Counterpoint of Desire

The woman wanted the city; the rabbit wanted the forest. Because each feared losing the other, they travelled sideways for seven years, pulling the wheeled glass room between them. Everyone praised their compromise, though neither had arrived anywhere. At the eighth crossroads the axle broke.

The woman finally said, ‘I hate the forest.’ The rabbit answered, ‘I hate the city.’ Their honesty sounded cruel for a moment, then strangely clean. They sat beside the broken wheel and drew two routes on one map. She went east for a season; he went north.

When they met again, they had stories instead of resentment. The glass room remained at the crossroads, empty. Travellers used it as a shelter and called it the monument to a love that had learned direction.