Unbeknownst to most, the world is completely controlled by a single, pipe-smoking rabbit. Also unbeknownst to most, the world was altogether created by this rabbit. Ah, have you not heard this tale? You believed the world to be created by science? By spontaneous combustions and a sweltering evolution spanning over millions of years? Well, do take a seat, my dear, and I will tell you the true tale of how this world came to be.
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Once upon a time, in an abyss as white as snow, there sat a brown rabbit at his workshop bench. His bunny brow was furrowed, and he clenched a pipe between two prominent front teeth. Heavy blue-gray smoke saturated the nothingness and gave off an intoxicating cosmopolitan scent. The rabbit would work at his bench intensely for many fortnights at a time, ears twitching, fur bristling, as he worked to create something magnificent.











His tools were few and simple. There was a screwdriver or two. A hammer. Some nails. A small saw. And of course, the rabbit had an abundant supply of the most important tool involved in the creation of new universes - duct tape.

















While his tools may have been rather banal, his materials were something altogether different. They were extraordinary.


















There was a mass of blue liquid, radiant as a sapphire and tasting of salt and mystery when he went to lick it off of his paws. There was lava, thick like mucus and so hot it felt cold to the touch, congealing into exquisite masses the exact color of the rabbits deep eyes. There were mountains carved high and sculpted just so, and valleys delicately scooped out with a spoon, leaving pools of sweet water and fields of lush green grass. There were caverns and tide pools and canopies in which the rabbit hid his secrets, tucking them away amongst cradling leaves and stalagmites like wisdom teeth in the backs of yawning mouths.
And amongst all this mess, there was a bundle of extra tobacco and a small box of matches.
Throughout the entire strenuous process, the rabbit breathed in and poured out the smoke from his pipe. The aristocratic vapor curled around his newborn world like a baby blanket. Its murky fingers beckoned for life to grow on the new planet, and the planet kindly obliged.
After an indefinitely long stretch of time and space, at last the world was finished. Oh, don’t leave just yet, our tale does not end here.
The rabbit was worried, for he knew his world was very delicate and could not stand on its own. He could not leave his spherical masterpiece to roll about in the abyss forever, now could he? The rabbit wiggled his little white tail and breathed out a smoky sigh of discontent. He went back to his workshop bench. He built his world a little stand out of soft, glossy wood, where silver screws would be supporting it from the North and South poles. The rabbit stood on his hind legs and examined his world again. Still, something was not right. As beautiful as it was, he knew his world was not, nor would it ever be, perfect. He felt it needed to represent this, in its design somehow. But how to accomplish this? The rabbit tilted his head, letting his ears fold and droop to one side. Balancing his pipe carefully in his mouth, he reached out a small brown paw and tilted the world sideways ever-so-slightly. Better. And with another quick motion of his paw, he sent the world spinning round and round, and as it spun he was finally able to admire his handiwork with a warm, satisfied feeling. The rabbit took a long inhale from his pipe and left the world to grow for a bit. The rabbit exited the vicinity, but the tendrils of smoke stayed for a bit, presumably to watch their new companion, and eventually vanished into the nothingness, leaving only a faint odor behind.
Time passed, and the world grew and flourished, but the rabbit became increasingly concerned. He did not want the inhabitants of his world to look out and see nothing but a vast whiteness, as he did. The void of his blank canvas world made him very sad, and he wished not for his creatures to feel that way. When they grew intelligent and curious enough to search beyond their boundary of sky, as he knew they someday would, he wanted them to gaze upon something that would strike awe and wonder into their hearts, and would feed their greedy fascination for millennia to follow. So he left the world spinning on its little axis once again and went back to his workshop bench.
He pulled out a thick cloth, the thickest he could find, and he began by painting it black. Not a single square inch of fabric was saved from the viscous paint that dripped and saturated the fibers several layers deep. Then, the rabbit pulled open a small drawer in the right-hand corner of the workshop bench. He began to pull out handfuls upon handfuls of radiant, glittering stars, resembling grains of dazzling alabaster sand. He threw them arbitrarily upon the black cloth, where the full extent of their beauty could be recognized. The rabbit then proceeded to pull a few intricately colored glass marbles from the drawer of stars, and placed them gently amongst the stars, almost lining them up. He sent them spinning as well.
This wondrous cloth, the rabbit decided, would become a curtain around his new world, enveloping it completely. His little creatures would gaze out at an endless obsidian space filled with millions of white-hot lights, and they would spend forever exploring it and attempting to understand what they could never understand.
After the curtain was set up, the rabbit left his world to its own devices once again. He would occasionally peek through the dark curtain to watch its progress. He twitched his wet pink nose at the arrival of religion, swayed his bottom back and forth happily at the coming of civilization, and thumped his flat foot angrily at the appearance of war. He watched. He did not praise and did not punish. He merely tweaked, one minuscule portion at a time.
Occasionally, the rabbit would wander back to his workshop bench and stare nostalgically at the remains of his materials. They had faded and rusted and dusted away over the many years since he had abandoned them. He sighed a smoggy sigh, and began to brush the remnants of his greatest project away into the wastebasket. The bench was emptied, save the bundle of tobacco and the box of matches. The rabbit glanced over at the black curtain surrounding the world. He shook his head and furrowed his bunny brow. Then he lit a match, re-ignited his pipe, and sent a fresh wave of smoke into his empty white world.
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So, my dear child, now you know how the world truly came to be. And in return for my telling you this story, I ask of you a favor. Go and whisper to your friends the tale of the pipe-smoking rabbit. When they look up at the night sky, tell them about the curtain. Tell them about the smoke. I doubt they will believe you at first. But just wait. Although at the moment it may be unbeknownst to most, it is very clear to the special few that the world is completely controlled by a single, pipe-smoking rabbit.