Chapter 6

The next morning, Mano convinced David to take his sketchbook to work with him. The rabbit seemed to think that practice was something that should occur more than twice a month.

“Selzer won’t like it,” David said.

“Just tell him you’re deducing new ways to bring in customers,” Mano said. “I’ll put him in his place if he tries to argue.”

“Um… his place is at the top,” David said. “Selzer is the boss.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you worry too much?”

David frowned. “It still seems like a risk.”

“Life is like a chess game, David. You have to know when to take risks.”

David didn’t feel like arguing. He was tired and a little off his game; he wasn’t nearly as hung-over as he usually was. He also didn’t know the rules of chess.

In the store, Mano instructed David to draw the animals. He spent an hour drawing a bird-mouse, and it still looked more like a disfigured pinecone.

When Selzer asked David what he was doing, David said exactly what Mano had told him to, though David mumbled what might have been “diluting” instead of “deducing.” Selzer still seemed to get the picture, and he returned to his office without even starting an argument first.

Next David tried drawing the Hydra. Instead of resembling anything like a snake, or even something snake-like, it looked like a very unappetizing pile of spaghetti.

“Amanda was right,” Mano said. “You have less talent than a six-year-old child.”

“I’m trying.”

“No, you’re failing. You’re failing so badly you make other failures look like epic achievements.”

David refrained from breaking his New Kids on the Block pencil in half, but only just, and only because it was irreplaceable.

“Why don’t you rest and I’ll do today’s work?”

David looked down at his sketchbook. The pile of spaghetti made any possibility of hunger flee in disgust.

“Okay,” David said.

Mano did the work, and he did it quickly and without all the griping David insists upon doing. Then, he opened David’s sketchbook to see what the boy had accomplished. It looked even worse from his improved point of view. He did a few drawings of his own on scrap paper and compared the two. A freezing man wouldn’t have been willing to burn Mano’s work for its beauty. That same man would be afraid of putting David’s drawings to the fire, because burning them might unleash some horrible curse upon the world.

Mano looked forward to Sunday.

Even if David wasn’t interested in getting drunk that night (which was a complete impossibility, but still), his penis needed a break. If it saw anymore action right now, it might actually need hospitalization.

He paused in front of Pete’s Red Meat when he passed it, wondering if a large slab of bleeding protein would help him heal faster. Maybe he’d pitch that idea to Rodney.

David walked into the bar and sat down at an empty table. Surprisingly, Rodney hadn’t arrived yet.

You should put some cream on that when you get home, Mano thought at him from the backpack on the floor.

David grunted in agreement.

Hey, would you like to hear what Amanda thinks about during sex?

It hadn’t even occurred to David to ask that. It was almost tempting, but then he remembered all the other things Mano told him about the people in his life; none of it was pleasant.

No, thanks, David thought back. I like my blissful ignorance.

You’re right; you probably don’t want to know.

Wait, why don’t I want to know?

You just don’t.

Well, now I need to know. What does she fantasize about?

You said you didn’t want to know.

Well, now I do.

You really want to know what Amanda fantasizes about while you fuck her?

Yes! David’s curiosity was a monster raging in his butterfly-filled stomach.

There was a longer than usual pause before Mano responded.

Oh, it seems we’ll have to finish this later. Rodney’s arrived.

David didn’t argue, but he kicked the backpack for good measure.

On Sunday, Mano did exactly what he said he might and went to the library. Mano went straight to the art section and chose a stack of books. He carried them to an empty table and got started. Unlike David, Mano remembered what he read, and he could utilize it.

When he finished one stack he grabbed another. Mano stayed at the library until closing time and gave the cute librarian an affable smile when he left.

He did the same thing the next Sunday, and the Sunday after that. He read every instructional book and art history book they had. He also flirted with the cute librarian; she too was interested in art history (Of course she is, Mano thought derisively).

Once he finished reading the library’s books, Mano increased his encouragement of David’s artistic endeavors.

David entered Bob’s Pets with both his sketchbook and Mano in his backpack. Mano was right: he needed to start busting his ass if he wanted to improve.

David immediately went to work, not in the sense that he did the tasks his boss expected of him, but in the sense that he practiced drawing.

Again, David tried to draw the Hydra, but it was coming out less like a fearsome nine-headed snake and more like a tangled hairbrush.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” Mano said, looking at the completed crime against nature. “You have managed to go from having no talent to having negative talent.”

It was true. If David died tomorrow, contrary to any explanation short of a human gravitational singularity, the amount of artistic talent in the world would increase.

