THE BUNNY THAT REMEMBERED

Richard had spent twenty years making sure he would never see the village again.

On the afternoon he finally returned, he couldn't remember why he had been so afraid of it.

The thought came to him as he drove through the last stretch of highway, with the city far behind and the countryside opening on either side of the road. He had expected some dramatic feeling when the familiar landscape appeared---regret, sadness, perhaps even relief---but there was nothing like that. Only a dull pressure behind his eyes and the uncomfortable sense that he was travelling toward a memory rather than a place.

The road ahead was almost empty. Dry fields stretched toward distant clusters of trees, and the afternoon sun had turned everything the colour of old paper. A few houses appeared every several kilometres, each separated from the next by patches of scrubland and fields. The world seemed quieter here, but not peaceful. It was the kind of quiet Richard had forgotten existed, where every sound seemed to have more space around it.

He lowered the window.

Warm air entered the car and carried the smell of dust, grass, and something faintly smoky from a distant cooking fire.

In the passenger seat, his seven-year-old daughter was asleep.

Anna had spent the first two hours of the journey talking without stopping. She had asked whether village children watched television, whether cows had names, whether her new school would have a playground, and whether she could get a bicycle if she behaved well. She had also asked at least six times how much longer the journey would take.

Eventually, exhaustion had defeated her.

Now she slept with her cheek against the window, her dark hair falling across her face. Her small backpack lay between her feet, and a purple rabbit keychain hung from its zipper, bouncing gently whenever the car passed over a rough patch of road.

Richard glanced at it.

A rabbit.

For some reason, the sight made him uncomfortable.

He looked back at the road.

It was ridiculous. The keychain was a cheap piece of plastic Anna had chosen herself. It had nothing to do with the village, nothing to do with his childhood, and certainly nothing to do with the reason he had decided to leave the city.

He told himself that.

Then he noticed his hands.

Both were gripping the steering wheel too tightly.

He loosened them.

For nearly two years, Richard had been living as though every decision required more strength than he possessed.

His wife had died first.

Everything else had followed.

The business had survived for several months after her death, but only because Richard forced himself to keep going. He attended meetings without listening, signed documents without remembering what they contained, and spent long evenings sitting alone in his office after everyone else had gone home. Clients began noticing his mistakes. Employees began making decisions without asking him. Bills remained unpaid. Contracts were lost.

Eventually, the company collapsed.

Richard sold the office.

Then the apartment.

Then the car he had once been proud of.

The only thing he refused to sell was the old property in the village.

His father's house.

He didn't know why he had kept it.

Perhaps because selling it would have meant admitting that the past was worth money.

Perhaps because somewhere inside him, he had always known he would eventually have to return.

He glanced at Anna again.

She stirred.

"Dad?"

Her eyes remained closed.

"I'm here."

She opened one eye.

"Are we there?"

"Not yet."

"You said twenty minutes."

"That was twenty minutes ago."

She sat up.

"Then why aren't we there?"

Richard smiled.

"Because twenty minutes is not a magic number."

Anna looked out the window.

"I thought villages were closer."

"They're not."

She stared at the empty fields for a while.

Then she asked, "Do you remember the house?"

Richard's smile faded.

"Yes."

"Is it big?"

"It was."

"How big?"

"I don't know."

"You lived there, and you don't know?"

Richard gave a small laugh.

"I was a child."

"How old?"

"About your age when I first moved there."

Anna turned toward him.

"So I can imagine you living there?"

"Probably."

"Were you naughty?"

"Very."

"Did Grandpa shout at you?"

"Sometimes."

"Did you have friends?"

Richard hesitated.

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Not many."

"One?"

He didn't answer immediately.

The road curved gently ahead.

Richard could see a line of trees beyond it.

"Maybe."

"A boy?"

Richard looked at her.

"A girl."

Anna smiled.

"What was her name?"

The question should have been harmless.

Instead, something inside Richard tightened.

He kept his eyes on the road.

"I don't remember."

Anna frowned.

"You don't remember your friend's name?"

"Not everything stays in your memory."

"But you remember Grandpa."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Richard thought about it.

Because his father had been difficult to forget.

That was what he almost said.

Instead, he shrugged.

"Some people leave stronger memories."

Anna leaned against the seat.

She seemed satisfied.

Richard wasn't.

He stared through the windshield.

For a moment, he could almost hear a child's laughter.

A girl's laughter.

It came from somewhere far behind him, inside the part of his memory he had spent years refusing to enter.

