Maybe it was her ignorance, the lack of it, or too much of it - that made her charm so irresistible.
But anytime he caught LADY simply looking at something - anything, or looking at something simple, his knees buckled.
It felt as if he had been handed a new toy with too many buttons and he didn't know if he wanted it to walk, talk, sing or stay quiet.
When he met her, he thought she was ordinary. MAN felt ordinary too, and had ignored her, but briefly. And that day, while he haggled over prices of cigarettes at his neighborhood, he felt his knees buckle the first time.
First, he thought it was the local gin he took a mouthful of and spat out some for the gods while muttering iseeee under his breath. MAN always rushed the gin, the gods could never have enough and sometimes a mouthful for the gods was an invitation to soldier ants and other crawling insects.
Then he heard it again, "if I touch it, will it hurt me?". It was followed by a mean giggle that meant the question was both ridiculous and stupid.
"How can a rabbit hurt you?" he answered. "It's just a rabbit. You would be the one to hurt it".
"Oh" she responded. "I just had to be sure, but you're right. She looks very harmless."
"She?" the other voice answered
And she laughed. "Yes, she". She looks like a she. It's a she, right?"
"I wouldn't know" the owner answered. "I only care for it as a - ". He stopped before he could regret it. Other faces were waiting on him to say what they dreaded to think.
More people laughed and then she asked "How long do rabbits live?"
"8-12 years, 1-2 for wild rabbits." MAN responded as he took out his right hand from his pocket, and stretched it towards LADY, hoping the dry air would make his sweaty palms less sweaty.
She looked up at him, looked down at his hands for what felt like 3 seconds. Three because he counted, and took it with just the tip of her fingers.
2 years and 2 months. Since he decided to take his lunch break at the local kiosk 2 miles from his office and finally the running was about to pay off.
"That's such a short time to live." she said as she pulled her hands from his and stroked the rabbit.
With his hand still outstretched, he was in a trance. MAN was building a moon, and LADY was the moon. The moon was fluffy and tasted minty, like his favourite flavor, but it was dark and he couldn't see if it was the right color. She wanted a chocolate moon and he teased her that it would be too sweet and too dark, but he couldn't say no to LADY.
The moon felt soft, too soft, and as he padded the insides of the moon, he felt dizzy and needed air, and before he could climb out of the moon, he wished he wasn't inside of it at all.
"Sir" he heard a snap. "are you okay"?
He took a deep breath and swallowed the contents of his mouth. Warm saliva that had gathered while he was lost and made its way slowly out of his lips.
"Yes". He replied as he noticed the people smiling at him. They knew what he was thinking but he didn't dare to look back at them.
"My name is MAN." He said gently to LADY. His deep voice betrayed him. Later that day he was to watch a short video that showed a man who attained an important role at his work and immediately, his voice became deeper. A deep intonation oozed out of his mouth as his subordinates and superiors tried to hear and understand him. His voice became normal only when his mother was on the other end of the phone raining insults on him for his carelessness. And after that, the baritone found its way back.
MAN's baritone was out before he could understand why. Right there, he swore to build LADY a moon.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
The sound of the sirens were comforting. He had always preferred white noise to manage his insomnia. He never fully understood why people watched TV with the lights on while they were trying to sleep.
His favorite sound was the HVAC sound. Once it was bedtime, he would turn it on, set the default timer for 1:00am (he hated to wake up to something else playing while he slept) and increase the volume just a little bit above silent. Not too loud, not even loud, not too low. Only the right frequency for his eardrums and not loud enough for anyone around him to hear.
The sirens were loud but so were the voices shouting commands at him. Or not at him, the people around him.
He could feel his toes twitch, and his knees buckling, the same way they did anytime he saw LADY.
LADY! LADY!!! Who was that? LADY.
"Do I know a LADY?" he asked himself just as his big toe made a big twitch.
"He's moving" A loud voice boomed into his ear. "Sir! can you hear me?"
LADY! Lady what? Lady of what? Who is a lady? He made an attempt to still his toes maybe his brain would will itself to tell him who this lady was.
