Summer heat arrived with the familiar feeling of sticky ice cream, heavy on the finger tips. Jenny Blooms hugged the last child as the clock struck noon and took a seat on a bench marked with bubble gum and scratched initials. With a deep breath, she took off her rabbit head.

This rabbit head of hers was once a dream come true. Jenny thought she was good with kids. She’d start here as a nondescript bunny, and make her way to Disneyland. She made the best out of the sad droopy ears and sickly yellow tinge. What did it matter as long as she made the little ones laugh?

Day after day, she wandered into the abyss of the rabbit head, gazing out into a world full of giggles and promises. On a sticky afternoon, she then realized the giggles mattered less. She began to feel exhausted. The little ones teased and pulled. Their claws reached right through her patchy coat of fur and dug at her skin. From the black void of the rabbit’s eyes, she finally saw herself in the eyes of others. A washed-up thirty something year old in a dirty rabbit head.

Eyes empty, she stared on as a boy sat screaming for his mother.

Children can change your life, people like to say. But nobody warned her of what children can do in the hundreds. Her infinite love for them became a hidden scowl. Like leeches, they feasted on her with unrelenting force. Like leeches, they reminded her of a nagging suspicion that her life was being drained.

In front of the boy was the ice cream, melting quickly as if someone chased it with his tongue. That smell, Jenny thought. The clinging smell of strawberry flavor ice cream and the merry-go-round. She looked toward the deserted ride. A plastic horse looked ahead in perpetual stupor as it clung for its dear life to a rainbow colored pole. It was decorated with three red roses parched and peeled up, like grotesque warts growing from its neck. It was the only rainbow colored pole, so she named it hers. She had enjoyed the theme park back then. The last memory of her childhood.

So there she sat, an unwilling participant of somebody else’s perpetual childhood. Their childhood was her bread and butter. Their childhood was her means to an end. A brisk wave of the hand and a cheap embrace. Jenny dreamt of Minnie Mouse in Disneyland. She dragged on, vanishing into the hide of the dirty rabbit head.

The child cried louder. This time he had to be heard. The tears smelt bitter, and his cry was a stab to the ear. He clamored after the ice cream, all ten fingers stretched outward. If anyone could help, just anyone. He then spotted Jenny and her dirty rabbit head. That fatal look of deep yearning caught her attention.

Disturbed, Jenny frowned. What a terrible day. She slowly propped the rabbit head back on, stood up, and went back to work. The child was all gone from her mind already.