears which he took everywhere. She adored the artistic efforts of her son which soon covered the fridge, and presented him with new media for his work. She showed him how to mix watercolors, techniques for using sidewalk chalk, and how to swirl together fingerpaints, which he especially loved.

Before bedtime she read him the story of the Velveteen Rabbit, a book she had wanted badly enough for her son to pay the off-planet shipping costs. Murkwell loved not only the story of the rabbit who became real but the book's beautiful illustrations of a boy and his beloved toy bunny. Meanwhile, his own bunny was becoming a bit worn, and somewhere along the way it had lost an ear, plus it was spattered with paint from his artwork. Her son was undoubtedly forming an early appreciation of art, and she held hopes of his someday attending a prestigious school where he could shadow the masters.

Then, one fateful day she had been busy in another room when she realized her son was being too quiet. *He must be busy on another art project,* she thought. For a toddler, Murkwell was unusually dedicated to finishing his masterpieces. As she turned the corner she discovered he was indeed busy on another art project, but he had chosen the wall as his canvas! He had his back turned and, oblivious to her presence, continued to giggle and scribble as high as he could reach on the walls that she and her husband, rest his soul, had painted only three years ago.

Although she regretted having done so to this day, she had allowed her concern for her home decorating to momentarily overshadow any thought of her son's well-being. She had shouted and scolded him, and in doing so had startled the child and deeply frightened him, since he had never seen his mother the least bit angry before.

Mrs. Dismal was trying to be optimistic today, but a tear trickled down her cheek as she realized what it must have been like from Murkwell's perspective, looking up at the mother he trusted who was now shouting in anger, an unexpected reaction to the masterpiece he had created for her.

She wiped the tear and looked down at the artwork she had saved all these years. "I lov yuo momy her iz a rainboe for yuo" read the carefully-printed letters underneath a rainbow. This drawing had never been given to her. Murky must have been saving it for a later occasion, but that day after she stopped yelling, he had returned to the kitchen. His eyes no longer reflected fear, but a cold and glazed look. He walked past her, struggling to drag a large trash bag behind him which was completely stuffed with something. Confused, she asked, "Whatever are you doing, Murkwell?" She had already lost her anger, and had daydreamed that repainting the wall might be fun if she let him choose the color.

"Just taking out some trash," he said obediently, and returned to his room. Mrs. Dismal looked in the bag he had left by the kitchen trash can and gasped. Her son had crumpled all his precious drawings into tight little balls and stuffed them in the bag, then he had broken his crayons and thrown them inside. Worst of all, the bunny she had made him was at the bottom of the bag.

"Murkwell!" she cried, running to his room. "You didn't have to do this! I didn't mean to make you so upset, but you drew on Mommy's wall, and--"

He cut her off. "It's okay, Mommy. I was bad." Nothing she could say or do would change her son's mind, and she spent some sad minutes straightening out the artwork and hiding it in a closet where he wouldn't throw it out again. Months passed, and her son fussed and cried whenever she tried to dress him in the baby outfits he had once loved. Anything other than black, white or gray wouldn't do, so she gave in and phased color out of his wardrobe. She refused to permit him to repaint his room black, but she did replace the technicolor circus animal wallpaper with a neutral white.

When it became apparent that this was more than a passing phase, she brokenheartedly boxed up the art supplies and drawings he had tried to destroy. It was still apparent that her son was a brilliant artist, but now he limited his work to black charcoal sketches depicting unpleasant and disconcerting themes. He also took up interest in inventions and technology, expanding his interests somewhat. Murkwell was growing into a disagreeable and surly child, and she disapproved of the friends he brought home. They wore clothes with messages she didn't agree with and they behaved entirely unlike the teenagers she had hung out with at his age. Some of her friends asked her if her son was a "goth," but she knew it was more than a simple mindset or attitude.

The recollections flooded Mrs. Dismal's memory as she held his old bunny. "Mommy, do you think my bunny's almost 'real' yet? I love him more than anything and I know that if I love him enough then he'll be real some day!" he had told her once, before the wall incident. What had she done wrong? She should have read more parenting books, or taken that child-rearing course, or maybe the permissive parenting style had been all wrong...

Mrs. Dismal was generally an optimistic and sunny person, and she suddenly realized one way she might break through to her son after all these years. Selecting the rainbow drawing, she found a box and placed it and the bunny inside. She would take a short trip to the interplanetary post office...

