The Easter Bunny

Like every other blogger out there I like to think that I'm an actual writer. I've got this novella that I've been working on. OK, I used to be working on. I have to put on some finishing touches that I can't finish for assorted and lame reasons. Since I don't have anything ready to talk about today here's a chapter from the book.

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The most important thing to know about the Easter Bunny is that you should never call him the Easter Bunny - not to his face anyway. He’s neither a rabbit nor is he a Christian. Easter Bunny is just a cruel nickname that has haunted him for most of his life.

EB, as he prefers to be called, was the seventh son of a seventh son. Contrary to popular belief all that means is that he came from a long line of people without the basic skills needed to work a condom. Besides having to compete with a dozen other kids for his parents’ attention his mother held a special grudge against him. His abnormally large ears made his a very difficult and very painful birth.

The only thing that his family could claim as theirs was the farm that had been passed down for generations. Being the youngest of his own family, EB’s father got stuck with the rockiest and least fertile of his families holdings. Only the small parcel of land that he got as his wife’s dowry had proven fruitful in any way. Still, rocky soil makes for a good foundation for a house and a decent place to raise chickens.

Since they couldn’t afford to buy gifts EB and his siblings would raid the chicken coop and decorate eggs to give each other on holidays. Typically, these gifts would be admired briefly before being smashed open and eaten. EB, however, came to associate the decorated eggs with love. The eggs were the only thing he was ever given that hadn’t been used by at least six other kids first. Someone spent time working on something just for him. Someone loved him.

He would save the eggs and display them proudly on crude clay stands until one of the bigger kids got hungry and ate them^*. By the age of ten EB had become quite adept at hiding the eggs from his siblings. The rats were another story entirely.

He was twelve years old the Halloween he was attacked. He was leaving school when a group of bullies from the high school snatched him from sidewalk, drove him outside town, and pelted him with raw eggs. He was discovered a few hours later, stripped to his underwear, covered in eggs, and quivering in a ditch. His hair had gone completely white and was falling out in clumps. When he returned to school a few weeks later, still nervous and twitchy, his head was covered in little white puffballs that resembled the tail of a rabbit.

Amature psychologists like to claim that it wasn’t the attack so much as the violent use of the eggs, an object that he thinks of much like you or I would regard a valentine given by your first major crush, in the attack. This is mere speculation since EB has been unwilling to talk about the event at all. He seems to consider his hair as a mark of shame. He keeps a wide selection of hats to keep his head covered at all times.

Despite his difficult youth, EB managed to rise up in the ranks of God-Ex, an express mail service for the deceased and ethereal. His large ears give him extremely acute hearing that allows him to know when you are sleeping, when you are awake, if you’ve been good or bad, and the best way to blackmail his way to the top. It irks him to no end that Santa Claus gets all the credit for this since Santa is just some overweight delivery boy. He’s made sure to deny Santa any promotions or upgrades to his equipment. This is why Santa is still stuck with a battered sleigh while anyone else with his amount of time on the staff would have been given a delivery truck or even a plane by now.

Now the highly respected head of this holy delivery service, EB still has to put up with the nickname “Easter Bunny” being muttered behind his back by his employees.
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Copyright 2003 Douglas Wise
All rights mine