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I am a rat (story, not a pic)

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(A rat sits and considers its lot)


They say in New York City, you're never more'n three feet away from a rat. That's at any time, no matter where you are, statistically, there's probably a rat there too...yeah. Like me. A rat, that is. Near to you. Three feet away. That's close enough that you could probably lean forward, stick out your hand, and be touching it. The rat. Me. Touching. Me. You could, that is. You could feel my pulse racing away at a million miles an hour, kind of like the pace of the city, itself. You could touch my nose, and find it hot and dry. You could look me right in my beady little eyes and.... Uh. Well, I don't know, step on me, probably, because that's what people do to rats. So, I'm sitting here, right, three feet away from someone--I wonder if it works both ways, eh? Statistically speaking, just. How close am I to a human right now? It probably doesn't work both ways, though, because I can get deeper into the city than you. I'm not stuck on the surface. I just come up here sometimes, to eat, to forage, to sit here where I'm sitting, where it's warm and I'm three feet away from...you.


Anyway, so...yeah. I'm just sitting here, because I'm full, and what'm I s'posed to be doing, anyway? It's not like I've got anywhere to be. Some rats have jobs, likesay--you didn't know that, did you? You probably thought all we have to do is eat and sleep and put our back feet in our mouths the way we do, and you say it's disgusting. But we don't--some of us have jobs. Sometimes when we're there, three feet away from you, in your walls, we're not just THERE--we're at work, see? We get your insulation out of your walls sometimes, to make a nest with, and it's a job, or we get your food and take that too. Well, what did you think I was gonna say? That we've got doctors, and lawyers, and engineers, just like you? Yeah, like that'd happen. Well, we do have doctors, sort of...but not in the way you do. Not so good. It comes from being three feet away from you, I think, being in the walls the way we are. How are we supposed to get around things like having no thumbs when all we're really doing is trying to be like you?


I'm on the move now, on my way across some big cold pipe-thingy. It's cold. Real cold. My feet are cold. I can feel cold coming up through the little swollen bits on the bottoms of my feet. It kind of hurts, but not badly, like when a rat trap gets your tail. Now, that hurts like nothing you'd believe. It's like a bomb, or something, but on your tail. No, in your tail, and then it shoots straight up the nerve and your back feet start going like there's no tomorrow, and you're screaming your little head off, but there's nothing you can do and eventually you stop, and then you go away, because you--YOU, that is, humans--you don't want us here at all. So we leave half our tail behind, and go. Sometimes, if we're really hungry, we might even eat that part of tail. We don't really waste stuff. I don't really get the whole garbage concept, which is funny, because I'm smart for a rat and I get almost everything. Anyway, though, yeah--I'm walking across this pipe thingy, and there's a hole at the end that used to have a vent on it. I know there used to be a vent, because I see the rusted ring and the screw-holes where it used to be held on. I can go in there, and go up to where I hear the voices, and then I could even be less than three feet away. You could be leaning against the wall, and there I'd be, leaning against the same wall, but on the other side.


I won't go up, though, because what can I do, sitting behind a wall? I like to get as close as I can, but sometimes I just need to see. I need to look in and see what you're doing, behind your walls and your gratings and your doors. It's beautiful a lot of the time, what a rat--what I can see--looking when you don't think anyone's looking. I was in this same building last time it was dark, not right where I am now but up three floors and two apartments over to the left, and I poked my nose in a bathroom vent, and there was this old guy sitting in his bubble bath, scrubbing away with the scrubber with his radio on and singing a song, and it went something like this: "Oysters are cheap today, cheaper than yesterday", and I wanted to sing too, but I couldn't, being a rat. But anyway, this old guy, he had a young-guy voice, which was weird but good, and he was singing loudly, and it was great. And the bubble bath he was using smelled like a mix of orange rinds and mud and grass in summer, all of which are good smells apart, and even better together, but then I got hungry from the smells, so I left.


