The "Unbirthday" Party

“What have I done?” screeched the bewildered man, as he kneeled before the wooden cage which housed his pet rabbit.
         “What have I done to it?” he cried, grasping the wooden legs which held the cage up. He grasped them hard, his hands and arms trembling, his breathing heavy and unsynchronized. His body, as a whole, felt unbearably hot. He was sweating profusely, panting like a dog that just chased after its prey. He clenched his teeth, he closed his eyes, shutting them tightly as if never to open them again. He whimpered like a child. He banged his large head repeatedly against the cage, startling the rabbit.
         The rabbit heard the little man cry. The rabbit drew closer toward his prison, as he left his room and hopped into the cage proper. His fur was ghostly white, his nose pink as a rose, his eyes a golden brown. He sniffed excitedly, but his heart raced due to the tremendous shaking. He heard the man wail and cry, his sobs hurting his elongated ears. He hopped over to the cage door, which was bolted (and was no means of escape), and looked down at the sobbing man. To quell the obnoxious waling, the rabbit began to sing, but not in words, in yodels. The louder the man’s sobbing got, the louder the rabbit sang.
         The man and the rabbit (and its infernal prison) were in a desolate section of the woods. They were in a grassy clearing, the trees surrounding them on four sides, forming a rectangle. The clearing was covered in sharp, green grass, glossy from a previous day’s rain. The wind did not blow. The branches of the trees stood silent, did not wave. Not a single noise from a woodland creature did not sound. Everything surrounding the man and his rabbit was stark still and not moving, no noise, no movement.
         The little man, throwing an childish temper-tantrum, was dressed in a yellowish-brown trenchcoat, reaching down to his knees. His pants were colored olive green. His collard shirt was colored robin’s egg blue. His head was large and oval-shaped. He bore a bulbous, crooked nose. His eyes were baggy and colored purple around them, as if he suffered from constant insomnia. His eyes were dark brown. He wore a large green top-hat upon his huge head, with a black ribbon surrounding the brim. His hands and his body frame were skeletal, as of he starved regularly. He also wore shiny black dress shoes and navy blue socks. He had a dark green bow-tie covering the whole of his neck.
         “Please, for the love of God! Shut up, Ides of March!” he wept. “I can’t bear this any longer! What have I done? I have locked us in an eternal prison! Oh please, my Heavenly Father, save my tortured soul! For the love of mercy—” 
         “You’re such a coward,” replied the rabbit.
         “Coward? That I am not!” he boasted.
         “Then why are you weeping and acting like a homicidal maniac?”
         “Ides of March, look at what has happened!”
         “What? I see nothing that has been wronged.”
         “You’re lying. Nothing is moving, seething, whispering! There is no temperature! Everything is silent and frozen in time!”
         “It’s eighty-five degrees with a slight wind. I have no idea what you are talking about, Matt Hader!”
         “Look, for the love of Lord Christ! Everything around us is frozen in a time-flux! I can see it, Ides of March! With my very own eyes, I can see it all! Time frozen forever in space!”
         “Hader, did you listen to that old hag again?”
         “She is the Devil!”
         “She is also a hoax. She is a loser and a recluse.”
         Ides of March dunked his head into his silver food bowl, filling his cheeks with rabbit formula. The crunching he made drove Hader even further mad—he clenched two fist-fulls of hair in his bony hands. The rabbit swallowed, then chuckled to himself. The little man before him was slowly drifting towards insanity. A man of high intelligence—a man of science—can turn into a horrendous monster within the matter of minutes.
         Hader leaned forward, gasping for breath. He placed his palms onto his knees, and he faced the grassy earth. He rubbed his tired eyes. They were swollen from all of the crying. He sniffed his nose loudly. He stared at his golden pocket-watch as it withdrew it from his trenchcoat pocket.
         The hands were frozen on 12:59.
         “One minute until one o’clock,” he said to the rabbit. “Why could she not wait until one o’clock? Why did she have to put me into my misery at a minute until one?”
