I don’t really remember what Earl Gray tea tastes like. I bought the box months ago, tried it once, and decided that I still hate tea. It’s been sitting in the back of the cabinet over my sink since then, until today. The woman in my house seemed sophisticated, the kind that you should make tea for. I also made a cup for Bunny, but I filled my cup with cola while they weren’t paying attention. We all took a few quiet sips, quietly enjoying the pleasant company. After a few ticks of the clock, I decided to address the elephant in the room; which was a gun on the table.

“So, uh….”

My words didn’t come out right. I got distracted again. By the gun on the table. It’s a pistol, the kind with the chamber that spins around. A revolver, I think. A blue one. It’s a really pretty shade of aqua. It seems like it would taste like ice cream, but maybe that’s just because it’s still on my mind. It doesn’t look metal, was this thing 3D printed? While I was getting lost in my own brain, Bunny took initiative.

“Why is there a gun?”

The lady seemed startled by the question.

“Oh, this is the exorcism... device.”

Next was my turn to be startled.

“That’s gonna exorcise me? I mean… yeah, I guess it would, huh? Exorcise my grey matter all over the walls.”

The lady put down her cup, and started motioning wildly with her hands.

“Okay okay okay, we’re getting off on the totally wrong foot here. Let me start from the beginning, okay?”

I nodded my head, staying weary of her sudden movements.

“I met her a while back. The red, pink girl. Rosa? Rose. I met Rose a month or two ago. I told her about my, uh, job, and we parted ways. But an hour or so ago she sent me a text. She said she had a friend at this address who was maybe interested in an exorcism.”

She picked up her pretty plastic-y gun and continued.

“This is bl-... This is, a demon… eraser. It erases demons.”

A bead of sweat rolled down her temple, slightly wrinkled from age and heavily wrinkled from stress.

“You use this… at you, at yourself, and it. Uh, ‘shwoop!’ Demon gone! Haha. Wanna give it a go?”

My hands were folded together on the table in front of me as I was leaning far back in my chair. I don’t know what kind of face I was making. Maybe the kind that a boss would give when he catches a guy he hired ten minutes ago taking money from the register. I don’t know what’s going on, but this woman wants me to fucking shoot myself.

I kept my head forwards but sent my eyes to the side in order to inspect Bunny. She was, in turn, locked on to the woman like a laser. Her eyes were following her every move, as she moved. I could tell from the slight shake of her fingertips that she was experiencing the effects of adrenaline. This is very not good. This is bad, actually.

I’ve seen Bunny on adrenaline exactly once before, and it resulted in swift and immediate death. I do not feel like dealing with a corpse in my house. But, I don’t know. I guess I’d rather her die than me. At the rate this is going, I’m gonna have a pastel blue bullet lodged in my skull any minute now. But… I don’t yet. If she was really going to shoot me, wouldn’t she have done it by now? I’m practically handing my head to her on a silver platter. There’s another layer to this, something that’s making things more complicated on her end. But first of all, I need Bunny to calm down. I think violence is justifiable in this situation, but the logistics of a murder inside my home seems like a headache. I’ll just have to signal to her my message the best I can.

“Hey… You know what’s really weird?”

I sounded like Jerry Seinfeld starting a monologue.

“W-What?” the nervous woman responded.

“How people can say something with a hidden message behind it. It’s weird that a word, or a string of words, can have more than one meaning based on context. Right? Bunny, let’s try it.”

She took her eyes hesitantly off her target, if only to find out what the hell I was talking about.

“Bunny, did you know that I used to play little league? I know, I know, it doesn’t seem like me; but it’s the truth. I wasn’t always this out of shape, I was actually a pretty athletic kid. I was so confident I told my coach that I wanted the heaviest metal bat he had. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it, I think it’s still standing in the corner of the garage. You should go take a look at it.”

She stared back at me, dumbfounded. I motioned with my eyes towards the garage. Once, twice, three times… She finally stood up, and silently walked away.

She walked away. Leaving us alone here.

Shit. I gotta stall.

“Sorry for bringing up baseball out of nowhere like that, haha! It’s just that, uh, Bunny loves the sport. She’s a real… homerunhead. Always knockin’ ‘em out of the park.”

She laughed nervously. She started to say something, but I think her throat closed up on her. She didn’t try again. Now we’re just two sweaty people not blinking. Seconds passed. Minutes passed. Hours, days, weeks, I don’t know, man. I couldn’t keep track. I was too stressed to keep my internal clock running. All I could do was pray my reflexes were fast enough to get down fast if something bad happens.

Then she moved. It was slow, like an engine starting up. Testing the waters. I didn't flinch, I was too focused. She slowly began moving the blue gun towards the table, pointed away from either of us. She began to speak with a shaky voice.

"Okay s-"

Then with the speed of lightning, (and the scream of one struck by it,) she tumbled backwards out of her chair. Bunny had snuck up behind her like a ninja. She took her arm around her front and slammed her along with the chair straight into the ground. After the initial crash, I heard a blunt thump, then no more signs of struggle.

Bunny got up off the floor, dusted herself off, and turned to face me.

"I saw your baseball bat. It wasn't very interesting."