I’m too old for bunnied baskets on Easter, but my mom got me a hollow chocolate bunny at any rate. Dark. She said, “It’s your favorite. Right—” Sure, I like bitter chocolate, and I’ve eaten half of it since Sunday. But as I sat and nibbled the ears down, I thought about the strangeness of it all. Life. Death. Religion. All equally bizarre in the sense that we only make assumptions, and my tongue feels heavy in my mouth. With a heaving dose of nothing much matters anymore caught in my throat. We are all aging. My mom. Me. You. Bones catawampus and decaying thoughts, I’m a stranger to myself these days. In my youth, we were taught not to take candy from strangers. So, should I not gnaw away at this confectionary counterfeit? A symbol of spring’s fertility. Youth. He is risen, and I am barely vertical most days. I’ve left crumbs of a life I’d set out to achieve all over the internet. Now, they hand out cookies on every website you visit. Advertise the fact. Shove them in your face. Select your cookie preferences and how you want them. Accept all here. I reject them all. I need to lose some weight, and I can’t imagine a cookie will help me in that endeavor. Neither will half of a dark chocolate bunny this stranger I am now is force-feeding me. Never once did I encounter a stranger handing out candy from the side of a van when I was a child. The internet is far more dangerous. And I’m Googling the meaning of ‘meaning itself’ like the answers are all out there—