Oh, Rats

We were telling stories over a lazily crackling campfire.

"There was this ship, crossing the ocean. Had too many rats. So many rats, that the sailors were in danger of starving.

"Before they had so little food they had to turn back, one sailor came up with an idea. He built a big metal box out of scraps from the ship stores, and inside he put the best of the food that remained to the sailors. The rats took the bait. Within a day, all the ship's rats were in the box and the sailor slammed the door closed. He left them to starve.

"But the rats didn't starve. Each day when the sailors checked the box, there were fewer rats. But no dead rats. When the opened the box on the third day, there was only one rat left. It was the biggest, fiercest rat in the whole bunch. And it was hungry.

"When the ship came into port, there weren't any sailors left. Just one rat."

"That's a great story," I said, and everyone agreed. But I would have liked it more if this hadn’t been our second night lost in the woods during our team-building exercise.

Taskmaster

The baby was under the couch. How had the baby fit under there, anyway? It didn’t really matter, did it, as long as the baby was wailing like a banshee and needed to be rescued. Or changed, or fed, or something. Which one? No way to know. So he rescued, cleaned, changed, and fueled. Ears ringing with echoing cries of a now-sleeping baby, he flumphed on the couch, just a half-hour before an impromptu babytrap. He sighed. Closed his eyes. Squeezed them tight, then dragged himself from the couch and into his bathroom.

One injection, two supplements, fifteen minutes later a third, then thirty minutes later a fourth with food, with the oats and lean meats and steamed vegetables that did the least to irritate his innards. Now his ears rang and his stomach was sour, if less sour than it would be had he eaten the grilled cheese sandwich that had called out to him from his roommate’s side of the fridge.

Again he wondered when he’d lost control. Had he ever really had control? The choices that were before him were clear: obey or suffer. Sometimes he chose suffer.

So perhaps he did have a choice.

Connection

Her Vespa rumbled between her legs as she moved through traffic. It felt like the only thing that got between her legs, most of the time. But she was on her way to a meet-and-greet for singles, and she had hopes. She wanted to meet someone who liked card games, and military history alongside genealogy and futurism. And definitely a better driver than this jerkwad to her left. Someone who wanted to text often, and snuggle in the light of the bad movie they’d selected for that night. She knew it was unlikely to find someone on her first try, but she could afford to wait, and look, and hope. Always hope. And swerve, because this asshole just pulled into her lane without seeing her, and she bumped into the curb and was thrown from her bike. The helmet saved her head, but the telephone pole crushed her chest.

Oblivious, the driver drove on. He only half-saw the traffic. He was looking forward, toward the meet-and-greet. He knew he should expect to find someone who wanted to talk about ancestors and technology, ancient battles and card games, but he would hold onto hope. Always hope.

Crazy Advice

“Fuck anyone who tells you not to quit yer day job! You just fuck ‘em!” It was really disconcerting advice. Not only because it was being yelled in my ear by a panhandling old man, but also because I’d just self-published my first children’s book, Cats With Laser Eyes. It had just gone to print that afternoon. The timing was uncanny.

It followed me back to my day job. Staffing a pump isn’t glamorous work, but it pays the bills in a way I doubt the kid lit ever will. One keeps my body alive, the other sustains my soul. It’ll do.

Around mid-shift, a friend called me and mentioned a party, so that’s where I ended up after work. I think I knew whose house it was, but I couldn’t pick him out of the crowd. The drink was bad, but it was free. I ended up in a corner of the house behind a potted tree, sharing an overstuffed chair with a pretty librarian who looked like an actress making time as a waitress. I told her about my book. “Don’t quit your day job,” she teased.

I decided to take the crazy old man’s advice.

Tale of a Young Shepherd

He was a shepherd, known because he was handsome and clever, and because his father was the valley’s sharpest sheep trader. One day, pursuing a lost lamb, a storm forced him to shelter in a cave. But the cave was not empty. A devil lived there in the guise of a man-eating bear. To save his lamb, the shepherd challenged the devil to a game. He won, and magical powers were his prize.

Others didn’t understand when he healed sheep or made food from nothing. They cursed him and chased him with pitchforks. The earth cried to be commanded to swallow them up, but he refused. Weeping at their distrust, he fled.

The shepherd traveled the world. Years later, the shepherd returned leading many people his magic had saved from a great disaster, who needed a home. He hoped his old valley could be their home, but the people there refused. They called him devil-spawn and his people thralls.

Weeping, the shepherd made the earth swallow the evil people of the valley, and his people settled there and named the shepherd their leader in gratitude.

Heart heavy, the shepherd sat down to write the history of the valley.

Natural Assassin

Born wealthy, she had a taste for opulence. Cheated of her birthright, she developed a thirst for revenge. And she had a favorite knife, so she naturally became an assassin. She waited outside the gentleman’s club for her first victim. She hid across the street, huddled in a pile of stolen blankets against the cold of the night’s rain, channeled down the city’s narrow streets by rows of enormous buildings. Invisible among the city’s detritus, she gripped and regripped her knife deep in the grimy blankets’ folds.

Inside, he sat amid rich wood paneling and elegant suits and crackling fires. He sipped brandy and laughed with friends he didn’t really like, and perhaps played cards. She had been among them. She gripped the knife. He would soon step out and wait for his car. The car always took a few minutes. She had waited for the car hundreds of times, a step away from the rain, the club’s warmth clinging to her.

When he stepped out, a knife waited for him on the stoop. It had a few spots of rust, the first blooms of ill care. Underneath, written on grease-stained paper in weak pencil: “Someone wants you dead.”

One Drink

One drink. Nope, everything's still terrible and impossible. Drink two. Still hate everyone, especially myself. Worse, still remember everything.

Third time's the charm. I should just stay here.

Four. Only one way out, and it isn’t gonna bring her back. So why fucking bother?

Five. I think I just told someone about it. How our brains are actually cosmic worm nests, and we’re symbiotic parasitical hosts that evolved around ‘em. God, I hope it wasn't the bartender. I want to be shitfaceder than this when they wake up.

Five. People say stupid things when they're drunk, right? Ignore me.

6ix. Of course the cops are in on it. Why else would they let the mayor in the big car and get to the cemetery in the when it's raining? At night? Coincidence? Right.

What number is this? Fine. I'm gonna. She's dead. Her body's not her. Just a bundle of worm wrappings anyway. Get ammonia, mix in the shavings, and burn it at the alignment, and I can save the world. Or prove I’m crazy and go to jail.

One for the road. And if I see the mayor in the cemetery I'm gonna kill him in his worm meats.