the patterns of history

one time i had a dream that the easter bunny decided to start time travelling again.

maybe it was because they changed the clocks forward or maybe because he wanted to get things done before the busy season i don't know. he did say that he had recently gone to the future, and that it was very confusing. to get a better perspective on what he saw there, he said, he needed to go further back to see how the situations originated in the 13th century. i asked him if messing with the past would screw up the future. he told me that he never changes the past he simply observes it. if the events taking place make themselves especially familiar with him, they occasionally invite him to participate. however, he makes a concerted effort to maintain the established patterns and make no deviation from the appointed paths.

bubbles, my pet-fish, jumped into the conversation and interrupted the easter bunny. bubbles expounded his opinion that history is a material process unfolding in a dialectical manner through economical arrangements and class struggle. the easter bunny didn't mind being interrupted by bubbles, but he told him his attitudes were somewhat dated, and that they seemed vulgar. bubbles called the easter bunny a revisionist. not only that, he threatened to report the easter bunny to the seventh international, and to remove his party membership card.

this got the easter bunny worked up. he denounced bubbles emphatically, and launched into a great oration recalling the early days of class struggle, and how he alone stood against the screws in proclaiming the distribution of eggs to the masses! even while the proletariat was developing its proto-revolutionary status, the easter bunny had been hippity hopping!

comrades, cried the easter bunny, have you forgot the days on the barricades? where was this pet-fish when they gunned down our glorious patriots at the post office? where was his loyalty to our cause when these heroes spilt their blood in sacrifice for our homeland? was he marching down o'connell street or drilling on stephen's green? did he drop a hurley bat for for a rifle?

when they were writing limericks about free milk for the working men, where was our friendly fish? near? no! he never saw lough neagh nor the liffey on those mornings! had he gone abroad to fight in the service of our allies the austrian archdukes? or was he bellicose for the belgian right to their own chocolates? no!

the easter bunny then began to weep for all of his lost comrades. i asked him if it was very expensive to post a letter in the future, and he said that it wasn't.