Rabbit - Short Story -

Rabbit

My heart races, my blood pours, adrenaline propels me forward against the will of my wretched soul. The feeling of running should be freeing to me now. This is not the case. The feeling is familiar, running from a man. The acrid nostalgia mocks me, as sweet memories become warped. It is like when I was back in the old house running from our neighbour, Old John. He would chase me whenever Copper would trample his plants or bark mindlessly disrupting his work ethic.

I used to find it fun, but I had no idea it was slowly training me for this very moment, how to run for my life. So here I am, running for it. Or am I running from it? Who knows? Who even cares? Nobody can hear my thoughts, not even the dead. The dead can only watch and falter as they envy our mortality and ability to act freely. To carelessly think and act must be seductive to the dead, they are bound to the ground in chains made of their past mistakes and regrets. I would trade it all right now to be with them, to be anywhere but this. My thoughts are my defences, my shield from the reality that I am facing; I am fleeing from my lover.

He does not want me dead. I know that. He wants me fixed. Replaced. You see, I am defective to him. I am not ideal. Who am I but a broken part in the clockwork of his life? I cannot bend and rotate to make his world function, and I refuse to be fixed. If I cannot be fixed, he must be rid of me. That is life. If your child's favourite toy rabbit gets broken, buy a new one. There are thousands of toy rabbits, and there are hundreds of real rabbits. Sometimes it is hard to differentiate between them. But does it matter? Not to him. If a toy rabbit is silent and appears genuine, it fulfils the purpose of being a companion, right?

But surely a toy cannot function in the clockworks of the world. It will be ripped to shreds like the living who fall reluctantly into the ground, to be buried and forgotten, mourning for eternity. Neither can a real rabbit function, but at least it can run. Is that my only purpose? To run as time escapes him. He wants it back, craves it like the sinners who long for a soul and another chance, but time is limited and will run from him as he succumbs to age. Does he need to chase time through the forest? 

Capture time here in front of the stern trees who weep dead branches that land firmly on the deceased grass and expired leaves. These are the same leaves that try to hide the gloom of the bleak scenery. The woods were once happy, when the time was not running away from him, and when all rabbits were real. I am the only one left maybe? He kept me there for so long that I hardly know anymore. I bleed more, I breathe less.

Why does this feel so nostalgic? It is not Old John chasing me with my tail between my legs, it's him, and I am running with my life on the line. Shouldn't I feel scared? I am moving swiftly through the forest that has decomposed and decayed like an unkempt tooth. I am passing the cold grey stones that are covered by the ash that bleeds from the injured sky, gashed by the blade of betrayal and the threat of death. 

I bleed with it; my arms are wounded from the knife that trailed them before. I was told that wounds would heal. It was a lie. Scars do not heal, and pain does not stop, you just learn to live with it. I was told the shedding of blood was the only way to compensate for my careless soul. 'Don't question it' they'd say. 'He is never wrong; it is always you.' What a deadly mindset, what rotten damage the words of a sociopath can cause.

The words of the past echo inside my worn head, drowning out the sounds of his thundering footsteps, stomping the innocent leaves close behind. 'Grow up!' He said that to me, once, when we met in a forest just like this. I had been mindlessly playing in the forest and had tripped over a branch which shattered the frail bones in my knee. It felt like a child being scolded by a parent. But a parent wants the best for you, and he once did. 

He helped me to walk after I had broken my knee. He trained me to walk again, to walk towards him in the forest, to run and chase him there, leaving me breathless - not because running was tiring, but because loving him was exhausting. How ironic that now I run away as he chases me, wanting no love, no soul, no life. What is the point in living if you act amongst the dead? I must face reality. This is not the happy woodlands I knew; he is not the man I know. I ought to focus on my view in front of me. I cannot afford to shatter; not now.

The path that seemed eternal to me became split at last. Wispy, withered trees blocked the remaining path ahead forming two visible options. Like light and dark, hot, or cold, it is always left or right, two opposites that you always prefer one of, it reflects what sort of person you are in a sense. I do not stop running, I cannot stop. Unlike light and dark, both v paths are identical, only one could lead to my fate. It is always right which is the first thought, but it is an instinct, like using my right hand to write these sodden feelings with ink that runs like the blood that will fade and we will forget. Left is too cliche as he knows me too well. He knows I would try to fool him by going left. Don't think about him.

Which would Copper have picked? Copper would prance and sniff the area before scurrying down a path which led to whatever he had picked the scent of. But I am no dog. I should not follow Copper's tactics, I cannot be bribed by either left or right, otherwise, I will end up in the ground with him. I must think for myself for a change, what he or Copper wants does not matter to me, they are no longer by my side to influence my thoughts. I glance at my fickle choices and I see only one way through it. If right or left is too cliche, then I will escape through the trees. I will go forward.

 If I think about it logically, I am small enough to squeeze through the gaps between the trees and fast enough to avoid the monster that chases me. I move between the trees and manage to fit through them. Only just. This would be easier for a child, but a rabbit can move faster and manoeuvre through just as well. A rabbit does not prefer one extreme or the other, they need a balance, and that is my fate too. The trees are packed together like wrongly placed jigsaw pieces. They do not work together and cannot complete the finished piece. Good thing I am good at puzzles, I can solve this. I cannot hear the footsteps any longer, I must have lost him, as I have lost myself. Who am I?

I come to a clearing, where there is nothing around me except for a bundle of depressed trees and my shaken soul, alone with my thoughts for the first time in what feels like a lifetime. Where in hell am I? I see light at the end of the path of the tangled branches, ash, and snow. Is this what they mean by the light at the end of the tunnel? Or is it something else? Am I finally joining the dead in an eternal dance amongst mortals? Will I also watch them thrive and prance towards their unknowing death, stuck in an endless loop of recollection of an unfulfilled life? This is not the case; I will not die. Surely not. Once I decided to run, I suppose I had killed off the rest of my life or any chances of survival. I have left hell and am now mindlessly wandering in my own limbo. Only I can decide whether I go up or down. If I go back, I will be trapped. 

If I go forward, I will be free. I feel scared, but I feel godly too. For the first time, I feel hopeful, as if this light could give me a chance to cleanse myself of a controlled spirit. It could be a chance for somebody else, somebody better than I - a dead figure that longs for a soul and another chance may be in luck today. As the blood pours out of me, as does my regret and my past. I wish this moment lasted forever, but rabbits are mortal.

She is pulled to the ground as if she is caught prey. She breathes heavily, she is not relieved, sad, or happy. She is relieved, reassured that there is hope, she got as far as the light at the end of a haunted forest filled with the death of a tragic past and spirits that cling towards anything reminiscent of their mortality. As she is dragged out of the forest, she is as silent as death. No more words will come of the flawed rabbit.