Jack Lost his Bunny in The Green Mist

My name is Jack, and I think I just travelled through time. That was the first thing Jack said to me. The second was “Who are you?”

He was a young man. Midway through his twenties I’d expect. He wore clothes that might have been old had not today’s youth taken such a liking to antiquated fashion. He had on jeans that opened around his feet as though they were desperate to swallow his shoes whole. On top was a tie dye shirt, a home-made hemp necklace, and a sheepskin jacket.

He Said he was just coming from a friend’s house in 1972. Which would have been about forty-five years earlier. And, if the shoe fits, he was wearing leather sandals. The third thing he told me was his story.

“I was walking home from my mate’s crib. Phony guy, never liked him much. I told my Bunny I’d be home an hour earlier. I knew if I came back without something to soften her up I’d be in a bad spot. Down in that valley out there, where the flowers grow, you know it? I’ve been down there dozens of times. Bunny and I’d go walking about, smoke and pick flowers. Her favorite flowers grow down there, dandelions. She goes crazy for dandelions. So, I went down to pick a bit for her to keep her from going for blows, as she tends to. But, as I got down to the bottom I looked around and saw nothing but this strange green mist swirling all around.

Well, I didn’t know what to do. Thought maybe my mate had given me a bad batch of something. So, I did what I always do in those sorts of times and I sat to clear my head a bit. But you see the fog didn’t go. It just lingered there. It was thick, soft almost. Tossed me right to sleep.

When I woke the mist had gone. So I got up, snagged a whole armful of dandelions and went off home to find my Bunny. That is when I find I’ve travelled through time. See, she wasn’t there. Hadn’t been for a good long while. Person there, lovely old woman, told me she’d gone off to the city decades back so I asked her what year it was and she told me. Course I thought she was fooling me so I told her to piss off and went out to all our old spots looking for Bunny. That’s how I wind up here. Talking to you and wondering if that newspaper over there is real.”

I check to see that he is pointing at a newspaper laying on the bar a few feet from us.

“Seems to be.” I tell him. “Where was it you said you found this mist?”

“Down in the valley. I can show you if you’d like. But in exchange you need to help me find my Bunny.”

I thought about it a minute and curiosity got the better of me. “Ok, deal” I told him. I paid my tab. Jack looked at me then at his beer.

“I don’t got any cash.”

“I got it.” I told him and paid his tab as well.

We headed out of the bar and down the road towards the valley. Along the way Jack told me all about Bunny. When she sings to him late at night, the way she blows smoke rings and how soft she feels before she wakes up in the mornings. We got to the edge of the valley. It was as I’d always seen it, and expected it to be.

Then, something hard slammed into the back of my head.

The last thing Jack said to me, as he riffled through my pockets was “Sorry, I hope you still believe me. It was the truth, honest. But, I got to find my Bunny. I just got to.”