The Last Day

What a sorrowful man meeting such a sorrowful end as I. To lament now would seem to be frivolous, for around me the world is meeting such a sorrowful end, our fates enshrined for the first time since inception. The last day, the final hour of all, brought upon us by gods too cruel or too else occupied to give any such notions as pity or leverage.

It began only days ago, with proclamations from the priests, all in unison describing their prophetic dreams of finality and despair. The gods, they said, had deemed our world forfeit, and as such had allowed us but a small amount of time to find our peace before it was taken away through a great destruction. The details were vague, but the concurrence was final. There were riots, of course, and attempts at appeasement. Many simply wailed and cried. I had my mead. I had always had my mead. It seemed as good a comfort as any in such a moment. And as I awoke this morning with a head as numb and deplete of comfort and hydration as my body would allow, I watched as the gods made good upon their decision. 

The serenity of dawn's blue heavens were torn as paper, a great rift of crimson glare split across the face of the cosmos above, and dark rains as onyx lashed and smothered the earth. A cacophonous boom drowned out even the loudest shrieks of the panicked masses, and people simply fled in vast numbers towards shelter, or wherever madness drove their souls. I grabbed for my bottle and ran from the village, fled the others, and through the slickened clawing pathways turned vile by the torrents I made my way down the hillside until I found myself at some respite under the forest bridge. As best place as any I suppose, as best place as a man can find to sit and wait for the end of all things to come. I suckled on the nursing teat of my dram, and allowed its lying pleasantries to overtake and cloud my head, to birth in me a foggy warmth of refuge from the calamity.

And at these ultimates of longing I had but only one wish, one prevailing vanity to cling my soul upon, to be with my Joanna once more. If only to see her face this one more time, or perhaps to proselytise for forgiveness, to take back the years and cast the cursed bottle away as she had begged me time and again, before my favour was apparent and she left me to my drink and loneliness. Perhaps I even thought of her selfishly, to allow permission for my true feelings of gratitude for this cursing of the gods. To finally bring about an ending to this, and to my loneliness without her, without the world in which she still was by my side. And still upon the dram I drank.

And so alone and squalid did I squat, nestled beneath the lumber planks amid the flowing mire of earth and leaves that slowly rose up and around, as the thunder shouted and the black rains roared and the world whimpered and wailed. And the more I drank the more I wished for the end to come.

And then the periphery of movement roused me from my regrets. Amidst the blackening tar of clay and wood that flowed about my feet, a wriggling mass of spotless fur, brilliant white and and shining as silk, as though the rays of the sun had broken the ruined sky to shine upon it and it alone. And as I watched and as it writhed, its form began to clear, to mold itself into life and shape before me. And now sitting calm and still upon the listless marshy surface. as if with no qualm, perfectly poised and delicate in grace, a brilliant white Hare was perched on its haunch. Another day and its presence would have been nothing but an omen of dread, an aberrant seer of ill tidings, but from within the chaos of the end of all things there was no sense of displace or whimsy in its emergence. Not moving, only sitting, sparkling brilliantly in the cramped gloom under the rotting, breaking planks. It regarded upon me with shining blue lit eyes, so bright and brilliant within the darkness, two splendorous souls peering to me with intent that was fierce. And as those crystal eyes gazed into mine I was transfixed by the creature's beauty.

‘She waits for you Matthew.’

A soft voice whispered and whickered, cutting through the crackling rain and winds. It was calm and fatherly and edged with age and wisdom.

‘Who are you?’ I noticed not as the bottle slipped from out of my grasp and was lost to the swirling torrent around my knees. I was suddenly sobered with awe and fear as I spoke back to the Hare with a voice that seemed to dispel the din of the storm. And once again that soothing tone floated across the chaos of the maelstrom that was encompassing the world, as if seeking my ears alone with purest synergy.

‘Follow me Matthew, follow me and I shall show you.’