"Sir! Raise any finger up, if you can hear me".
"Sir".
"Sir". The boom voice was getting louder and it was worse than the sirens he enjoyed and the HVAC sound he desperately wanted.
Desperately.
Ah!
That was it. He had desperately wanted to do something for LADY. She asked him for a moon and he wanted to build her the biggest moon to live in. Sleep in. Whatever she wanted.
He was building the walls with his bare hands, she wanted the gray colors to be bluish so that it would blend with the night sky. She didn't want chocolate anymore. She wanted solitude. He wanted a crowd. But solitude it would be.
She wanted the white to be so bright, it would hurt her eyes. And she wanted streaks on the walls that looked like her hair.
LADY.
He sat up with a jolt.
"Where is she?' He asked, eyes wide open as he peeked into the faces of the people around him.
There were cords stuck to his chest and attached to another machine, and there was a young person calling out numbers from it.
"You've been in a -" The man holding his shoulders stammered.
"A what?" He asked him with pleading eyes. "Where is LADY?"
The man holding his shoulders looked up at the other man holding his legs and motioned to him to hold tight.
"Mr MAN, you've been in an accident". He said, sounding unsure if he would call what he was dealing with an accident.
"What accident? What happened to LADY? Where is she?"
He tried to sit up but it felt like a truck of fireworks went off in his head.
"Sir," the loud voice man called out. "please stay still".
He shifted his leg to make an angle, just to be sure he could move. That's when he saw her. It clung to his legs as he made his attempt to angle his knee.
It was LADY.
Her face was bigger and her hair fell over one side of her face and she was smiling at something outside the frame. Frame of what?
He tried to reach for it and could feel the blood rushing to his head and face. His ear pounded with blood as he tried to remember what happened.
"Don't touch that, sir." The voice barked. "Sorry, don't touch her."
"Why?"
The barking voice didn't answer.
MAN pulled the frame from his leg anyway, and found some words written at the bottom.
LADY never had words at her bottom. What was this? Was he hallucinating again?
As he brought it to his face, the letters moved.
He blinked and they became still.
LADY.
His heart began to beat faster. "Why is she -- ?"
"She asked me for a moon." He said softly. Nobody answered.
"I was building her a moon."
The young person looking at the machine stopped calling out numbers and stared at the doctors in the back of the van. She mouthed the words "should we tell him?" to her colleagues.
MAN looked at the frame again.
"I was almost finished." He said as he stared at it. He looked around the room and couldn't recognize anybody.
"Where is she?" MAN asked gently.
The man holding his shoulders lowered his eyes.
"Sir, we found you in a well of - ". He trailed off.
"Well of what?" MAN asked him.
"What well?" he repeated "I don't know any well, I know LADY".
Nobody said anything.
He blinked quickly as the realization hit him.
"In a well of juice". The young person whispered.
He looked at the frame again.
Then, very quietly, he asked,
"Does it hurt?"
"What?"
"When you touch it."
The room became loud as the sirens filled his ears.
MAN pressed LADY against his chest. He pulled over her dress and opened his eyes. Then MAN stopped talking.
He closed his eyes and thought for a moment about why he did what he did -outside, somewhere beyond the white walls of the well, and the sirens, the moon was with him.
He was drowning, in everything and the barking voices were trying to save him. He could see their fear, anxiousness, passion, warnings, and please.
He should make this easy for them. He can do it.
"Stay with me" The man barked. "Stay with me, man".
The barking man thumped at his chest as he counted.
"1, 2, 3, 3, 5, ...... 8"
"We're losing him."
MAN lifted his right hand slowly as he waved around to feel someone. He touched the stethoscope on the man's neck and pulled it. It fell off.
He swung his hands at him, motioning him to come closer.
"Come, come." He wheezed.
The man bent his neck closer to MAN. MAN grabbed his head and pulled him close to his mouth.
With his mouth in the man's ears, tuning his voice to the right frequency, like the HVAC white noise, he whispered gently, like he just had an epiphany -
"I'm never going back."