Rabbit Dreams
Creators: name: Mulqueen, Patrick James
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2020

description: The other day around half past six, when the sun was low and orange, I was sitting in a beach chair listening to Herb Albert and The Tijuana Brass. In my right hand, I had a fresh glass of bourbon, in my left, a giant metal spatula. Some half-pound burgers were cooking on the grill, and I was watching the smoke rise out of the vent, thinking this must be as good as it gets. But no pleasure lasts, and soon I remembered the world is in crisis. PANDEMIC! Anybody could be a killer, anybody could be infected, including me. Jesus, as if the paranoia in this country wasn’t heavy enough already; a trip to the hospital costs ten-thousand dollars, any tube of toothpaste could be a terrorist plot, the evangelicals are everywhere and they’re armed to the teeth. I was also concerned about graduating into a nonexistent economy in a few weeks. I checked on the burgers. They also needed more time. 
In a world of small consolations, it’s important to do things for their own sake. I do not expect to get what I want, and if by some miracle I do, I don't expect to like it, but in any case, I’ll be here or there, doing this, doing that, and it will be up to me what to make of it. Writing is something I believe is something worth doing, in failure, or in success, because it provides an opportunity to inhabit a new reality, a part of yourself you didn’t know existed. In this way, it has allowed me to stay moving. This thesis is an abstract manifestation of my journey inside, an exploration of where fraud and folly can lead, following characters un-spared by the nihilistic rod. Most of these stories were written in the vacant master bedroom of the large plastic box I’ve been inhabiting for the past eight and a half months. The room’s former occupant, a good friend of mine, began walking around in clothes covered in blood and needed to be involuntarily confined for psychiatric care. I was reluctant to take action for a long time. Things kept getting worse. I thought forgive and forget; a man has the right to see the skeletons in his own closet. But eventually the noise got too loud, and even I had to consent to signing off on the cop paperwork. His room has three large, westward facing windows, and unlike mine, a desk and a chair, so I started writing in there. I find it very creepy, but at the same time, I think writing in his room brought a greater sense of paranoia and inevitable doom to the pieces, so I’ve stuck with it.  
Back at the grill, I was reminding myself that it’s important to be at peace with fate, and endings are only happy when you make them. Four weeks ago, another friend of mine, a kid I’d known since I was seven years old, felt so doomed he jumped from his apartment balcony in the middle of the night. And this kid was in good position; he played piano, and he was going to start law school in the fall. He had brains. I want to be a famous writer in a country where the losers get buried in shallow, unmarked graves. “Jesus,” I muttered, “how am I ever going to get out of this alive?” I suddenly felt a compulsive need to driving a red convertible due south at a hundred and ten miles an hour. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an option. I took a healthy slug of whiskey, pulled the top off the grill, and laid the buns on to toast. 
Things are never what they seem, and nothing is good, bad, right, or wrong. The primary colors only exist in concept, like common sense. I do, however, believe in intrigue. Its existence cannot be denied, and I hope these stories reveal some of what lies beneath the cloak of anarchism, hubris, prurience, solipsism, and hopelessness, and explore the intricacies and undeniable joy produced by the slow death of rabbit dreams. 
The burgers, I melted chunks of Cracker Barrel cheddar cheese on, and topped with Heinz ketchup, Dijon mustard, and sautéed onions. I was right: this is as good as it gets.