It was only summer for the rabbits. They stuck out their cracked noses from the yellowing bushes, ears twitching rhythmically. Heat battered their soft fur and rays of sunlight glinted off of their glassy eyes. Rose saw one from outside of her window. It scampered into the bed of tulips and then froze in an instant, as only scared rabbits can. She watched it survey the empty road. Her eyes followed the creature as it shot back into the brush, running as if chased by a flame. Rose tried to unfreeze alongside the rabbit, willing her muscles to flicker or start. But she couldn’t lift a finger. It was like she was covered in weighted feathers, each one pressing its wings into her skin.
The town had frozen the month prior. One person was stuck hovering over their kitchen sink, one heaving a backpack to school, and one pulling out the chair to their oak desk. In a few fleeting seconds, everyone came to a halt. The whole town was left waiting, swept up in a quiet inhale.
Rose’s grandmother believed that the curses had finally caught up with them. She was there fifty years ago when the hushed visitor crept into town, pulling curses from his pocket and sprinkling them over the land like seeds. She was there when the mayor had laughed off his gnawing inner whispers, assuring the villagers that there was no such thing as curses. Rose agreed with the mayor; curses weren’t real, but revenge was.
It wasn’t any one person’s fault, but everyone played a part. It started when Louisa cut down the tree in her yard. She ignored the branches as they clawed for help and shoved them in a pile by the fencepost. It continued when Ms. Winston woke up and went to work and drove home and went to bed and never once looked at the sky. When Mr. Lucas stepped on the wildflowers near the parking lot, and Gwen left her lunch napkin in the grass by the swing set. The sky and the wind and fields were laughing and shouting and growing, but nobody cared to look.
But now, everyone was frozen, standing still like pillars of salt. The sun shone on and the flowers rocked in the wind. The birds called out to one another, unafraid of their piercing trills. The rain dotted patches of earth, water droplets mirroring the blue of the sky. The rabbits ran through the crisp air. The earth was beating and curving, twisting like a knowing grin. And everyone had to look.