RATS ON RAMPAGE (2)

 

After finishing with one-third of the bread, I placed the remaining part on the floor and went for water. From a twenty-five-litre plastic container, I fetched myself water with a big plastic cup. I had hardly swallowed the first sip when I heard the sound of something being torn: I turned and my eyes went straight to my food. Lord, a myriad of big fat rats were attacking it!

Blood flowed into my brain and my chest felt like bursting. The food I bought on credit the foul-smelling rats from the gutter were ripping apart?

‘Scoundrels! Impudent bastards!’ the words choked my chest. ‘Today, you’re all meeting your forefathers!’ I shouted, breathing hard and went for a weapon – a fat rod in a corner of the room.

As I grabbed the rod, a rat lunged and gave me a nasty bite on the wrist. I screamed, threw the rod away and hit the rat with my other hand. For a moment, I was in a daze.

‘You miser!’ the biggest rat boomed. ‘Eat alone and die alone! Look, we’re halting you from further action. We are in control and any move by you again to hurt any of us will be viewed seriously and drastic disciplinary action certainly would be taken against you right here and now to redress such wrongs!’ The rat was addressing me like a victorious junta would address our nation on radio and television.

What stunned me most was the fact that I was hearing the rat speak with perfect command of one of the human languages, English, and was enunciating the words too.

‘In my domain?’ I emboldened myself and asked, after all I was a human being and no matter their sudden transformation, weren’t they mere rats?

‘Your domain?’ the biggest rat mocked. ‘It’s our domain as well.’

‘Do we jointly pay the rent?’ I further asked.

The rat answered: ‘Landlords don’t pay rents; tenants do. You pay because you don’t belong here but we don’t pay because we own the place.’ He sounded witty. But I, a human being, wouldn’t let a rat outwit me.

‘Okay, you think you’re smart?’ I said. ‘So I must pay the landlord rent and feed him too? Please, according to which statute?’ I asked.

The rat laughed. ‘According to the statute of “you’re given freely and freely too you must give”.’

I forced myself to laugh and it was loud. Given freely, did the rat say? When I’d been sweating from morning till night for a mere pittance yet not paid or was the flatulent rogue asking me to turn tiger (to borrow a local parlance) when the day of payment for the food I took on credit arrived?

‘You’re a goddamned filthy rogue!’ I shouted at the biggest rat. ‘Don’t you know I work real hard for every bit of food I’m getting?’

‘We too work for our food, hard as well,’ he mouthed impudently.

‘Rogue! If your kind of hard work is what everyone is doing, what do you think this world would’ve turned to?’ I said.

‘The world can turn to fire and petrol if it intends turning to. We have our rights and we’re claiming them …’

‘With my food – the bread I bought on credit?’ I was furious. ‘Then you’re a nincompoop, a sadist, a recidivist …’ With my string of rapid abuse, the rats (except for their leader) stood back, frightened.

‘Okay, okay. You’re bombarding us with “jawbreakers” because we, the landlords, accommodated you for so long and turned our faces the other way when you, a bloody tenant, were gathering your useless harvest of vocabulary? Okay, wait and see,’ the biggest rat said calmly and then angrily turned to his frightened subordinates. ‘Tear that big book into bits!’ he ordered and pointed in the direction of my dictionary. The other rats swung into action. In seconds, the tome was torn to shreds.

The biggest rat guffawed. ‘Egghead, I’d see where you’ll get more of those useless words to bombard us with much longer,’ he mocked, utterly self-satisfied. I looked at the shreds all around the room and almost turned to tears; then a cord snapped deep in my head. I dashed for the rod, grabbed it and struck in every direction at the rats.

‘Action!’ I heard the biggest rat yell.

Ferociously, I flailed the rats and they turned to midget balls bouncing on me: they bit my legs, my head, my back, my stomach – they were attacking every part of me.

I was bloody but they couldn’t stop me. I was a human being and they were mere rats. I swung the rod again and again.

I hit them in mid-air and on the floor. I swiped the rats as much as I could. Then I thought I got him – yes, the mighty fat rat. On its head, I cracked the fat rod. I heard a scream. With that victory, I laughed gaily till I was woozy.

~*~

A warm velvety palm roused me from the depths of sleep. How long I had lain here I didn’t know. I juggled my memory – the voice gradually sketched an image, then coloured it on the canvas of my mind. But I had thought she had gone forever.

‘Since you had that little problem with him and stopped coming, he’d been behaving kind of funny. I had seen him come back this evening and was staggering like a drunk, clutching this big loaf of bread. He fumbled with the lock, got in and after a while, he was throwing and smashing things. Before we could get in, he was in a dead faint on the floor.’

Familiar voices in the background supported the statement. The velvety hand gripped me.

Yes, I could highlight the picture on the screen of my mind now: someone somewhere at the site had offered me (the third time this week) something to sniff to forget (so I was told) my sorrow. I hope you understand.

‘I think he was drunk or something,’ the same voice narrating my ordeal concluded. It was that of my caretaker’s eldest daughter, a brilliant accounting graduate who was working as a caregiver in a kindergarten.

‘But he’s a teetotaller!’ the owner of the velvety hand said, fear spreading like butter all over her voice. ‘Oh, what could’ve happened?’

Then it dawned on me what happened. When love is out of the door, a whole lot of things could go wrong. For me, after sniffing some stuff, the rats in my shack went on a rampage and honestly, I alone remained the witness.

~*~*~*~

(READ 'RATS ON RAMPAGE {1}')

POSTSCRIPT: THIS STORY IS TAKEN FROM MY COLLECTION, 'GAMBLERS MAKE BETTER LOVERS'.