The Hare

My identity? Once, I would have immediately given you an answer, told you my name with greatest pride, hoping for it to be spread all around the world. Now, after the events that I got wrapped up in have turned to the worst, I am hoping for it to never be spoken out loud again.

Writing these words is scary and even now that all seems lost, I still in part refuse to fight my lust for fame.

I am an artist. I have always been an artist, a painter, but in the past, people have never paid me any attention or thought of me in any way. My creations were laughed at and my name faded away in people’s minds like a dying echo. I dreamt of glory, of recognition, of a purpose for my existence. Yet, I only painted pictures nobody wanted, picture of landscapes and things no one cared about.

My parents died when I was still very young and I am glad they did not have to witness my sad path of life. Some might disagree with me, might try to explain that they are watching over me from the heavens, next to the Lord and his angels, and that everything would turn out well if only I showed faith and started living a pious life.

Angels? The Lord? Oh, you clueless, blind fools...

I am unspeakably glad to know that my parents lie buried deep down in the ground, rotting away. I am glad that they have not been taken to the hellish planes existing out there... Pulling at our minds from time to time...

I am aware of the fact that you might think of me as just some madman. And... yes, I have probably gone mad. After what I have lived through, after what I am about to experience, no soul would be free of insanity.

But it has not always been like this.

Growing up in the poorer parts of Irkutsk, Russia, without much education, without friends, I still managed to always retain a clear mindset.

I knew exactly, what I wanted:

I wanted to give my life to painting, wanted to create worlds on canvas that could set me free from the meagre alleyways of the old city, worlds that could give people hope in these times of silent turmoil. That is why I started to learn the handling of brush and paint at a young age, trying to make my dream become reality.

But I had to realise that people did not want colourful paintings, their minds having been poisoned by the ways of thought in this age. So, I made ends meet with small orders - portraits mainly - that I half-heartedly executed. Despite that, they seemed to be my best-selling goods.

About ten years must have passed since someone carried the first painting out of the small atelier in the narrow alleyway I lived in.

People were already restless and a fear of the future seemed to grow inside their hearts. Did they dread a third world war? Or did they even feel that other, more ominous things had started moving whilst all eyes were looking for kulaks?

Either way, I did not care.

The past years feel hazy in retrospect:

To me, it did not make a difference whether it rained or snowed, whether the sun shone brightly or the winds were wheezing. I just painted. Mountains and valleys, deserts and forests. I had almost never left my hometown, but read many books and magazines, trying to grasp the beauty of the outside world. My pockets might have been empty, but my mind gave way to such great creativity that even I myself got scared at times.

It all started about a month ago, when I set out on one of my rare trips to the countryside, intending to capture the impressive splendour of nature on my canvas first hand. Therefore, only armed with my easel and the bare necessities, I set out to leave the miserable alleyways and streets and the miserable people behind and ventured into the outdoor nature.

Not long after finding a spot on top of a sunny hill, I drove my easel into the ground. The sun started to go down after a while and began to colour the sky in a burning red. The juicy green hills with their many trees reaching as far as the eyes could see gave me the feeling of standing amidst an oasis of blooming life. My brush slid over the canvas, top to bottom, left to right, all ways around, like a skater on a layer of ice.

I immensely enjoyed painting this wonderful world of peace, not having to waste my time with those unpleasant contemporaries that sometimes appeared at my doorstep. The main part of the picture was already finished when night slowly fell, suddenly making green strings of light appear all over the sky.

The northern lights I witnessed were beautiful enough to make me throw away the unfinished painting, starting a new one. With quick, precise strokes of my brush I bound the neon-green, huge circles to my canvas. Perhaps the excitement clouded my senses or perhaps I simply did not know back then how unnatural northern lights so far away from polar regions and in such strange shapes were.

I guess I would not have cared even if I had known and so I did not start to wonder about it. It almost felt as if the painting alone became my whole world, as if all important things happened only there. I went on and on for a long time, only looking for a barn to sleep in very late at night.

The next day, I stood on the hilltop again, painting more and more of the countless lights that were becoming more distorted and brighter, pulsating, contrasted by the darkness of space, until my fingers got sore and I sunk down to the ground, exhausted.