That's what I was kind of thinking tonight, now that I remember. Food. I came in because I was hungry. There's a lady on the fortieth floor who always feeds me, but I don't think she really knows it's me. See, my name's Skrat, only that's not really how it's pronounced, just how it looks written down. To you, my name is eek, but eek isn't that good a name. Well, anyway, this lady calls me Kitty, and gives me fish and milk. I don't like milk; it gives me a tummyache. But I always drink it anyway, because she doesn't know that, and I don't want to hurt her feelings. This old lady strokes me and pets me too, and that's why I don't think she knows it's me, because people don't stroke and pet rats--they throw boots and stuff at us so we have to go back to three feet away, or more. Usually more, because people can throw boots pretty far. It's bad, getting hit by a boot. It doesn't always hurt too badly, especially if it just hits you on the bounce, but it's a real declaration of hate, that. And I like to pretend they secretly know I'm there, and like me, and that ruins it. So I usually stick to being in vents and things, so I can watch and nobody sees me.


So, yeah, tonight. I came in originally for food, and I went up to the old lady on the fortieth floor like usual, but then I remembered it was Thursday, and she's never home on a Thursday, so I came back down. I watched these two kids eating sandwiches alone on the thirty-third floor, and they were really small and little, and I wondered where the parents were, but they didn't seem bothered so neither was I. Some rats might have rushed in and scared the kids away and eaten up all the sandwiches, but I liked watching them more, because they had an interesting way of eating, taking off all the tomatoes first, and throwing bread balls at each other. They kept doing it for a while, but then I guess they got bored, because they left. There was still tomato all over the table, so I came in and ate it. I didn't guzzle and gulp, though, in case the kids came back and got scared of me--I had to keep a lookout so they didn't. I'm a big rat. I'm a smart rat. I can think like a person, but I also think like a rat, and I wouldn't want them stomping round near my nest scaring my squeaklings, so why would I do it to them? Right. I wouldn't. So I cleared off quick after I ate the tomatoes, then I felt stuffed, so I sat for a while, and then I walked down this pipe, and that's how come I'm here right now, wondering where to go next.


Anyway, it's pretty much in the air right now. I can't sit here too long, because I can feel why the pipe is cold, now--there's cold water rushing through it, faster than my blood in my veins. I can feel it through the metal, through my feet, and the cold's coming up through the copper now, and up my feet, my legs, all the way to my body, and I think if it gets through my whole body, I'll freeze to the pipe forever. I might go and check if that old man is in his bathtub again, so I can sniff at his bubble bath and try and make him sing by tapping a beat on his ceiling with my tail. Although, if I do that, he might know I'm there, and bad things happen when they know I'm there. Three feet away, ten feet away, they don't like it, even though in this city, I statistically can't help it--it's almost my civic duty to be three feet away from a human at all times. They want me a million feet away. YOU want me a million feet away, or all bundled with all my brothers and sisters in one place so you can avoid all of us at once.


Okay, so I'm moving again, even though I don't know where I'm going. There are something like a hundred and sixty one apartments in this building, and a swimming pool and a gym and a sauna and a jacuzzi, but I don't really like those bits, because everyone's together and noisy, and there's nowhere for me to be there quietly, three feet away, being a rat. I think I've looked inside every single apartment at one time and another, but I don't like all of them. I don't like the man who glues things, because he smells, but I do like the hair ladies who live next to him and both have the same face and hair to their waists which they brush all the time. I don't visit the hair ladies much, though, because I can smell the gluing man from there. I like the singing man best, but I only got to see him that one time. Usually, he's not there. I think he works all the time. I checked through his closet the next day, and it's all just full of those dark and stripy clothes men wear when they go to work. So I don't think he'll be there, and I don't want to go to him and be disappointed. I'm running up another pipe now, but this one isn't cold, and there isn't any water in it. I like it better on this pipe, because my feet don't hurt when they touch it.


I'm still going up. I was going to stop on the twentieth floor, but then I remembered everyone there has kids, and when they have kids, they always go to bed early, either that or they try to make more kids, and that isn't beautiful at all; it looks revolting, and I'm hungry again. I don't want to lose my appetite. I want to go and look at the man who fights with the air, because he makes loud noises, and it's scary, but in a good way, like when someone comes sneakily up behind you and you don't see them and you don't hear them and they eek in your ear, and you jump, but then you see them at last, and you're happy because it's your friend. Well, yeah. Like that. I like the fighting-with-air man, and he's just one more floor up. He's on the twenty-second floor, and the first apartment on the right. He has standing screens with thin paper in his biggest room, dividing it into two, and if I stand behind the screen where two panels connect, so he can't see me through the paper, I can watch his shadow fighting.


