Chasing after False Rabbits

Mother sits by her window. Alone she sits, under the scrutiny of a thousand eyes that watch her from outside. Yet she does not notice them, for she is awaiting the arrival of her child. "Scrutinize me all you want", she would have said to them, "I will not move or do anything else until I can hold my child." Seconds turn to hours and hours turn to seconds, and she does not know if it is time that is moving backwards or if she has fallen victim to another trick of her faulty mind. She turns to her pocket watch for answers, but even the watch is confused. The longer hand tries its best to move toward the next number, but each time it fails and is propelled back to its original place. She remembers how long it's been since she has checked the time, and with that realization comes a desire to yawn. One doesn't need a watch to tell them of their weariness. Suddenly, the quietude of the house is disrupted by the sound of footsteps, thus putting on hold all thoughts of time. "No one has walked upon these floors for...I cannot tell how long", she thinks out loud. She pricks up her ears and waits for the footsteps to be heard again. But the dust that rose in the wake of those footsteps must have settled back down, for the tranquility of before has now returned. Another failure of the mind then? She cannot tell.

She looks outside once again and watches the people who turn around the street corner, each one standing there for a few seconds to point to the window and mock her insistence. They point and whisper and shake their heads, then walk away to their respective destinations. Many of them have come and gone and returned except her child, who promised her long ago to return home and keep her company, now that she is getting older, but has failed to keep that promise for unknown yet surely justifiable reasons. She smiles when she thinks about her child, and although no photographs remain of younger days, where she would spend hours playing hide and seek with her, she has stored enough memories in her mind's eye for three lifetimes to come.

Those were the days wherein she had forgotten about how her generation had betrayed her. Her child's flashing teeth and stubborn smile had reminded her once that although she may not have achieved her dream of becoming someone important, she is at least loved unconditionally by her own blood, her own kin. Her child's nativity often put her on the path that leads to the white rabbit, and throughout the years it was her child, not Mrs. B---- herself, who refused to stop chasing that rabbit, no matter how weighed down she became by responsibilities. But how could one expect the mother to chase the rabbit down if, as a child, she never had the chance to see it to begin with? Another fault of her generation, who pit false rabbits against one another and said, "These rabbits are warriors! These rabbits fight for their habitat and their families and this and that." Only years later she realized that those rabbits were fabricated, and by that time, the white rabbit for her had already turned into a myth.

So now she sits, tired of myths and reality. What she wants these days is for her child to tell her that she has found the white rabbit, but realized then that the whole thing was a farce, that mother was not losing out on anything by chasing false rabbits all her life. Yet the image of her own child, the idea of even talking to her, is also beginning to turn into a mythical tale. And Mrs. B----- is weary of such tales.

Then her solace is interrupted once again, this time by a procession of individuals moving down the street outside. This is the only other sight that has caught her eyes in years, thus she decides to give it her utmost attention. Upon closer inspection, she sees that the people in the group are mourners and are carrying a casket on their shoulders. Someone has died. Who has died? Mother cannot tell, but she feels as if the ground has caved beneath her feet, and she is now suspended, midair, overwhelmed by the sensation of free falling, where in reality she is still as a statue. The sight is too depressing. She cannot bare to watch. But right before she is about to turn around, she catches a glimpse of something she has never seen before: a white rabbit appearing from behind a lamp post, cold winter wind caressing its furs, eyes red and curious. Across the street a little boy in pajamas spots the rabbit and runs toward it, his arms flailing about in a careless manner. He yells as he runs and says, "Mommy, mommy, I found the rabbit!" But the rabbit spots the boy and scurries away, skillfully, and disappears just as soon as it had appeared. And the mother wonders if this boy, too, will go chasing after false rabbits.