"So . . . how did you manage to get a place like this?" The rabbit asked the cafe owner.

  "It's pretty hot real estate." He commented as leaned on the serving counter and blew cool air into his steaming latte.

  The owner, a woman of middle age with curly hair and a super model figure, replied with a devious smile. "Well . . . a gorgon doesn't reveal her secrets." Her eyes penetrated directly into the rabbits own, however he seemed totally unfazed by her seductive and enrapturing disposition.

  "Oh come on!" The Easter Rabbit said. "Spill it sister!"

  Medusa the cafe owner gave a small cough as she felt slightly displaced and irritated the rabbit customer was completely uninfluenced by her looks and charms.

  "Well I do have sisters..." she commented uneventfully, a hankering to be seen filled the void of her inner being.

  "Uh huh, uh huh," the ecstatic rabbit said. "Are you all business partners?" The rabbits excitement grew with a fast intensity.

  Medusa gave a small frown. "No actually. I offered a three-sister partnership to Sthel and Eury but they weren't interested in it."

  "Oh," the rabbit looked sad.

  "You know, I'm the Easter Bunny." He added with a smile.

  She was not sure if he was trying to impress her, make her feel better, or had another motive in him.

  The rabbit spoke before Medusa could get in another word, unintentionally interrupting her start. "Well if you ever need a business partner. I'm your hare." He said with delight.

  Medusa almost snorted out loud. A smile finally appeared on her face.

  "It must be pretty lonely here," he said with a very empathetic expression.

  The cafe owner shrugged.

  "I do miss my sisters, if that is what you mean. But I understand we each must travel our own path."

  "You make it all sound so . . . lonely." He couldn't find the right word.

  "Isn't it though? This thing we call life. Most of us all born alone as it is." Medusa's thoughts of wanting to be seen as a desirous object started to be replaced with memories and thoughts of her past life back on earth. Her unconscious sadness began to be saturated with negative contents again.

  "I think you have the wrong perspective sister . . . life is an adventure. And people do enter and leave our lives; perhaps usually without our control. But that's only because it's part of the story. Your story."

  Medusa gave another hapless shrug.

  "But what if you don't want the chapter to end?" She asked the Easter Bunny.

  "I think it's more about what do you want the next chapter to be? I think not wanting the chapter to end is also a chapter in it's own way if that makes sense . . ."

  "You know your pretty insightful for a monstrously large rabbit that walks upright, has a basket full of colored eggs, and a dorky smile."

  They both smiled. "Thank you," he commented back.

  "I was worried you were a pedophile..." she gave an irregular laugh as if some air had choked in her lungs on its way up exhalation.

  The Easter Bunny gave a partial look up, like he was cursing the universe. He spoke semi-audibly, "why does everyone always think that!?"

  Medusa laughed some more, her demeanor was returning to proper form.

  "I mean the first thing you said when you walked in the shop, was you can't wait to hear about all the kids who are going to be so happy finding all the eggs you hid everywhere."

  Now it was the Easter Bunny's turn to give uninterested shrug.

  "Oh cheer up," she said. "I was just teasing you."

  "I know, I know . . ."

  It was around this time that one of the other cafe patron's interrupted the duo. He started singing, very childishly, almost autistically in expression. "The Easter Bunny and Medusa sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

  He seemed to be singing more to himself or to an audience that was not there than to the two creatures.

  "Who is that?" The rabbit said looking concerned. "And why does he keep smiling like that?..."

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  A look of fear and uneasiness deepened across the rabbit's face as he looked at the jolly purple dinosaur with a green belly.

  "He's some kind of pop star from earth, a happy purple-green dinosaur always singing very wholesome songs apparently." She took a breath. "Famous with the kids, like you." She said with a small smile.

  "That monster a children's icon??" The rabbit inquired in astonishment.

  "I asked the barista his name but she said didn't get it. Something like Jerry or Jarney or Barry or something. I don't know."

  "Man. This place is getting weirder and weirder. Well you know, I wasn't trying to kiss you or anything." The Easter Bunny said very politely to the cafe owner.

  "I know," Medusa tepidly replied.

  "So what is this place he asked her? How did both me and Barry over there make it here? Why are you here?" He inquired with interest.

  "You mean you don't know?" Medusa asked with puzzlement.

  "No, I don't think so..."

  He added, "one moment I'm on earth. Then next I'm here. I will admit I had been feeling weak and burned out for a while now though..."

  Medusa spoke sternly, "this is the place where symbols and mythemes and cultural images go to die. Or go once they die rather. It's an in-between place between your former life and your next life."

  The Easter Bunny silently shook his head in the negative.

  "No. I didn't know," he told her.

  "You don't seem to concerned about it," she told him. "Are you sure you're not still depressed from when you were back on earth?"

  "No... I don't think so," he told her inspecting himself.

  Medusa looked at him with a lover's interest and concern.