On the third day, I made the mistake that would lead me into the peril I am in right now. The mistake that would rob me of the prospect of a quick death.

The pills had probably not been clean and well too cheap. Getting them had not been the huge effort I had suspected in the beginning, either. I therefore assumed that they would not have the desired effects.

Never before had I taken drugs, not even a small sip of alcohol or a quick cigarette, but the pieces of “modern art” some colleagues created under the influence of intoxicating substances undeniably sold rather well. And there it was again, the lust for glory. For recognition. For admiration. The lust that finally made me go off the deep end.

The pills tasted juicy and delicate, dissolving on my tongue into powder, in the end disappearing. It did not take long for the substances to get into my bloodstream, making me drop into the green grass, my brush in one hand, a small empty canvas in the other.

My mind travelled towards the sky, towards the eternal expanses above. Slowly, a warmth ran through my veins, sharpening my senses and elating my thoughts. The vast northern lights pulsated in rhythm with my heartbeats. Their round shapes appeared to be the gateway to another world, unexplored parts of space, to moons and stars and quasars and planets...

It felt like flying, into the vastness of space, into ecstasy, feeling the touch of eternity. And for the first time in the last ten years I had forgotten all about my brush and my canvas, as I vividly imagined travelling those colourful worlds by myself, knowing that I had to take in as many impressions as possible to enrich the rest of my mortal life.

Should I share them with all the lifeless people? Should I really capture this beauty and carry it to those waiting for an age of death? They wouldn’t care anyway, wouldn’t care about how I felt and what I gazed at. Certainly, paintings of this magnificence would end as miserably as my other works of splendid nature had before.

But, what if they didn’t? If people realized the perfection of those worlds I saw in those moments? I would get rich, my name engraved into the annals of art’s history, next to famous people like van Gogh and Picasso.

Whilst floating farther and farther into the pure grandiosity of the starry skies, a faint thumping entered my thoughts. Like a festering ulcer it tainted my experience, my revelation. The ground seemed to shake and other lights appeared in front of me, amongst the northern lights, flickering and blueish white and cold.

Or did I imagine things?

Wasn’t there something slipping down to the earth from between the heavens? Did not a shade escape those alien flashes?

No, I must have been mistaken, not long till those irregularities disappeared and my thoughts were captured again by those green streaks, running through the night sky as long strings. Space was calling me again and those shining green colours seemed like a cradle of life itself, like a source of pure energy. The stars were glowing, quasars and nebulae surrounding me, no thumping left anymore, only silence and security. I wished with all I had for these moments to never pass, so that I could be in a state of pure bliss till the end of my days, though that was not for me to have.

I felt a presence, got up, whilst everything around me appeared to be spinning.

And there it was, sitting on another hilltop, not thirty metres away.

It was... a... hare?

Or... was I mistaken? The world seemed unreal, the skies were still rushing past my inner eye.

And amidst the turmoil... a... a... hare?

Light-brown pelt, protruding shaggy rabbit ears, somewhat... rotten. The head straight up, inspecting its surroundings from almond-shaped eyes...

Was that even... a hare?

It vanished and reappeared.

For the small moment it was gone, my innards grew cold and a deep primal fear of an immeasurable danger surged inside me. It disappeared as quickly as it had come. Peace returned and there was just a hare. Looking at the world. Inspecting the world...

As if it was looking for something beyond the hills.

It disappeared for another time, the feeling inside me surging again...

Wasn’t some different being scurrying, wreathing atop that hill? A viscous... mass? A mucous body? Armoured limbs? Hairy claws? A swarm? A fluid? Hands, feet, antennae? Eyes and mouths? A gorging maw of scum?

No, just a hare...

A hare sitting beneath northern lights, the grass around it shining like the stars I wanted to escape to.

Was I getting blind? Or did my eyes not want to grasp the thing being there? Was my mind... protecting me?

I grew cold again. And then, I noticed the ground below my feet spinning, the sky distorting, time slowing down and a being moving, back on that hill.

I had probably taken too many pills... Why did I imagine those things?

It had to have been the pills.

Just a hare.