***

Murky Dismal was surprised to see a package awaiting him at the Frammistan postal center. Rainbowland was much too sparsely populated a planet to warrant on-planet delivery of packages, so he rented a box at the nearest office on this planet. Could this be the new firing system for the gloom pistol he had ordered? Surely the manufacturer could not have shipped it so quickly; only two days had passed since he had located and ordered the part from a catalog. Then he noticed the shipping label indicated it had been sent from his mother's home.

He took the package to his ship and nearly dropped it in a fit of anger. Lurky had spent his money at a street vendor's cart on a bouquet of balloons. Big, BRIGHTLY COLORED balloons. Murky began to see red, *no, _black_, I don't see colors,* he reminded himself, and ordered his sidekick to get rid of them at once.

Lurky's face fell. "But Murky, they're so pretty and if I let go of them they'll fly away and only the birdies will see them," he pleaded.

"Lurky..." Dismal threatened. Although it was hard to see under all the fur, Lurky's shoulders slumped in defeat and he handed the balloons to a passing child who had stopped to admire them. Then the odd pair boarded the ship and set the coordinates for Rainbowland.

Murky shut his door back in the Pits, partly to drown out Lurky bemoaning the loss of the balloons and also for privacy. "Ooh, you got a package from your mommy!" his sidekick had said. "What's in it?" Murky had refused to open it until now, when he was alone. He opened a drawer in his desk and reached for a pair of glasses. Putting them on, he now peered through smoked glass that made everything appear nearly black and white. He always performed this ritual before opening his mother's packages, because she had a nasty habit of sending him horrid, cheerful things in the misguided belief she would make him a happier person. Behind him on a shelf sat many boxes, one containing a garish quilt she had sewn for his bed, another with some wall hangings she had crocheted, and worst of all, a picture book of famous watercolors.

He cut open the package and found something he almost didn't remember: his old childhood bunny and a drawing he had made. Although he admired the artwork as exquisite considering the age at which he had created it, the subject matter, a rainbow, made him drop it back into the box. The rabbit, however, he held for a moment.

The glasses could not completely dim the colors of the rabbit, but they were muted to a comfortable and less offensive level. His mother's careful stitches had held the one-eared bunny together for the two years he had carried the toy around. His eyes gazed into the plastic eyes of the bunny. This little guy had been his best friend, his fellow mischief-maker and a willing model for many of his still-lifes. He smiled just slightly. Memories of the story of the Velveteen Rabbit rushed over him as he remembered how he had wanted his rabbit to become real. As a young child he had been so sure his bunny was close to becoming real...

Murky Dismal was hit with a sudden urge to hug the bunny as he had countless times in his early youth. That would be ridiculous though...he turned; the door was still closed. He gathered the bunny in his arms and gave it a tight squeeze, inadvertently knocking the glasses from his face.

***

He was a child again, and colors were swirling around him. He was about six, running hard so that the kite behind him would rise high in the air and its tail of rainbow ties would catch in the breeze. Then he was picking dandelions and flinging them into the air in handfuls. This was the childhood he had never had because of his self-imposed gloominess, and he was so caught up in the lost experiences that not once did he think of his hatred for all things colorful. The young Dismal skipped and twirled, and swang with other children on the playground swingset.

Somewhere, a little voice squealed, "You *did it!* I'm real!!"

***

Lurky heard a sound like someone had fallen. He knocked, knowing Murky would be angry if he barged in without asking. There was no answer, so he timidly cracked the door, then swung it open when he recognized Murky's still form on the ground, a pair of dark glasses by his side. His boss had apparently passed out, but his mouth was in a strange and earnest smile. Lurky made efforts to revive the unconscious man, and didn't notice what looked like white star sprinkles begin to swirl around the bunny. He finally saw Murky's eyelids flutter.

"Wha...?" Murky moaned, wondering what had happened. First he had been opening a package and then...he couldn't remember what had happened since then, or how he had ended up on the ground.

"Murky, you're alive! What happened to you?" Lurky pleaded, and then noticed the pair of eyes staring at him from the desktop. "And why's there a bunny in here?"

Murky Dismal groggily looked up and caught the inquisitive look of the very live rabbit peering back at him.

TO BE CONTINUED! :)