  "I ... I think I'm just ready for my next chapter," he told her. "Maybe that's why I'm not so concerned"

  The Easter Bunny gave a small smile, "I do want all my eggs back though!"

  "You're silly," she said in laughter to him. "Won't you miss the kids?..."

  "Yeah but perhaps my next chapter will help ease and make sense of the previous one."

  Medusa's eyes glistened with a flash of hate that devolved to a strong sorrow.

  Before the Easter Bunny could ask what he did or said. She commented to him, "you asked me how I got this gig."

  "When I was on my death bed. I made a deal with Callisto who had been expelled from Artemis's group for the misdeeds of Zeus. We both agreed that the male patriarchal gods had to be punished. So by good fortune, since Callisto was young and I was growing old we made a cosmic pair. And used our power to summon the Furies."

  Medusa cleared her throat and continued recounting her story, "I requested that bastard Poseidon by punished. And Callisto wanted Zeus to feel her wrath. The Furies told Callisto there was nothing they could do to Zeus because he was already on his way out to be superseded by some King of the desert dwellers. I think his name was Yeshua. They sung that he was the son of a god supposedly. Anyway, and the Furies told me that they would punish Poseidon by destroying what he deemed most valuable but that I had to give service in this in-between space for some time . . . and well that's how I became the cafe owner of the interstitial space."

  The Easter Bunny looked completely enthralled with the story.

  "But how did they punish this Poseidon guy? And why did you want him to pay?" He asked his second question with a bit of nervousness.

  Medusa paused. She felt an up-swell of several emotions and let them float about in her. She knew she could let them float around, not get stuck identifying with them, and sink back down in her belly.

  "He took something from me," she said with disdain.

  The Easter Bunny's eyes widened.

  "Huh," he gave a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry to hear that," he told her.

  Before Medusa could reply, he asked with interest and fear "...so what did they do to him?"

  Medusa gave a small smile.

  "They took away what he valued most. The universal spirit always seeks equilibrium. A thread of order within the chaos. Stability out of disorder."

  The Easter Bunny seemed to be holding his breath in anticipation of the storytelling,

  "They destroyed his holy throne and home. The city of Atlantis. His most cherished position. He loved being seen as a people person. He loved ordering people around and being waited on hand and foot. The city was cast into ruins. It's a pile of rubble on the bottom of the ocean and no creature or animal can enter it and live for long. He's now king of nothing."

  "That's pretty intense sister!" The rabbit let out.

  "Yeah it is," Medusa looked the inner portion of her lips with a dry tongue.

  "So what now?" He asked.

  "I think you said it best," she told him. "It's time to move onto the next chapter."

  "What will you do?" She asked with curiosity.

  "I don't know..." he paused not to think but to find the courage. "I was thinking I could hang out here for a bit," he said with a smile.

  "I like this idea of being in an in-between place. Maybe I can learn something about my-self here. Maybe I can get a better idea of how the universe works by staying here for a bit."

  "Is that all?" Medusa asked both firmly and coyly at once. She was wondering if he was interested in her.

  "Well ... you know me. I don't like to put all my eggs in a basket." He said with a goofy smile. "I'm sure I can find some other interests and what not..."

  Medusa looked at his basket full of colorful eggs. They were all clearly together in one device.

  "Perhaps meeting others can be part of your in-between story. Help you deepen your-self as you suggested or desired."

  "Yeah. I guess..." The Easter Bunny said, looking frightened at Barry the singing happy Dinosaur.

  "Why does he keep smiling like that?..." He asked her.

  "I don't know."

  "He looks like a serial killer. I swear." Barry the Dinosaur smiled blankly into the empty space around him.

  "Honestly, I thought you were a pedophile. Maybe he's a nice guy too..." she commented. "We shouldn't judge people by their external appearance. We don't know what they've been through."

  "True enough."

  "But know this," she told him. "You can hang out here for a bit. But if you cross me. I'm going to sink your Atlantis."

  The Easter Bunny's eyes widened.

  "Well know this sister ... you're going to have to learn to be patient with me. And you seem like you have a vulnerability problem. And you seem constantly worried about your appearance. And seem to constantly want to control the conversation and have influence over whomever you're talking to."

  "What!? ... What's that suppose to mean?!" She exclaimed.

  The Easter Bunny gave Medusa a playfully-mocking seductive-and-penetrating gaze like the one she gave him towards the beginning of their conversation.

  Medusa's cheeks turned red with embarrassment.

  His candor didn't seem particularly overwhelming. It seemed more gently placed than anything. She wasn't sure if she could trust him.

  As the two lovebirds continued their quaint argument. Barry the singing happy Dinosaur sat in the corner of the cafe, singing to himself and to whoever would listen to him: "Medusa and the Easter Bunny sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love."

  Medusa waved her hands in the distance. The barista looked on with excitement. The Easter Bunny braced his basket full of colored eggs.