The Off-Season

January 2018

I first met the Easter Bunny in November, right after Thanksgiving when the air was chilling, and the wind was blowing, and the leaves had long since fallen. He hopped up to me while I was trying to fight my turkey hangover with the morning chill. His pitter-patter of footfalls brought a wind of spring warmth and the scent of flowers.

He asked if he could join me for breakfast. Deciding that this was either a stunning new opportunity or an unfortunate, lingering side effect that sprung from the obscenely gluttonous amount of turkey I had eaten, I shrugged and pulled out a chair for him.

“You don’t look much like… well, the Easter Bunny,” I told him.

“What did you expect,” he replied—gnawing on a carrot which I would have sworn was shimmering slightly with every bite— “some anthropomorphized, cartoony rabbit-suit B.S.?” We’re talking about an immortal, powerful spirit of springtime here, not Donnie Darko.”

“Do you talk like that around the kids?”

“Nah,” was his reply, “only in the off-season.”

“So,” I said after a moment’s pause—I had never been taught the proper etiquette with which to talk to seasonal spirit-beings— “how’s the business going?”

“The business?”

“You know, the dying, the eggs, the chicks?” I sip my coffee that suddenly seems to have the warmth of spring.

“The chicks?” the Bunny scoffed. “Don’t get me started on the chicks!” When I asked, however, he refused to elaborate, only grunting and frowning and making little snuffling noises.

He came back at Christmas, when the kids, with their new toys, were off in other worlds, and the snow sat silver outside of the window, and the afternoon hours lounged about, and I with them. He crept out of a cluster of plastic flowers that my wife had placed in the basket by the mantle. He looked as grumpy as a rabbit could be.

“Fruit cake?” I offered, holding out a slice. He accepted it grudgingly, with an unhappy harrumph.

“I hate this time of year,” he grumbled. “So much…” he paused, searching for the word, or perhaps for effect, “Santa.”

“Do you have a problem with the good will and cheer as well?”

“Nick is insufferable right now!” he ignored my response. “It’s all ‘I have to go give gifts,’ and ‘I have to make all the children of the world happy.’ Talk about a messiah complex.”

“What about the elves?” I gesture to the little red-garbed figure sitting on my shelf.

“Elves?” The bunny scowled. “What elves? Nick ‘has to’ do it all by himself, make all the toys with his own two hands. ‘It won’t be right,’” the bunny mocked, making his voice deep and jolly, “‘not unless I spread the joy by myself.’ Self-righteous jerk.”

Finishing off his slice of fruit cake and twitching his nose to rid it of any extra crumbs, he started to hop back toward the shiny, plastic flowers. He left shimmering, pastel-colored footprints in the thick plush of the rug.

“Would you like to stay for Christmas dinner?”

“I’d better be going,” he sighed. “Someone needs to listen to Nick fuss over everything that happened last night, and the others have decided that my ears work the best.” He flopped his long fuzzy ears back and forth.

“The others?” I asked as he disappeared into the faux foliage, but he was gone.

It was New Year’s Eve when our paths crossed next. I was on the porch, in the frigid still of winter. My wife and I followed the shifting stars as they watched the desperate hours cling to the last few moments of the year.

We were sprawled across a blanket, resting motionless in the frozen grass. There was a sound from the corner of the yard, a crinkling rustle from the bushes, like the crumpling and uncrumpling of wrapping paper. When I looked over I saw his floppy ears and twitching nose. He watched the situation with interest, then nodded slightly to me and quietly returned to the silver leaves and branches.

I stayed there with my wife, but in the narrow slivers of hour—long before the brush of the sun, when the day was only beginning to wax and a new year with it—I slipped a little blue and white porcelain bowl from the cupboard, filled it with fizzy cheers from the bottle my wife had opened, and left it out with a note proclaiming, ‘Happy New Year!’

When I went to check it later that morning, under the light of day, the sparkling pool of champagne was gone and the note had a small, shimmering, pastel footprint in the corner.

At the start of February, on Groundhog’s Day, I thought I saw a not-quite groundhog-figure poke its head out from a burrow I had never noticed before in the yard. Its ears were long, and its nose twitchy, and its tail looked as bulbous and bushy and soft as a cotton ball. Then I blinked and there was no den, nor any not-quite-groundhog to see its shadow or not.

And again, on the date night: Valentine’s day. He appeared from the cluster of red and white roses I had bought her. The flowers seemed to perk up even more at his touch.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” I proposed. He agreed.

“I thought you might want to know,” he warned, “Cupid is going all out with his arrows this year. It’s getting dangerous out there”

“I don’t need his arrows,” I assure the rabbit “I’ve found my love.” He didn’t hear me, he was distracted by a pretty little rabbit that hopped past the window.

Without my noticing, he left a gift, a box of heart shaped chocolates on the countertop. A few of them were nibbled on, and the box had a sort of eggy smell if you focused on it too much, but the thought was nice, and I offered the box to my wife, who didn’t seem to notice anything strange about it.

On Fat Tuesday he appeared, looking plumper and more contented than usual. A string of beads that seemed, by the weight, to be solid gold was draped around his furry neck and tangled in his ears. He left behind a slice of cake, sprinkled with pastel purples and greens and golds. I split it with my wife, who smiled at the taste.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, he stomped out of a patch of clover. His fur was deep green from head to toe, like an expertly-shaped, rabbit topiary. His tail was the color of a lime. He wouldn’t say much about it, he just kept grumbling “leprechauns” again and again.

“No one’s allowed to pinch you now,” I suggested. He didn’t seem to salvage much joy from that thought.

And then it was Easter. He didn’t stop by—he was too busy, I imagine. My wife and I hid little plastic eggs around the yard. When the kids brought them back there were a few things inside that seemed fancier than what we’d put in. A trail of footprints traced past the front gate, shimmering slightly. I found an enormous chocolate egg, heaped with creamy filling and caramel. The kids devoured it in no time, and left shattered splinters of chocolate and happy smudges all over the gold foil wrappers.

I left a note, along with some carrots, in gratitude. By the next day, it was as if neither had never been there in the first place, except for the mark of some shimmering footprints.

I didn’t see the Easter Bunny again. He didn’t visit for Thanksgiving, or Saint Patrick’s Day, didn’t stop to complain about Santa—Nick—and his Christmas outlook. He didn’t stay for any more sips of champagne, or to offer any more tips on Valentine’s Day.

But in the darkest days of winter I found a tulip resting beside my morning coffee. After a dragging day at work I found a daisy. When it seemed like spring would never come, I found the most perfectly sculpted daffodil. I’d leave a carrot or two in reply, and when they’d disappear overnight I’d smile, and mutter thank you. And sometimes I seemed to feel the brush of a spring wind—to notice the scent of blossoms—in reply.