The Rabbit Hunt

The Rabbit Hunt

By Kiko Korea

He lay there, listening to the continents move. But he had to get up.
The sand was burning his face.

The midday sun beat down heavy on Stanley, or whoever he was. He didn't
know how long he'd been there but the parched, featureless desert
seemed as familiar as blinking. Blistered meat in a sharp shirt and tie
Stanley never felt worse. His hair cluttered his face as much as his
existence blotted the landscape. Stanley rummaged through his pocket
clutching at some semblance of a life. He slowly noticed the Berretta
Cougar L Pistol in his left hand, fully loaded, ten bullets. This
wasn't his call. Stanley was getting more agitated. Poor Stanley, he
was now sweating more through anxiety and fear than heat.

He slumped to the floor trying to clear his head with the short change
in altitude. The gun was always the sticking point. Stanley had never
held a gun before, if he was holding one now, he was sure to be in
trouble.

The desert wasn't occupied with slouching Stanley. It was only going
about its daily chores. Shifting a few hundred million tonnes of sand
here, a few hundred million tonnes there. The local flora was also
doing its own thing. The succulents were fighting off water loss by
gradual surface evaporation and the shrubs; well the shrubs were
hoarding a small wooden shack.

Stanley stood up straight away. He was sure it wasn't there an
infinitesimal amount of time ago. Stanley was rough round the edges
since his last thought. He approached the shack, and, from his crazy
recesses, raised the gun. He edged slowly towards the lowly derelict
cautiously wiping his brow. He was now standing outside the hut's
entrance, a doorframe. The inside was empty except a large steel
canteen of water. Stanley ran in and immediately started to gorge on
the ice-cold liquid. He lost his cool a little but he felt better, more
relaxed. The heat was now off him in the shack's shadows, he felt more
at ease loosening his black tie. He slouched and sighed, sitting down
at the hut entrance. He knew the water wouldn't last him much longer
but it made him feel so much better. He slowly sipped more water,
hoping it would help him think a little clearer. It didn't help he was
screwed, how can you get the answer to C without A + B. His plan was to
wait at the hut and hope for human contact to pass by.

A million years had past. Nothing changed. The plants still turned the
sun's energy into food, the mountains still the looked the same and
Stanley was still sitting at the door entrance alone. His eyes
flickered as he turned his attention to a small Fringe Toed Lizard
staring up at him. "Are you lost too?" Said Stanley
sarcastically.

"No not at all, how can I be, I'm a lizard of the desert." Internet
porn seemed light-years away.

"Did you just speak to me?"

"Yes I did Stanley," said the Lizard as he licked his left eyeball
clean.

"I'm going mad. I'm going so frickin' mad."

"Your not mad Stanley. I've been sent here to help you."

"You are just a figment of my imagination and I'm going to ignore you.
I'm going to sit here and drink my water." The water was all gone and
Stan began to sob.

"You are pathetic Stanley. You got yourself in this mess, get out of
it."

"How? Take a look around. There aren't many opportunities little
lizard."

"Stanley, do you know how much rainfall falls on this desert in just
one year." The lizard licked his right eyeball clean. "Just over 100 mm
of rainfall. Not only that but it peaks at 48?C in the day and drops as
low as -5?C at night. Now Stanley you take a look around at the world
that flourishes." The lizard was right. The plants thrived and the
scorpions danced. "They are all here because they take their
opportunities, no matter how small. Now listen Stanley, I'm here to
help you, but I need you to help yourself. Do you understand me
Stanley?"

Stanley stopped sobbing he just stared at this small stocky lizard no
bigger than his boot. The lizard just stared up waiting for an answer,
an answer Stanley slowly began to mutter. It was a slow interglacial.
"What do you want me to do?"

"I knew it Stanley, I knew you were a sensible guy. You need to come
with me now."

"Now, now as in this very moment. Hey I'm walking." Sure enough Stanley
was and he'd been doing it for several days now. The hut was long gone
and so was the fear.

"Who are you little lizard?"

"I, Stanley, am a spectral projection of your spiritual guide, but you
can call me Pete."

"I don't understand."

"Try not to Stanley, most people go through life without ever trying to
understand it. To put it simply Stanley everyone has his or her own
inbuilt distress beacon. You, for reasons that you are trying to
discover, have yours beating faster than a desert rat's heart. That
before you ask Stanley is very fast."

"Does that mean Pete the lizard&;#8230;."

"&;#8230;. Just call me Pete. This isn't Sesame Street. I may look
like a lizard but I'm not actually a lizard. Do you understand? Now
carry on."

"Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay, where was I? Oh yes I remember. Does this mean,
Peter, that this whole world around me is in my head?"

"Stanley, you asked me here. You, for some unfathomable reason, see me
as a lizard, and that I don't want understand. I don't like being a
lizard. I'm small, vulnerable and insignificant; in that respect
Stanley you and I are the same. The both of us are small, vulnerable
and insignificant. But don't feel disheartened Stanley. Those three
words are the basis for humanity. You may not feel small, vulnerable or
insignificant but you are." Peter stopped for a moment and looked up at
the sun. Stanley also stopped but stared at Pete.

"What is it Pete? Do you know why I'm here? Why I've got this gun in my
pocket?"

"You see that big ball of gas in the sky. It is composed of hydrogen
and helium. Two of the simplest elements Stanley and remnants of the
big bang, that occurred some 13 billion years ago. Life on this planet
wouldn't exist if it weren't for the reactions going on in that big
ball of gas. The last 4.5 billion years of earth history would never
have happened if it wasn't for that big ball of gas. It never looks it
from down here but that sun is huge. Do you know Stanley that it is 1.3
million times as heavy as the earth? I don't know about you but that
makes me feel rather small. You see Stanley everything's relevant, you
know, this insignificant stuff. You don't feel insignificant do you
Stanley? The tallest mountains in the world don't seem insignificant do
they Stanley? But the truth is they are and so is that sun." The sun
suddenly disappears and everything goes pitch black and very cold. "The
sun's gone Stanley. The atmosphere will soon dissipate from this
planet. Life will cease to exist and earth will suddenly become another
chunk of floating ice hurtling through space. The even more sickening
thing is that, outside this solar system, far beyond the reaches of
man, no one, or thing, has even noticed that the sun has disappeared
from their sky." The sun suddenly appeared again and Stanley becomes
momentarily disoriented. He was no longer in the desert but in a
dilapidated inner city warehouse with the bright sunlight penetrating
the windowpanes. Pete sits on his shoulder.

"It was in my head wasn't it Pete."

"Everything is Stanley, but was it real in the sense of how we
understand real. No it wasn't, this is where you come from and this is
your life."

"I remember. My name isn't really Stanley, I'm not really in the desert
and, and&;#8230;." A look desperate worry transcends over the now
nameless man's face "&;#8230;. I'm a complete loser. I'm a complete
deadbeat, Pete. I've got no job, my wife's left me for that gym fit guy
and I've been evicted from my house for dodging the payments. What am I
gonna' do Pete? Pete where ya' gone?" Pete was no more. Sucked back
into the oblivion. "Jeez', no wonder I didn't want to come back." The
man looked at the gun, black and seductive. On the floor lay the metal
canteen, simmering with the saccharine fragrance of cheap booze. The
tension in the nameless man's grip on the gun tightened. He may never
have held a gun before but now he knew what it was for. All self-doubt
was gone. The nameless man raised the gun to his head and pulled the
trigger. The bullet entered the nameless man's brain and on its way out
the other side erased everything. The nameless man fell to the ground,
the sun went out and the rabbit hunt ended.