Cursed Bunny(2)

The inflammation and constipation never really went away.

Now that she had quit her job, her family suggested she might as well find a husband. She went on a date set up by a matchmaker recommended by her mother. The man was an ordinary office worker at a trading company. He said his dream was to marry a nice woman, have children, and live happily ever after. He seemed unassuming and dependable, albeit unimaginative. Sitting before this strange man, she couldn’t help being nervous about the bathroom situation. The man misconstrued her distracted fidgeting. He said, “My ideal woman is shy and demure. It’s hard to find a girl like you who’s shy in front of a man these days.”

The man was so enamored and enthusiastic about the match that they were engaged three months later and wedded in another three.

Now she was worried about the honeymoon. Thankfully, the head didn’t appear on the trip. The first thing she checked after moving into her new home with her husband was the toilet. There was nothing inside. Life in her new home brought some relief to her bladder inflammation and constipation. Days had no highs or lows, weren’t particularly good or bad, and she thought herself more or less content. In the whirlwind of adjusting to her new life, she found herself thinking less and less about the head. Soon, she had a child and forgot about the head completely.

It was shortly after the birth of her child when the head reappeared in her life. She had been bathing the little one in a baby basin.

“Mother.”

She almost drowned her child by accident.

The head’s head had now grown to about the size of an average adult’s. The yellow and gray mashed-up clay lump form was the same, but its eyes were a little bigger so she could now make out its blinking, and something that resembled lips was attached to its mouth. There were mounds of flesh for ears that looked like they’d been carelessly stuck on either side of its face, and beneath its barely discernible chin was a new band of flesh that seemed to be the beginnings of a neck.

“Mother, is that child your daughter?”

The woman sputtered, “How is it that you have reappeared before me? Who told you where we were?”

The head replied, “Your defecations are a part of me, so I will always know where you are.”

The head’s words displeased the woman. She hissed, “I told you to go away. How dare you reappear calling me ‘Mother’! It’s none of your concern whose child this is! But fine, this is my child. She is the only one in this world who may call me ‘Mother.’ Now, be gone. I said, be gone!” The child started to wail.

The head said, “I may have been birthed a different way from that child, but I, too, am your creation, Mother.”

“Did I not say that I never created the likes of you? I told you to be gone. If you refuse, I shall do whatever it takes to find and destroy you!”

She slammed down the toilet lid and flushed. Then, she consoled her crying child and wiped off the remaining soap suds.

Once the head came back into her life, it kept reappearing like a bad rash. She could feel it staring at her from behind after she had flushed and was washing her hands. She could see something yellow and gray in the corner of her eye, but when she quickly turned to look, it was gone, leaving only a few tell-tale strands of hair floating in the toilet bowl.

Her constipation and bladder inflammation returned. More than anything else, she was worried for the child. Was the head jealous of her daughter? Would it bully the child? Just the thought of the child glimpsing the head was unbearable. She became nervous whenever the little one wanted to go to the bathroom.

She clenched her fists. She was going to destroy the head.

The woman went to the bathroom, did her business, and flushed. She waited for the head to appear as she washed her hands. When a yellow and gray thing slowly rose from the toilet bowl, the woman said in a low voice, “I have something to say to you.”

She finished washing her hands and crouched down before the toilet so she was eye-to-eye with the head.

“You are …”

She hesitated. The head waited.

She grabbed the head, easily plucked it from the toilet, and wrapped it in a plastic bag. She threw the bag away in a trash can outside. Then, with a light heart, she went back to living her life.

The reprieve didn’t last long. She was in the bathroom with the child when it happened. The child was now old enough to get on the toilet by herself. Her daughter could pretty much handle the whole process if the woman reminded her of every step, from lowering her underwear, sitting on the toilet and doing her business, wiping her behind, putting on her clothes again, flushing, and washing her hands. However, her daughter wasn’t tall enough to reach the sink yet, so the woman had to hoist her up to the sink to soap her hands. One day, as the woman was doing so, a familiar yellow and gray thing appeared.

“Mother.”

The woman turned around and saw the head. Then, she finished rinsing off the suds from the child’s hands, dried them on a towel, and sent her daughter out the bathroom.

“Mother.”

“What’s the meaning of this? How are you back?”

The mouth of the head almost imperceptibly twisted into a sneer. “I begged the janitor who found me to flush me down the toilet.”

The woman said nothing as she flushed the toilet. The head swirled in the rushing of the water as it disappeared down the dark hole.

Outside the bathroom, the child was full of questions. She told her child, “That was what we call a ‘head.’ If you see it again, just flush.”