Toodles & Malie (Part III).

Let me tell you this: I love the kid as if he were my own son. I might be a wisecracking anthropomorphic rabbit, but I know love like you people do. It's in my nature; it's in my veins. I'm a mammal. Warm blood runs through my veins, and is dispersed among all the pressure points, just like you. I might be a figment of the boy's imagination, but he needs me. I've seen him grow up, from a midget who was allergic to anything, to an insecure young man, who's allergic to life as it is.

Without me by his side, he'd slip into despair. He would've lost it a decade ago. It's bad enough that he'll never be able to achieve his idea of physical perfection (he's a round one, he is), and it's bad enough that he can't hold a steady job without being bounced out of it. The boy is a born loser.

A LOSER.

That's all he is. That's all he's going to be.

I only want to open him up to new avenues of expression. He's too uptight for his own good. This whole self-righteous thing makes me wary. My friends on the astral plane have a good chuck every now and then when they hear me with him. They say that I can't teach him the way that they do. They say that although they're imaginary, they're broken through their hosts' shells and made them...blossom.

Such a girly, disgusting, filthy, gay word. Blossom.

I just want the boy to be a MAN...to set him down the right path. His increasingly effiminate nature makes me sick. I don't mind that he doesn't want any cigars. I don't mind that he doesn't drink. That doesn't make a man.

What makes a man is the initiative to stand up and get somewhere. And he doesn't have that. And the worst part is, I can't give it to him...because he won't let me.

The little prick. That ungrateful fucker. He needs to open himself up. Not just to me, but to everything around him. He has to see that if he keeps on going along his way, he's gonna be stuck in a vicious cycle. He's going to be finished.

And when that happens, even his imaginary anthropomorphic rabbit friend isn't going to be able to bail him out of the shithole of a life that he'd be forced to submit to. I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. And the Powers-That-Be (those shitheaded, bureaucratic uppities) would be laughing; my license to an existence would be revoked. And for what? An ungrateful cabbage patcher who didn't have a chance in the world?

Fuck that. I'm a talking, walking, fucking rabbit. I might be short, but I know how to use it. And I gotta make this boy open his eyes.

You might question my methods. But my heart is certainly in its right place. Good cop, bad cop. I do what's got to be done. Because it's the only way.

I'm Toodles.

And I'm here to save the world. Starting with this loser.