A. S. Field [Mezei]: Carneval

She doesn't want to be a fairy. Not a king's daughter or a princess. And definitely not a bride. She wants some kind of animal costume. She thinks about a bunny, maybe a fox, but they talk her out of it. They say bunnies are coward and foxes are smelly. She doesn't agree with that. She thinks bunnies are cute and foxes are beautiful.

Finally they agree on a cavalryman helmet, provided she gets a toy horse that's about as big as she is. They put wheels on it, so she can pull it by the bridle, and if she wants to she can sit on it.

Somehow she's not happy. The bunny might be the reason. She thinks maybe next year, because there's carnival every year. At least that's what they consoled her with, and she believed it.

*****

She puts on the bunny ears. They're attached to a simple hairband. She looks at herself in the mirror. Her tired eyes, her face forced to smile are perhaps made to forget by her long, lush hair falling in waves, the tiny bikini and the high heels she borrowed, pressing against her feet.

Now she can be a bunny for the first time. How many years have passed? Almost twenty before her dream comes true and she can finally put on the costume.

She thinks of the lights that cast a mysterious shadow over her bitter features, and of the tiny stage on which she performs. Of the bills that need to be paid, and of her son, for whom she sews his big dream every night, the Grinch costume, which she thinks is terrible, but is everything to him.