Farewell now you are a rabbit

I spent yesterday up on the brink of the fog, chatting to Laurent. He died in the summer, and now occupies an area of the near mist as a big blue rabbit. His blue fur and his rabbit's body are totally in keeping with Laurent as I knew him when he was a man.

He has lost his accent, which he said was just something that happened.

I used to go up there a fair bit, to talk to anyone hanging on the borders of the mist area. They don't often see travellers coming through to the village, and they sometimes come and talk. Laurent had been eating a sapling, just inside the fog. I saw his outline clearly from the field.

I asked him, didn’t he want to be further inside the mist? Aren’t you keen to talk to the people who must pass through the long fog to get here? But he said he wasn’t ready yet.

It seems to be voluntary - the goading and tempting of travellers, as they make their weary way to the village. When I pressed Laurent for more information about the roles and responsibilities in the fog, he said it was a bit like a real job.

He said, it's like you can progress in a company, if you want to - get promoted and all that stuff. You can put yourself in a position of more responsibility - which in this case would be a place closer to a path, for example, or near a body of water, which means travellers will see your reflection, and hear your voice altered by the presence of still water. Or, in the same way, you can hang back and do your own thing, keep your head down a bit and stay out of trouble. You can either hang back until you have more experience, or just because you like the quiet. A bit like in a company.

It was only a bit like work, he added. The analogy didn't go too far because the whole thing was just a real pleasure in the mist. Unlike work, which could be pleasurable, but more often, at least as far as he could remember, it was a source of boredom and even pain.

He said the mist was not like that at all. Not in any respect. Once you're dead, the mist is like a really nice atmosphere, he told me. You don't like leaving it for too long. Although, of course, he was happy to come and bear it for a chat with me. We used to be very close. Close enough that I knew he was thinking about becoming dead.

He told me about dying without me having to ask. He said it was very consensual. In the village, he told me, death is by consent with yourself and with the notion of the end of life. He had agreed with himself it was time to go over to the misty side. He said he didn't know what he would become. He expected, I guess, to continue just being himself, but in a more fixed way. Did you think they would just give you a lamp and a costume? I asked him.

He said he didn’t really know.

I find it hard to remember all the details of my own journey to the village. I recall that most of the people I encountered held lamps. They asked me questions about my life. I was asked, over and over again, if I remembered John. And I did remember John, but my John was actually Jon. I was asked that by a woman in a kind of costume - like a medieval servant. Then I spoke to a fishing dog. The dog asked me if I had ever visited the museum of butchers. I had not. The dog then asked if I had ever visited the museum of sofas, which I also had not. The dog questioned me for over an hour about the museums, and I hadn’t been to a single one of them. I tried to remember, as I was speaking to Laurent, if the dog had had a lamp.

They don't give everyone a lamp, Laurent told me. Sometimes they give you a colour. I got this soft blue fur, which stands out beautifully inside the mist.

I admired his fur for a while. He hopped about, it was like he felt cold out of the mist, but not normal coldness. More like something that needed to be rebalanced in him. He hopped and hopped like you or I might stamp our feet to get warm. the hopping didn't seem to work for Laurent, just as I have never found foot stamping to work, but I still do it.

We talked about his belongings from when he was alive, and he twitched his nose and hopped around even more. It feels weird to think about those things, he told me. I can still remember holding a cup, isn't that funny? He said. Like now I have died, things like that, physical things, are ghostly to me. I sense them in memories. I sense tables. I sense plates and my little cup. I feel the ghost of the wardrobe where my clothes were. That is a terrible ghost, the wardrobe. The smell! You have no idea how strange it is, he told me, to picture the inside of that wardrobe. I am fully haunted if I think of that, and the wardrobe is huge and scaly and without any light inside it. A heavy thing.

It was a nice wardrobe, I told him. Very serviceable still. Someone will be making good use of it no doubt, I told him.

He agreed that this reuse of his things was good practice, but he did not seem happy about discussing the wardrobe. Instead, he started in on the cup again.

I can remember holding my cup, he said. And listening to you or Maureen or one of the others, just talking. He stopped hopping then. He stayed very still, as if he had just remembered something important. He said, it was lovely to sit and listen to you all talking. I enjoyed it very much. Such gentle voices, he said. Such calm words.

He told me to say Hi to Maureen. Tell her I said hi, but don't send her up here. I might not be around again.

I agreed to tell Maureen, and we said our goodbyes. I watched as Laurent hopped away, gamely at first, but then racing desperately for the curling mists. If I want him again, I'll have to go in there, I realised. Into the mist. I'm not sure I'll do that.

It's good to see him, but as I was walking back down the hill, I found that I missed him worse than ever. I had to start all over again the process of being without Laurent.

He's a rabbit now, I told myself. A blue rabbit. I resolved to leave things alone.

Credit - Emilie Fournet