         “Hader, she has been in her house all day long.”
         “She is standing by an oak tree only a few hundred feet away!”
         He pointed toward his right side. He turned his head to see an elderly woman standing beneath the shade of an oak tree. Her build was round and fat. Her nose was red like the heart, as were her garments, which were a red cloak covering her entire body, shaped like that of a heart. Her garments were decorated in golden laces and ribbons. She bore a scowl upon her face. Her eyes were large and round, bulging, and dark like Hader’s. She had her arms crossed, and she smiled evilly at the little man, her teeth sharp, ready to tear his flesh. Her hat was pyramid-shaped, worn like a dunce cap.
         “Please, Ides of March! Save me from her!” he pleaded.
         “She hasn’t left her house once today.”
         “That is a lie! She is staring right at me! How could you say such a thing?”
         “I am looking over at her house right now. The windows are all drawn, the door is locked, and nothing is stirring. My guess is that she is sound asleep.”
         “LIAR!” screamed Hader. “She is walking closer to me. She wants to torment me, Ides of March! She’ll do anything in her power to see me dead. I have done nothing wrong, and yet she wishes me to burn in fiery Hell!”
         “I seriously doubt Misses de Heart would want you dead. She is a nice elderly lady. She gives all of the village children cookies, and she always buys flowers for her neighbors. Sure, she has been a little rude lately due to the recent death of her husband, but she is still a nice lady.”
         Hader stood up. “If you think me mad, Ides of March, then so be it! I shall invite her for a cup of tea, a slice of my birthday cake, and we shall settle this dispute between us.”
         He rose, placing his left hand on his bushy brows. He scanned the areas for the old hag, and he saw her smiling at him—with that evil, sinister smile! He cringed in her wake. He began to sweat again, but he sighed deeply, and received enough courage to walk forward a few steps. He continued to stare at the witch he hated, and when he felt that it as safe, he dashed away from the woodland clearing.
         Ides of March perked his ears. He chewed some more food.
         “That man is a lunatic. I wonder if he has truly gone mad!”

         Matt Hader approached the dark and forlorn woods. He reached a section which contained a wooden table complete with the place-settings—plates, silverware, cups, napkins, and two candles. Four chairs rested on all four sides. There was a pink cake at the center of the table, and a white kettle of freshly brewed tea at the far end. Two of the seats were unoccupied. One seated a teddybear, the other a doll.
         Hader sighed once more, and took his place at the table, the end where the kettle rested.
         He picked it up. “Would you like some tea, Mr. Friedrich?”
         The teddybear sat silent.
         “How about yourself, Ms. Iblinkmyeyes?”
         The doll sat silent.
         Hader poured himself some tea, and he sipped the hot beverage. He placed his cup down, and sighed again. He stared long and hard at his silent company, wishing that they would speak with him. After all, they had been his friends ever since he was a boy.
         “So, both of you are not on speaking terms with me?” he asked them.
         No answer.
         “I see how it is! All I have done for both of you, and you treat me as if I don’t exist? How rude and obnoxious!”
         Still no answer.
         “Oh? You think me mad like Ides of March? Humph!” He crossed his arms and turned his head away. “Well, of all the nerve! This is ridiculous! We can’t even celebrate my birthday without any disagreements!”
         “This truly is an unbirthday party!”
         “What? Who said that!” said Hader, raising a finger in the air. “Reveal yourself, demon, if you so desire.”
         His nightmarish foe appeared before his eyes.
         “Misses de Heart!” gasped Hader.
         “Yes, deary, it is I.”
         “Care to join me for tea?”
         “Most certainly.”
         She sat down opposite him. He leaned over the table and poured her a cup of the hot tea. She sipped it gently and stared at him coldly.
         “An unbirthday party?” asked Hader.
         “Yes, deary,” replied Misses de Heart.
         “What does ‘unbirthday’ mean?”
         “It simply means ‘not by the means of one’s birthday, in which case a party is thrown on that particular day, but it is not celebrated for one’s birth.”
