Bunny-ears

by Michael McLaughlin

My grandmother's last words died as a thought in her head as the bus smashed into her left shoulder: I think we're almost out of eggs. When he was in the hospital my grandfather would lecture me unceasingly about what a tragedy it was to die alone without having anyone to hear your last words: Biggest waste on earth, all those years of life, those tens of thousands of years of wisdom, lost forever. He never forgave himself for not being with his wife to hear her last words, even if they would have been mundane and about chicken embryos, and each time the doctors told him his leukemia had returned he would think the same thing: I'm finally coming, Bunny-ears. I frequently asked as a child why he called my grandmother Bunny-ears, but he always dodged the question with an elusive response: I don't know what Bunny-ears means anymore than I know the meaning of life. Grandfather's deathbed confession was not to a priest; rather it took the form of these words breathed harshly into my ear when I was fourteen years old: I do know the meaning of life. Now I share my grandfather's meaning of life with everyone so that his life, his years of wisdom, will not die as a thought in my head as a bus smashes into my left shoulder: Find your Bunny-ears.

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Michael McLaughlin, a graduate of Penn State University, resides in West Windsor, NJ. He is currently employed in two fields: Entrepreneurship (the scheming of ways to get money and notoriety) and Pen-for-Hire (writing to obtain either money or notoriety).