The animal sat over there, looking around, its rabbit ears listening, its nose shaking, smelling, probing. I did not want to see it anymore, looked back into the skies, towards the milky way. A thousand white dots, forming ungraspable beauty.

Shouldn’t I paint those stars? Shouldn’t I ignore the thing on the hilltop? I took my brush, wanted to capture those celestial bodies, but I then I felt it again.

This presence, this disgusting presence. Was I imagining quacking, clicking sounds? No, I had to calm down, I had to go back to my stars.

Yet there it sat on that hill.

Just a hare...

Why.. why not paint it? It suddenly felt so logical, so... clever. When the animal vanished again, it seemed like shapes of something horrible started to show.

Did the pill’s influence fade?

Panic got hold of me and my heart started hammering away. What if there was no hare? If not the drugs made me feel sick and afraid? If they protected me... making me... not see it?

I took the rest of the pills and all got well again.

The sky opened up my mind and the hare seemed majestic and noble.

Why... not paint it? Why not? Stars I could always see, but this beautiful animal, not possibly being something bad, that, I could paint.

That, I could paint.

A good idea.

Perhaps I should...

Perhaps I should...

Get closer? To get more detail? To create a more vivid painting?

It was just a hare, after all.

A little bit fluffy, puffy, adorable.

Harmless.

Just one step, I had to capture its whole natural perfection.

Slowly, I rose up.

Took a step forward.

Another one.

Closing in, stalking.

The animal did not move, it just sat there.

When I took another step, the world started spinning again and I fell. I did not feel hitting the ground. My hands dug deep into the grass, already being covered by thick morning dew. I was very close to the... hare...

Felt for my brush that had slipped from my fingers during the fall. Took the canvas that had gotten bent because I had landed on it.

Then, I painted.

I painted... the... hare.

It was so... beautiful, its brown pelt... its brown eyes, bold, watchful, covered in mucus... its stubby nose... its maws, its rabbit ears... its fluffy paws and buds, its small tail.

Its... tongues...

So beautiful.

I painted and painted, losing myself in fantastic worlds, captured an ungraspable perfection.

The next morning I awoke, perplexed.

I must have travelled a bit in the night as I came to my senses beneath an old oak tree, the brush in my hand, the canvas nowhere to be seen.

I had slept off my intoxication.

And I had dreamt of the hare, my thoughts had created silly images. The hare had flown away, its rabbit ears flapping like wings, away through flashing northern lights and into the depths of space. Naturally, I worried about my sanity, having never before thought up such crap. I was a painter, but my paintings and visions had always been grounded in reality.

Not this strange and crazy.

I swore to never take those pills again. It took some time for me to regain my sense of direction and I got aware of that fact that the hilltop was not far away from my current location.

However, there wasn’t a hilltop anymore. The landscape looked chipped away, an area of pure level resting in its place. What had happened over there? Did the locals plan on building a farm on that spot? Or did the landscape disappear during last night’s events? Whilst... I had been there?

Where was my painting? I knew that I had to find it, surely it would explain everything. It would show a hare, looking at its surroundings.

Just a hare.

When I heard the scream, my blood froze in my veins. Inhumanly high pitched, drenched with terror, as if somebody’s soul was being ripped away by the devil himself. I stumbled forwards, circled the hill and its flattened top and finally I saw him.

An old man, laughing manically, sounding almost like a goat. His wide eyes seemed dead. Saliva ran out of his open mouth. He was shaking, holding up a lighter he probably had used to light a cigarette.

However, something different was burning at his feet.

It was the canvas I had had with me in the past night.

Just a hare I had painted... or hadn’t I?

“What did you see?” he cried in a coarse voice.

When my eyes met his, I saw a spark of clarity reappearing, a small flame of sanity. It felt as if every last particle of that man held me responsible for all the evils in this world and bottomless hate for me and my existence burned inside his gaze.

He took up a rock whilst the remainders of the painting turned to ashes. Before I had the chance to act, the old man smashed the chunk into his face, again and again, until he collapsed, surrounded by a growing puddle of red liquid, whilst his mind faded away.

I grabbed my things and hurried to get away, away from the hill and that corpse, its grotesque image tainting every future second of my life.