Cursed Bunny

From time to time, her husband came home a little earlier than usual and the two of them spent a quiet evening together, but they had never had a fiery romance to begin with or had much in terms of memories to fall back on. They had spent too much of their marriage in a state of emotional detachment to really start making an effort to be affectionate now. They usually ate dinner in silence, watched some television in silence, and her husband would go to bed first in silence.

“Mother, please calm down.” The head gazed at her with an expression of longing on her young face. “I’ve never received anything from you besides what you’ve thrown away. This is my first and last request. If you give me the clothes you’re wearing now, I shall keep the heat and scent of you forever with me until the day I die, with gratitude.”

Days had no highs or lows, w

Whenever she was doing her business,

but it was impossible to tell what of.

Life shrinks into a trap made up of a shimmering moment in the past, a trap where they endlessly repeat that singular moment when they were surest of being alive

The blind fish had returned to the vast sea, and rain fell from the desert sky

Those who stare for too long at the sun are bound to go blind. The king of the desert made the foolish choice to brandish his sword at the sun. And his progeny will pay for his sins.”

On days her child or husband came home late, or even after her whole family had long fallen asleep, she would watch TV until the national anthem came on. Partly because she had nothing else to do, but more so because she thought if she concentrated hard enough on the screen, she might decrease an odd-feeling little space that had appeared in her heart. The space felt empty sometimes, full at others, and bitter or aching at still other times. This strange little space, if she ever let her guard down, could suddenly blow up in size and consume her. So she kept watching TV, trying to empty her heart and mind as she gazed upon the meaningless progression of scenes on the screen.

She was about to flush the toilet.
“Mother?”
She looked back. There was a head popping out of the toilet, calling for her.
“Mother?”