I go into the fighting man's apartment the way I always do, through his bathroom vent, because it's loose but not off all the way, and all I have to do is squeeze myself through very slowly and carefully so I don't bring it crashing down. Then I have to fall, falling falling falling, don't want to smack the ground--claw, claw, eek, and there it is--the shower curtain, and I come down, grabbing onto the plastic with my feet. It's three seconds, then I'm down, and I'm lucky, because the door is open and I don't have to squeeze under. I don't like squeezing under, because one time when I was a ratlet, I was squeezing under and someone opened the door and it scraped my back skinless, and THAT hurt, more even than a rat trap on your tail, which I already said hurts like hell. I've got to scoot now, because there's a big space with nothing between the bathroom and the screen where I can hide. Most people have lots of box-furniture where they keep things, and I can hide behind it, but this guy hasn't really got much furniture. So, scoot, scurry, hurry...and I'm there. I'm in my place, and I'm happy because so is he, and he reminds me of birds when I get to see them--not the fat pigeon birds that try and take my food, but the sparrow birds on the roofs that are graceful and can fly fast.


It's good watching the man who fights with the air, because he's like me in a way, not that he's like a rat or anything--he'd probably get angry and fight at me instead if he thought I thought THAT, but like ME. Like me because he wants something really badly and so do I. He wants to fight really badly. I can tell by how loud he yells sometimes while he's doing it, and if I look through the crack between the panels instead of looking at his shadow, I can see killing-glass in his eyes. That's what I call it, killing-glass, the way people get when they hate you and they throw boots at you. I don't like to look at that, though, because it's probably private, so I usually just watch his shadow instead. I like the way he wears the white, flappy shirt, and it snaps like spreading wings when he punches. I like when he flies with one wing, I mean arm, out, and the other up by his face. I like it more when he lands and even though I'm a rat and I can hear and feel those things really loudly, I can barely feel anything, and there's no sound but his trousers and his shirt flapping. His claws don't even click, which mine always do, and I envy him because he knows this magic.


Maybe this is my favourite apartment, not the old singing man after all. I forgot how cool and pleasant it always is here, with the air conditioning against my skin. The temperature is always the same here, no matter what time of year it is, or whether it's raining or sunny. I like that about it. I sometimes almost fall asleep here when I'm watching the man, or rather his shape, fighting behind the paper screen. But that's bad, because if he found me there.... I don't like to think about that, because I secretly have a dream about this man, that one day he finds me but he doesn't stamp on me, and I get to stay in his apartment and he teaches me how to fly and land with no noise but the wind in my ears, too. But I know he wouldn't, and if I think about it too much, then it won't happen, because things never happen the way you expect. I don't even eat his paper screen, even though I want to. Even when he's not here, and I'm angry because I don't get to watch any shadows or fighting, I don't eat the screen out of spite. That's how much I like him. I like the shapes he makes with his shadow sometimes. I like it because I wouldn't even know he was human. Usually he looks like a long-legged bird, or maybe a big cat, but sometimes when he crouches low and surges forward with his fists up first, he looks like me, like a rat, and I want to run out and go up his leg, but I can't.


Sometimes when I sit here, I get so excited I start moving the same way the fighting man's moving. Only, well, not REALLY, because it's hard, being a rat and all. I can't kick with my legs the same way. But I try, and in a way, it's more like he's dancing anyway, and I can move my hips even better than him. I twist and twist, and sometimes I even try to jump up, but then my claws click on the floor, which is wood (and I like that too, because it feels warm and good to my feet), and then I'm scared he'll see me, so I stop again. I'm kind of doing it today--moving, that is, but not really, and sometimes I wonder if I'm three feet from him, or more. It's hard to tell when I can just see his shadow on the screen. I can't always feel the vibrations of his feet like I can with other people, the fighting-the-air man, because he can make himself float like when birds lose their feathers in the wind. So I never know how close I am, but it doesn't matter anyway. I won't be happy till I'm in his pocket.