David dropped his implements of ocular torture and let himself fall back against the floor. Like many depressed people before him, he stared up at the ceiling. It didn’t help, but it was something to do.

“This is impossible,” David complained.

“I can show you how it should look,” Mano said.

“What?”

“I can show you how to draw.”

“You can’t draw; you’re a rabbit.”

“Give me an hour and I’ll show you what it should look like on paper.”

“Really? An hour?”

“Seriously, I only need one hour,” Mano said.

David shrugged. Either the rabbit would help him out or he could laugh at the creature’s miserable attempt at art. He secretly hoped for the latter.

Fifty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds later, David regained control of his body. It would have been a lot sooner, but Mano went out for coffee (he went to Gourmet Grinders, because he’d be damned if he’d drink that mud Hot and Ready called coffee, and then he went to Between the Lines next door, because rabbits don’t get to browse bookstores very often).

When David’s mind finished getting a hold of itself, David closed his eyes and relaxed for a moment (he also felt slightly jittery for some reason, but whatever), enjoying the feeling. He stretched his back a little. Also flexed his fingers. Finally, with no more excuses to avoid the inevitable, he opened his eyes and looked down at the sketchbook.

The Hydra looked almost like a black-and-white photograph. The details and shading seemed more accurate than real life. Even the drawing’s eyes exuded the same relentless hunger as the living creature’s.

He was awestruck. Stunned. Dumbfounded. And beyond those synonyms, he was also a little dispirited. There's nothing quite like feeling inferior to a rabbit.

The conflicting emotions welled up inside him until they could no longer be contained. Most people would wax poetic about the drawing’s beauty, or compliment the artist on his exquisite attention to detail. Maybe they would ask how he got the shading just right with only one grade of pencil. But what David said was…

“Holy fuck.”

Which actually meant David was a better poet than an artist.

“Contain yourself,” Mano said. “Your affectionate verbosity embarrasses me.”

“How… how did you do this?”

“Easy,” said Mano. “I drew what I saw.”

“I—“

“You need to draw what’s there, not what you think should be there.”

David was enlightened and confused at the same time. It was a weird feeling usually reserved for philosophers and grad students.

Even though he wasn’t positive how to proceed, David still felt inspired. After all, if a rabbit could do it, he damn well could.

Days passed and David didn’t see any improvement.

On the fifth day, David opened his sketchbook and filled the first page with what many would think was a physically handicapped starfish that also suffered some previous mental trauma. What David meant it to be was a sea monkey.

David resisted the urge to tear it into shreds. Instead, he turned to Mano.

“Will you show me again?”

“How will that help you?”

“There must be a way,” David said. “You seem like a great teacher.”

“I’m telepathic, remember? I know when you’re lying.”

David’s face turned red, but he pressed on.

“Isn’t there something you can do?”

Mano sighed. “There might be something.”

David perked up.

“Since I’ve inhabited your body before, maybe I can do it without forcing your consciousness completely out, that way you can second-handedly experience the art of translating what you see into a two-dimensional representation.”

David turned his head and looked at the rabbit with a surprisingly blank expression. “Huh?”

“I’ll drive,” Mano said. “You’ll ride shotgun.”

Well, it’s the closest to first-hand experience as I’ll ever get, David thought.

It was actually the closest to first-hand experience that was even possible, at least for the next century, until a scientific breakthrough changed the world—and marriage counseling—forever.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” Mano said. “I’ll do this for you, but only on the condition that I no longer have to do your bitch-work.”

David hesitated. He really liked not having to do, well, anything at the store. But, if he learned how to draw, he’d be able to quit this suck job and it wouldn’t even be an issue anymore.

“Agreed,” David said.

Mano gently helped David’s mind into the passenger seat. The white rabbit on the floor went into autopilot; it sat very still, and about every five minutes, it twitched its nose a bit.

Mano had to struggle to keep control. With David still inside, his body naturally tried to put him back in charge. It was like swimming against a tide of raw consciousness.

It felt very strange to David, being a spectator in his own body, but he paid attention to Mano’s technique and tried to feel what it was like to draw something that didn’t suck ass. It was an even more alien feeling than being a passenger.

He saw the sea monkeys in a way he didn’t even know was possible. The proportions were so obvious now, and details he hadn’t noticed before became apparent. The pencil flowed across the paper, a drawing growing organically from the blank page. It felt like no time at all had passed, but it was actually over an hour before Mano finished and relinquished control back to David.

David had felt what it was like to see the world through open eyes. Now he knew what to do.