I Came Too Soon So I Came Back (Parts Being Two)

[threw_a_spark]

So then there is this, the thing, and the thing is that there is a Rat and it is somewhere in my big old house, living its daily life as if nothing is the matter, when in fact! Something is very much the matter, because rats are not supposed to be in my house. So I am now living with this, not just the vermin but the idea of. Not just the idea of, but also the physical sighting and presence of. Depending on my mood, the time of day, and/or the weather (perhaps not so much the weather), I can tell what sort of a funk I am in depending on how I feel about the Rat. The Rat is a scape (Goat) for every sort of thing. I am uncomfortable in my room (there is maybe a Rat), and so I lift up the bed (disarranging everything once more) just to check, to ensure myself that right this moment there is no creeping pestilence keeping house directly under me. I read on the couch, instead of on my sheets. Some nights I stay out later, too convinced the Rat is waiting for me. In bed, at night, before sleep, the covers are pulled up tight and thick around my neck and I think the Rat will decide to maybe climb (no, clamber) up, pushing its tiny claws into the thick corduroy and then pulling as it summits. This worries me. If it were a good night, though, I lay on top of my big bed and think, not only is the rat not in my room at this time (tilting my head, listening. No rustle.), but even if it were it would not matter, no. It is a thing of floors and crevices, nooks, crannies, and corners to hide. Look at my floor, I think. It is swept clean of everything, and I know that even under my bed I have organized, placed the poison. I know and the rat knows (in these good nights (do not go quietly into, by the way)) that I am safe in my bed. On the bad nights, though, oh, no good. The noise I hear briefly (or not at all) wakes me up. If I think I hear it again (or even if I don't) I jump up and flick the light, the bright light, and then I take the broom in hand and hold it firmly with much desire to prod all stickly once more. Always, there is no rat. I lay me back down to sleep, and turn the light off, and imagine very quietly to myself that the rat will crawl up and attempt to force itself down my gullet while I sleep. This would be downright awful, as you can imagine. All brown hair wrong way in my throat, choking. This is when it's very late, and very dark, and I am probably what you'd call scared. If I am not as scared, or it is not as late, then I think some sort of wistful towards the idea of sleeping with (italics, just there) someone who could either fight the rat in some sort of bare chested wrestling match or even just by his very presence tell the rat that so many people were gathered on top of this bed that really it'd be a horrible idea to even attempt to choke either of us to death in attempt to reach the partially digested food in our stomach via our throats. Or, at the least, the other person would keep my mind off the creeping plague beasts.

Can we just hope, together, that indeed

"O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick."

And that the rat is soon dead (and gone)?