Bunny

tEn

There was no body, nothing to bury at all. The three of them gathered around an old oak tree that stood in a shady area of the park. The dappled pattern of the sun shining through the leaves danced on the grass.

 The pink notebook was set delicately onto the ground. "Here's your notebook back, Bunny," said a wavering voice. 

 "Oh my god, she's talking to a tree," muttered the auburn-haired one. "Excuse me," the parent said to Melton, leaving their little gathering to go wait near the car. 

 "Something was wrong when the texts weren't getting their answers. Should've known...should've helped you," the voice continued. 

 "hey 

 whats up 

 all good w you?

 lol sorry for texting u so much

 youre not answering..? 

 u mad at me? 

 k i guess youre mad 

 sorry, last one, but why are u mad?

 is it b/c of what i said yesterday

 im sorry about that 

 really, im sorry. can we meet up and talk about it?

 sorry, just please answer so i know things are ok

 bunny

 hello 

 hello?" 

 "Tried to look for you... Didn't find anyone... So sorry," the young one said. "Tried to run away from everything in the halls... Didn't work either. You followed down there too." 

 One long, shaky breath was taken. "Sorry. And goodbye now." 

 Melton put a reassuring hand on a shoulder. The young one cleared that throat and opened and closed lips, as if trying to say something. "I..." 

 The word sounded strange, foreign, and devoid of meaning after so much time of disuse. Melton's eyes registered surprise, and the young one continued. 

 "I... miss you." 

 The auburn-haired person, smoking a cigarette, sitting on the grass next to the car, was having another little funeral. "We were going to be a family! We were going to have a baby! How could you?" was muttered angrily. 

 Suddenly, anger melted into grief; desperate, childlike grief that broke loose after seventeen years of rigorous self-sufficiency. And it was suddenly realized that all the art produced over those years had been sad because of this; melancholy sculpted women and desolate landscapes and abstract dabs of an unhappy blue. And after seventeen years, the auburn-haired one buried that face in those hands and cried for everything that had been lost, for the room that was supposed to be painted a sunny yellow and house the happiest, bounciest baby, for the fact that the art had never sold well nor brought fame, for the month of absolute fear when the child had been missing and nowhere to be found, for the love that was supposed to have filled their home. 

 Someone who has been loved has a certain air about them, like the love they'd been showered in had been a sort of celestial bath that had left them scrubbed and shiny, radiating leftover affection. These people had been received into the world with nothing but pure, unbridled affection, and had been swathed and held and passed around from one pair of warm arms to another. Their nightmares as children had been nothing more than vague fears of losing the cozy lives they now enjoyed, but these fears were quenched once they woke up and warm, gentle reality erased any worries about an alternative. 

These children wore fluffy pajamas with lurid patterns that they'd helped pick out, and were placed on knees to be told stories; sometimes funny stories about animals and little girls and forests and fairy godmothers, but other times about The Past and its vertiginous uncertainties that somehow made the current life all the better, all the safer. These children were fed their favorite type of cereal and brought back reasonably good grades from school, but never made much of themselves—their assets were their averageness and their obliging sympathy, and it was never necessary to stand out or achieve more than was reasonable, because there was a home waiting for them, full of people who loved them unconditionally, and they became complacent in their normality, they settled into the tepid waters of happiness, never becoming leaders, innovators, geniuses—yet they were happy.

 But if people who had been loved were the best kind of people to meet, they were also the worst. Their supply of kind, caring people was defined and immutable—at home they had all the affection they could possibly want, all gathered in a handful of people under the same roof, people who never caused any worries of abandonment, loyal people who stayed put no matter how many times they'd been hurt, because they would never stop clinging to the hope that the next day might be better. Someone who lived like this was a little god in their own right—their source of love was secure, limitless. These godlike ones could spend some time with others, people who hadn't, like them, been loved, people they pitied, people that could receive a small parcel of affection from them, who already had too much and gave this gift out like it was inconsequential. 

 But to someone who hadn't been loved in that way, what was perfunctory and meaningless to the other became precious and treasured. Soon it would become impossible to stay away from the source of such warmth—soon an entire life full of frustration and brilliance would be tossed away in pursuit of love, being special didn't matter, being different didn't matter—identity could come second, their identity could be completely erased for all they cared, as long as they could be loved by someone like that. Then they swore they would never ask for anything else in their lives, if they could but be loved. 

The eventual result was predictable, though. The kind of people to whom love was as obvious and ever-present as the sun's shining would eventually get bored, and when these people got bored, they left.

THE END.