The Boy Who Cried Easter Bunny
There once was a boy tasked to sit on the hillside, watching over his village for mythical holiday characters.
As the uneventful months passed, he came to resent the holidays entirely. The people danced and drank in late December as he watched for little Baby New Year until long after midnight. They professed their love in February as he scanned the skies for young Cupid. They drank again in March, leaving him alone to hunt for tiny leprechauns. No such ridiculous characters ever appeared. By April, when the children expected an inappropriately large, gift-bearing rabbit, the boy could take no more.
“Lo and behold, fellow villagers!” the boy cried one morning. “The Easter bunny is come!” He watched with glee as the simple peasants came out with their woven baskets, only to find the bunny trail barren.
The villagers were furious.
“If a band of singers ever represents we village people, may a hillside watcher not be present among them!” cursed the elders.
The boy only laughed.
“For reals this time!” declared the boy a few mornings thereafter. “Come and greet Easter Bunsworth, First of His Name!”
Children burst forth from their hovels, blowing grand tones from tiny tin horns that soured as they realized that the boy had fooled them again. Inexplicably, none of the adults had fired him either time.
“This one is pretty much on us,” muttered a downtrodden girl as the children returned inside.
Just three mornings later, the hillside boy looked up from his oatwater to see the true Easter bunny himself, staring right back at him from the edge of the barley field in his colorful linen tunic and puffy undersleeves.
“Wha–uhhh…you guys!” the boy shouted in disbelief. “It’s real! He’s real! The Easter bunny is here!”
“You are the worst!” a maid shouted through an open window. No one else stirred. A sense of discomfort rose in the boy’s stomach as he realized it would just be him and the egg lord himself.
His concern was justified, for the Easter bunny was more ruthless than the hillside boy had ever thought of being.
The boy looked on with horror as the bunny hid empty eggs for the children and full eggs for childless adults who didn’t want them. He delivered beautifully dyed eggs to the meal hall that had never been boiled, raw as the day the bird had laid them. He left religious coloring books at agnostic homes, and agnostic coloring books at religious ones. For pet owners, he left baskets of nothing but finely-shredded decorative grass.
Though the boy trembled at the beast’s malevolence, he could stay quiet no longer.
“Enough, bunny!” he cried down from the hillside. “Trouble these people no longer!”
Without a sound, the bunny turned and lumbered toward the hill.
“Upon further reflection, I respect your endeavors and wish you well in your work,” the boy shouted. He wanted to rise and flee, but his body was frozen in place.
The Easter bunny continued toward the foot of the hill with his menacing gait.
“You should know I’ve also been tasked with looking out for Jesus! You never know!” tried the boy. “He could be along at any moment, and you’d sure look foolish if you were eating a child upon his return.”
As the bunny neared the boy’s position on the hill, a pack of wolves, which no one had been looking out for, burst from the barley field and lunged for the Easter bunny.
The boy watched in amazement as the animals tussled and fur flew in all directions. Just as it seemed the foul bunny had played his last prank, he scrambled to his feet and vaulted over his attackers, his tattered garments flapping behind him. With three more great hops, he vanished into the fields. The wolves gave chase and nipped at his cottony tail. The boy was alone and stunned by all he’d seen.
The villagers finally re-emerged, only to discover the horrible tricks played upon them with no one but the hillside boy to blame. A trial was announced, at which they fully intended to charge him as an adult, but the bits of discarded wolf fur introduced enough doubt that Boy vs. The Village People was resolved by a plea bargain.
The boy was sentenced to more hillside labor, this time watching for wolves. He promised he would probably take the job very seriously.
