2-9-21

A
There’s a mice problem.

B
They understate.

A
There’s a rat problem.

B
Now it is that they live here and we are the infesting.
They have formed a union, if we set traps, you know what that makes us.

A
They’re a family.
Can’t put a family out on the curb.

B
They’ve brought the inflatable rat to our doorstep. Its presence, formidable; its drain on our electric bill, deeply felt.
A week into its stay it began to droop to the right, so A went out with a ladder and some muslin to patch it.

A
We take turns on the night watch.

SCABBY, THE INFLATABLE RAT
I am the one they respect.
The only rat in history who’s received bodyguards, the love language of the fearful.
Everyone should have a bodyguard, bodyguards should have bodyguards, this is what makes an army.
We try not to think about the muslin patch, right boys? The cant of our sides like an old car or close listener.
Proud chests!

Symbols are powerful - the Locals know this and that is why they spend thousands on inflatable rats, pigs, roaches, and cats. Dimes on the bill in the end, but spent all the same. Ever rub a dime between your fingers? Ever rub your fingers? Do middle to thumb, light touch, little circles, feel the nerve endings in the pads.

SCABBY, THE INFLATABLE RAT closes his eyes, relishes in touching his fingertips, when did he get those?

I have to call my kids.

SCABBY’s tethers loosen, he drifts a few feet off the ground, belly-up

Kids?
KIDS?

No one comes.

They call back.

It begins to snow. Fat, wet, flakes.

People can’t see me as well in this weather, which makes me more dangerous but also impactful.
I say beware those inside, I say SHAME all who enter here, once pure and unthought-of, turned detestable and grubby, like a cremated meal.
A balloon, I am the cousin of the innocent. But how to stay innocent with what we’ve seen?
From the rat’s nest, the perch at the base of the tracks, we see the one on the bench, petting their hat’s pompom like a surrogate daughter. How soft the yarn, how unyielding the boll at its core.
The bodies on the tracks, no one wants to tear them open but there are some the authorities will never get to. Better to be nourished, use soft feet to tap a canticle on her forgotten thigh. The naked tail that quivers in the frost, hands that have had such a rough run of it, the word ‘hand’ doesn’t fit anymore.
We do not want new words for this. No retrofitted machiniology, earsome things. We want our hands back. Give us our hands.