         “I do not follow.”
         “I knew you wouldn’t.”
         “So, what brings you here to my tea party?”
         “I came to simply tell you that I want you to make love to me.”
         His eyes bulged, and he gasped. His golden hair turned on end, and he froze in state. “Come again?”
         “I want you to make love to me.”
         “Why?”
         “If you want answers, Matthew Hader, then you’ll do it!”
         “But I...”
         “None of those, deary. Come. It’ll be quick, and I’ll tell you everything.”
         “Do you promise?”
         “I shall on my very being.”
         “Then it shall be so!”
         She began to undress. He fondled her.

         When they had finished, they resumed their seats at the table, fully dressed.
         “Why am I suffering, Misses de Heart?” asked Hader as he drew his cup to his lips.
         “You have murdered Time.”
         “How can I murder time?” he asked. “No one can murder time!”
         “Ah! But you can!”
         He raised a brow and frowned.
         “Time is a tricky thing. It can be manipulated.”
         “How so?” He sipped his tea again.
         “If you keep on good terms with it, it’ll do almost anything you would like with the clock. So, if you want to get past your lessons, ask it nicely, and they’ll be shrouded in the past.”
         Hader returned a stupefied look.
         “You, Mr. Hader, however, murdered time by going on continuously about something. Time literally ignored you. Therefore, you are stuck in a time flux. You are to forever join this ‘unbirthday’ party with your little friends here.”
         “I was talking with Mr. Friedrich, not time! Friedrich persisted that I join the military, and it became a heated argument! This is nonsense!”
         “It’s nonsense that you talk to a teddybear, Matthew.”
         “He’s alive!” replied Hader.
         “The sooner you realize that you’re mentally ill, Matthew, the better!”
         “I am not mentally ill!” boasted the little man.
         “Then in Time you shall forever be stuck,” said Misses de Heart. “It’s a damned shame that Ides of March even hates you, Matthew! The poor rabbit! All he had to do was go down the hole...”
         “Ides of March has nothing to do with this!”
         “Look at your watch, Matthew.”
         Hader pushed his arm-cuff away, and he stared at the face of his golden watch. The second-hand was moving, ticking.
         Tick-tick-tick!
         It read 12:59:01.
         “The second-hand is moving!”
         “Precisely.”
         Tick-tick-tick!
         It read 12:59:06.
         “Oh joy! My watch works!”
         “Time hasn’t ceased its punishment on you, Matthew.”
         Tick-tick-tick!
         It read 12:59:16.
         “Care for more tea?”
         “Not now.”
         Tick-tick-tick!
         It read 12:59:26.
         “How about a piece of cake?”
         “Sure.”
         Tick-tick-tick!
         It read 12:59:36.
         “Is it good?”
         “Delicious!”
         Tick-tick-tick!
         It read 12:59:46.
         “It’s chocolate macadamia nut.”
         “Very good, Matthew.”
         Tick-tick-tick!
         It read 12:59:56.
         “Glad you like it.”
         “The time is now.”
         Tick-tick-TICK!
         It read 12:59:59.
         “Oh my! It’s thirteen o’clock!”
         “One more second.”
         TICK!
         It read 13:00:00.
         “OH MY GOD!! IT’S THIRTEEN O’CLOCK!!!”
         “Yes, deary, it’s thirteen o’clock.”
         “Now what happens?”
         “We wait.”
         “For what?”
         “Visitors.”
         “People are coming?”
         “Possibly.”
         Hader stared long and hard at his watch. The second-hand ceased to move. It was stuck on thirteen o’clock. Misses de Heart continued to sip her tea. Hader sat flabbergasted. Has the time flux reversed? Did it truly end?
         Matt Hader saw Ides of March approach from the clearing, carrying another pocket-watch in his mouth. Hader summoned Ides of March over to his lap, and motioned the white rabbit to drop the watch. The rabbit obeyed. Hader picked it up, and opened the face.
         It read twelve hours, fifty-nine minutes.