Anthology by Jang Yong Hak

Once upon a time, there was a cave deep, deep in the mountains. There, in a flower-like house of seven colours, lived a rabbit. The rabbit lived unaware that his walls were made of white marble. With no hole out of which to leave, he was stuck deep beneath the earth, not even knowing how deep down he was. It was a mystery how these rocks inside came to be so strangely arrayed, but a thin streak of sunlight seeped through a crevice and cast down resplendent rapids of light, as if it was passing through a prism. The rabbit had grown up completely ignorant of all unhappiness. Because here, there was nothing but these seven beautiful colours of the rainbow.

Those seven beautiful colours poured out of something like a window in the ceiling. There came a time when he would barely notice this, but start to feel itchy, somewhere, and would start to miss something, though not knowing why. That is to say, that he may have been deep beneath the earth, but even so, he had reached adolescence, and his mind that had once wandered out now withdrew back inside.

 “How beautiful the outside world must be, that it can make such lovely light pour in…” he thought.

Could this be an epiphany? Nay, it was a revolution. The stone house, that had had always seemed so beautiful and charming, suddenly appeared worthless. An owl hooted in the Garden of Eden. But no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find an exit to the outside world. The rocks would not move, no matter how much he beat at them and thrust himself against them, tears streaming down his face. They were the ice-cold walls of a prison cell. Only, he should have realised before that he was trapped down there.

How did he come to live here? He had no idea. He had never even thought about such a complex issue. No matter how much he searched his memory, the only thing he could find was those seven colours. Inside his memory muddled with the seven colours of the rainbow, there was some world that gave him some feeling of something infinite, but he didn’t know if that was why he was feeling as he did about the outside world he was imagining before his eyes.

 “The truth is I can’t have lived here all along.”

This was the only conclusion he could come to. And so, he became certain that there was indeed an outside world.

 “The truth is I came in from the outside world. Just like the light streaming in…”

His ears, flopped down in rumination, started to waver inadvertently, and then sprung up as if in surprise. It was his birthday. He wasn’t even happy about this; he just stared vacantly at the window, no longer even thinking about finding an escape. His long, drooping ears sprung up once in surprise and didn’t know how to come back down again.

Pressing down on his trembling heart, he carefully stood up. With quiet footsteps, he went and stood beneath the window. He stood on tiptoe and tried to reach up as high as he could. His hands touched nothing but thin air. He stuck them out further. But still, they didn’t touch a thing. His heart was beating so loudly it seemed to fill the room.

He thought a strange thought and went back to reaching for the window, looking down behind him. He was terrified and tried to shout but the words wouldn’t come out. The whole room started to spin. Petrified, he drew back and collapsed right there.

For days and nights, he lay there, unable to get up. The thought that had come to him on his birthday had been so terrifying that he was now suffering from a severe fever. “What if I can’t get out through the window?” he had thought. He had finally realised this extraordinary truth.