If I were human, I would sigh now, because I'm sad. That's why I like it here but in another way, I don't. I like to watch the flying man, the fighting man, the wonderful man, but if I watch him, I want to be like him, and I can't because I'm only an anonymous rat. Not really anonymous, but to HIM I am, and that's all that counts, because he's special, and mine. I don't own him or anything--he's not MINE mine, like some rats live in metal cages and belong to people--but no other rat comes here to sit three feet away, and I know this because I can smell no other rat. So he is only mine to watch. To him, I'm not Skrat, though, and I'm not even eek, as Skrat would be pronounced by humans, because he doesn't know rats have names. No humans know rats have names, and we can't talk to them. It's not fair. Remember how I said I'm like him because we both want something really badly, and he wants to fight? Well, I want to be human. That's what I want.


There. I said it. I want to be human, and that makes me horrible, and a traitor, and everyone back home would bite my ears if I ever said so, because among us, we always say we're better than them. But I think it's not just me who knows it isn't true. I think it's just something that gets said to make us feel better, because we're jealous and they already took all the good stuff and now we can't have any. There's none left for us, because they took all the good spots and made their cities and their buildings where men fight with the air, and the only places left for us are dry and barren. So we can be in their buildings instead, and they can't stop us, and it's like a little victory. But that's not why I go in the buildings, even though I say it when I'm with my friends, just like everyone else does. I go in because I LIKE them, and I don't scare the kids or the old ladies, and I only eat the food nobody wants, and I don't eat wires or furniture or shoelaces, because that's BAD, and I am not a bad rat. I am a smart rat, and I think I was really supposed to be human anyway, but something got crossed or mixed up when I was born, so I was a rat instead.


That's the thing with being a smart rat, and a big rat. That's me--a smart rat and a big rat. I don't just say it to boast--I AM big. I'm nine inches long, and most rats are only seven or eight. I weigh over a pound. I'm big and my brain is big too. But, yeah, like I was saying, that's the thing with being smart: you can see the stuff other rats miss, even though they're always near humans just like you. You can see how good it is being human, how they brush up against one another in hallways and excuse themselves or smile, or maybe brush noses or lips, and then they pull back their lips and bare their teeth; they chuckle in their throats and clap their hands together and shake them; they take bites out of each other's food, which is a no-no for rats. Or they curl up on their floors and scream and beat things and water falls from their eyes, and they hate and hate, but they feel things more. They don't have to think about eating all the time, which I'm starting to do right now, even though I still want to watch the flying man fighting with himself and the air and the room. I can't watch much more, though, because I'm HUNGRY and my belly is scrawny and empty, and my brain is flashing with light that says EAT EAT EAT EAT, and I want to eat.


This is a problem, because there is nothing to eat here. I might have stayed too long, but I couldn't help it. I get hypnotized, sort of...sucked in. I can't stop looking because I want to see the fighting man's shadow make just one more shape, one last graceful flight. I want to not hear him land just once again and wonder how he does it, even though he weighs as much as a hundred of me, maybe more. I want to fly too, and think about flying, just for a little bit longer, but I can't because--EAT EAT EAT--I can't stop--I can't stop hungering. I've got to eat, and the fighting man doesn't leave food lying out in his apartment like most humans, and I've got to go somewhere else or eat his paper screen, and then he would hate me and maybe even put out a rat trap, and I don't think I could bear it if that man put out a rat trap, because in a sense I love him. I back away backwards so I can watch his shadow as long as I can, and then I run across the big space and up the shower curtain and JUMP just like him, but then I'm clumsy, holding onto the ceiling vent, flapping my tail for balance and forcing my body back through the vent, nose, muzzle, head, shoulders, belly, hips, tail, snap, closed--the vent closes and I'm on the warm pipe again, and I can go right or left.
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Thul-Zathoth's avatar
Love it! You did a great job at getting into Scrat's head.