Then it disappeared.

Richard turned off the radio before realizing he had already turned it off.

The car continued through the empty countryside.

He wondered whether returning had been a mistake.

He wondered whether he had brought Anna somewhere she didn't belong.

Then he looked at her.

She was smiling at something outside the window.

The doubt disappeared.

Whatever happened in the village belonged to him.

Not her.

He would make sure of that.

The village appeared without warning.

There was no large entrance arch or welcoming sign, only a faded board beside the road with the village name painted across it in letters that had once been white. Richard slowed the car as he passed it.

He knew the name.

He had seen it thousands of times in his childhood.

For a second, he was no longer thirty-eight.

He was eighteen again, sitting beside his father in a crowded bus, watching the same sign disappear through a dusty window.

His father had been silent that day.

Richard remembered that.

He remembered his father's hand resting on his shoulder.

He remembered crying.

And then the memory stopped.

Richard blinked.

The road continued ahead.

He realized Anna was looking at him.

"Why did you slow down?"

"I was looking at the sign."

"Have you seen it before?"

"A long time ago."

She looked at the sign through the rear window.

"It looks old."

"It is."

"Like Grandpa?"

Richard laughed despite himself.

"Older than Grandpa."

Anna smiled.

Then she asked, "Are people going to know you?"

Richard's expression changed.

"I don't know."

"Why wouldn't they?"

"It's been a long time."

"But you're from here."

"I was."

Anna thought about that.

"You can stop being from a place?"

Richard didn't answer.

The question stayed with him as they drove deeper into the village.

There were fewer houses than he remembered.

Some had disappeared completely, leaving only broken walls and patches of grass. Others had been repaired and painted in bright colours that looked strange against the older buildings around them. A small grocery shop stood where Richard remembered a tea stall. The temple bell sounded somewhere in the distance, followed by the barking of a dog.

Then he saw the four houses.

They stood close together along the narrow road leading toward his father's property.

Richard knew them immediately.

The first belonged to a family he couldn't remember.

The second had once been painted blue.

The third looked almost exactly as it had when he was a boy, except that the garden had become overgrown.

The fourth had a woman sitting beneath the veranda.

Richard slowed.

The woman was old.

He didn't recognize her.

But she recognized him.

He knew it immediately.

She was watching the car with an expression that wasn't curiosity.

It was recognition mixed with something else.

Something closer to fear.

Richard drove past.

Anna turned in her seat.

"Who is she?"

"I don't know."

"She was looking at us."

"People look at cars."

"She was looking at you."

Richard didn't answer.

He watched the woman in the rearview mirror.

She remained seated beneath the veranda, following the car with her eyes.

Then the road turned.

She disappeared.

Richard exhaled.

He hadn't realized he was holding his breath.

A few minutes later, the trees opened.

He saw the house.

His father's house.

The first thing he noticed was the roof.

It was worse than he remembered from the photographs. Several tiles were missing, and weeds had grown across one side. The walls were stained with years of rain. The windows were dark, and vines climbed around the wooden frame of the front door.

The house stood behind a low stone wall.

Richard stopped the car outside the gate.

Anna leaned forward.

"That's it?"

"Yes."

She looked at the house for a long moment.

"Did you really live there?"

"Yes."

"You were a child?"

"Yes."

She smiled.

"I want to see your room."

Richard's stomach tightened.

"My room?"

"Yes."

"I don't know which one it was."

"How can you not know?"

Richard looked at the house.

He knew.

He knew exactly which room had been his.

He simply didn't want to say.

The house seemed to be waiting.

He hated the thought as soon as it entered his mind.

Buildings didn't wait for people.

They couldn't.

He had spent too many months struggling with his own mind to start giving meaning to ordinary things.

"Come on," he said.

He got out of the car.

The afternoon heat seemed heavier outside.

Anna jumped down beside him and immediately ran toward the gate.

"Slow down."

She stopped.

Richard walked toward her.

The gate was rusted shut.

He pulled it once.

Nothing.

He tried again.

The hinges groaned.

"Move."

Anna stepped aside.

Richard pushed his shoulder against the metal.

The gate suddenly gave way.

He stumbled through and caught himself against the stone wall.

Anna laughed.

"You fell."

"I didn't."

"You almost fell."

"That's different."

She grinned.

Richard shook his head.

For a moment, everything felt normal.

Then he looked at the house.

The front door was open.

He stopped.

He was certain it had been closed.