It rose with haughty haste and turned and darted out the darkness. It passed from beneath the bridge's breaking pylons and out into the deathly sleet. Although its sight should have then been lost to me, the brilliant white fur was as a beacon, dazzling in starlight of its own minute furnace in the darkness of the storm. And from just past the safety of the bridge it stopped and waited, never turning back, only insistent for my compliance to follow forth and out into the cataclysmic tempest bringing about an end to all the world. 

Entranced, I stood from the encroaching bog around me, the thick mud sliding from my sodden, cold clothes, and I made my way out from the scant shelter of the bridge. Not a moments thought did I give any regard to the bottle now lost beneath the thickened swirl. Its promise of peace now a long lost refrain to the bewilderment of the majestic Hare that sought out my affections, and into the dying world I did follow.

It moved with splendor and leapt with finesse as it weaved its path into the trees, there trunks were darkened masts that shivered and moaned against the flying spears of rain that pelted as arrows. The deathly chorus was but a hum to my ears, and stumbling at first, but then finding myself in some sort of canter, I followed the dazzling sight, and deeper into the forest did we dance.

‘Joanna?’ My whispered request slicing through the blackening air.

‘Yes Matthew. I will show you.’

Through broken branch and slickened earth the Hare went forth and I did follow, never tripping nor ever losing the momentum my feed had found in this pursuit.

‘She lives? She lives still throughout this?’ The promise of Joanna, to look upon her this final time, to spend this moment by her side consumed in all my thought, and not the pain of lashing wood, or spikes of frozen rain, or godly throws of thundering doom that cut across the skies above would break my chase. The brilliant white of the Hare did burrow deeper on into the dark, encroached by swinging pines and cracking rocks as the world cried out in its dissolve. Then after some unknown time we came upon a clearing. Not just trees and rocks gave way, but so too the screaming wind and blinding sleet, as if divided out of nature and set aside into its own seclusion. The noise was dimmer still, and in this tranquil space, aglow with its own primal luminesce, there was a sudden sense of finality that stoked not just fear but mortal limit. And there in the centre of this small respite the Hare sat still. It was turned to face me, calm as the light from some far distant star, peaking through the night's curtained clouds.

‘Would this be your end Matthew?’ The Hare’s voice still soft and dispossessed of fear.

‘This… Is this not the end?’ I looked about me from the haven of the hollow, beyond it the world still shuddered and shook with all the temerity of the gods wrath.

‘It could be. Or it could not.’ The Hare replied.

‘Please, no riddles, tell me. Where is my Joanna?’ I looked about the wooded space, but we were alone within its shelter.

‘She… Has ended Matthew. She lives, yes, but not for you. There was once a love she had, Matthew. But love is a fragile thing. It grows and learns and wants and dreams, but its soul can be broken by time. Hers had its time Matthew. But you need not yet have yours. This world around you may not need such end.’

‘Why? Why do you saying these things?’ I found myself at last to scream, the solemn cries slightly wavering, as though the winds did seem at last to penetrate the shelter of the glen.

‘You must make your choice. For once, for all.’

It was then I felt its presence within my fingers, something I thought lost before. Once again the bottle had returned into my clasp. It's sheening glass removed of dirt and grime that would have befouled it when left in the mire underneath the bridge. It’s newfound cleanliness betraying its very nature.

‘Let it go Matthew. Let it not be your end. You have lost Joanna, yes. But it need not be the end of all things.’

As I stared to my hand, trembling in its grip about the dram's neck, I felt the booming of the world around me commence, as though its very dying were fighting for life. But not its life or mine, but the life of the hold it would retake over me were I to let it.

‘There is no life, no world… no more without her. The poison took the world from me…’ I whispered ghostly, not to the Hare but to my hand.

‘The world still lives Matthew, and so do you.’

And there it was, not an ending of days as I had wished, but the choice before me to end these days I had made for myself. With no return to what was before, but perhaps to remake a world my own. And I stared hard at the bottle clasped within my grasp. I stared and thought, and trembled within.