He had seen photographs of the property the week before. The door had been shut. He remembered noticing it because the wooden panels were still in surprisingly good condition.

Now it stood open by several inches.

Richard looked toward the road.

Nobody was there.

He turned back.

"Did you open it?"

Anna shook her head.

"No."

"Stay here."

He walked toward the entrance.

The closer he came, the colder the air felt.

It wasn't a dramatic drop in temperature. It was subtle enough that he wondered whether he imagined it. Outside, the afternoon was hot and dry. Near the doorway, the air felt damp against his skin.

Richard stood on the threshold.

The smell reached him.

Dust.

Damp wood.

Old leaves.

And something else.

Something faintly sweet.

He couldn't identify it.

But his body recognized it before his mind did.

His stomach turned.

He had smelled it before.

A long time ago.

He couldn't remember where.

"Dad?"

Anna stood behind him.

Richard stepped inside.

The house was darker than it should have been.

Sunlight entered through the broken windows, but the rooms seemed to swallow most of it. Dust covered the floor. A wooden chair had fallen against one wall. The old clock above the doorway had stopped at some unknown hour.

Richard stared at it.

He remembered that clock.

He remembered sitting beneath it.

He remembered waiting for something.

He didn't remember what.

Anna walked past him.

Richard caught her hand.

"Stay close."

She looked around.

"I like it."

"There's nothing to like."

"There is."

She pointed toward the staircase.

Richard followed her finger.

The staircase rose into darkness.

The railing was cracked.

The steps were covered with dust.

At the top stood a closed door.

Richard felt his chest tighten.

He knew that door.

He had not seen it in twenty years.

Yet the moment he looked at it, something inside his mind whispered the same sentence his father had once told him.

Never open that door.

Richard stared at it.

Anna squeezed his hand.

"Dad?"

He looked down.

"What?"

"Why are you scared?"

"I'm not."

She looked toward the upstairs door.

"Then why are you holding my hand so tightly?"

Richard looked down at his hand.

He hadn't realized how tightly he was holding Anna's.

He released her immediately.

"Sorry."

She rubbed her fingers.

"It's okay."

Richard tried to smile, but his attention had already returned to the staircase. The upper floor remained silent. He could hear the faint ticking of something somewhere in the house, although the old clock above the doorway had stopped years ago.

He told himself it was probably a pipe.

Or a piece of loose metal.

There was always some explanation.

He had learned that explanations were easier to live with than questions.

"Let's see the rest of the house," he said.

Anna followed.

They moved from room to room while Richard pointed out where the kitchen had been, where his father's study used to stand, and where the dining room had once held a long wooden table. He remembered pieces of the house with surprising clarity, but the memories arrived strangely. He could remember objects without remembering the people who had used them. He remembered a particular crack in the kitchen wall. He remembered a stain on the ceiling. He remembered the sound of rain hitting the metal roof.

But whenever he tried to remember himself inside those rooms, his mind became strangely empty.

Anna discovered an old cupboard and immediately began pulling at the drawers.

"Don't touch everything."

"I'm only looking."

"Looking is fine. Breaking isn't."

She opened another drawer.

Inside were several dead insects, a rusted spoon, and a piece of faded blue cloth.

Anna held it up.

"What is this?"

"I don't know."

She dropped it.

It landed on the floor with a soft sound.

Richard stared at the cloth.

Blue.

He remembered someone wearing a blue dress.

No.

Yellow.

A yellow dress.

He closed his eyes.

A girl's voice.

Laughter.

Running footsteps.

Then darkness.

Richard opened his eyes.

Anna was watching him.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"You look strange."

"I'm tired."

She accepted that.

Children were generous with excuses.

They moved toward the back room.

The window there was broken, and sunlight fell across the floor. Outside stood an old tree with thick roots rising from the earth.

Richard stopped.

He remembered that tree.

He had climbed it.

He remembered a girl sitting beneath it.

He remembered a small object in her hands.

A rabbit.

The memory disappeared before he could hold onto it.

Richard stared at the tree.

"Who is she?"

Anna's voice startled him.

"What?"

"The girl you're thinking about."

Richard turned toward his daughter.

"What girl?"

"You were looking at the tree like somebody was there."

Richard forced a smile.

"Nobody."

Anna shrugged.

"Okay."

She walked outside.

Richard remained by the window.

The tree stood exactly where he remembered it.

He had spent twenty years believing he had forgotten this place.

Perhaps he hadn't forgotten.

Perhaps he had simply refused to remember.