The slim, smelly rat

It was all done and finished, all that remained was the echo of great deeds, like the humming silence of a just completed symphony. Needless to say the stupid fat bear was out of his rusty bars at last, the three ninja pigeons were all gratefully dead, and the rest of the city mob-minded pigeons were baffled and pissed at the same time. Himself, he just stood there motionless, slightly in shock, contemplating still the dramatic scenes that had just materialized before his eyes. Of course he could not have seen much, he never did, but his other senses and mainly his unrestrained imagination more than made up for the natural handicap. He was not too eager to follow the stupid fat bear just yet, he preferred to take everything in for a while, to reassemble the numerous fragments of the past few days on an abstract canvas of meanings and implications. Besides it could never be too difficult to follow the smell of the bear’s rotten ass, he could smell it from miles away even without trying. Instead, he calmly widened his nostrils, trying to freeze and capture the moment, absorb the facts and arrange his thoughts in something meaningful, and hopefully useful.

So far, this impervious observer who had seen it, and smelled it all, had proved himself in an almost noble exploitation of his abilities. Like so many of his kind he could burrow and definitely did not mind any of the dirtiest routes available, allowing him to be in many places swiftly and with ease, indifferent to his environment and vice versa. Unless of course he happened to be in some middle class wife’s kitchen during the day. Then, things got a little bit more hectic, but with the exception of those uncommon circumstances, he usually kept to himself, quiet in some corner of sorts, watching, always watching and thinking. Given his kind, that was a fairly normal turn of events, food was always abundant along his routes from one hole to another, but truth be told, he was rather awkward and weird. You could say it ran in his family, given his second cousin’s post as a chef in Paris, but for his part, regardless of his absent cooking abilities, he was doing less scavenging and more thinking, something that did reflect on his rather slim figure.

In some ways, he should of course be proud of what he had witnessed so far, not to mention his unparalleled devotion to the storyline. He thought it was most brilliant of his insignificant obsession that he followed the pigeons to their hotel room, the last one to ever destroy in manners unspeakable; they of course could not have noticed him, primarily since their powers of observation were stripped away thanks to the physical and consequently mental abuse they subjected themselves to, and also because they had been more than accustomed to rats emerging from the toilets in the cheap motel rooms they used to rent for their dreadful declines. He had a rather good liking for those poor pigeons, so different from the rest of the crowd, bonded by a crazy addiction to mistakes and honor, and now he actually felt in awe of their final demise. He certainly would not miss them, but that was just him, forgetful of past affections and emotionally shallow, another symptom of his wasted brain wonders from one possibility to another.

He could not avoid the reality of the situation though. This was not a random series of observations for his own amusement, far from it, he was now clung to it, he wanted to be witness to it all, never interfering but always watching, fascinated in a twisted manner by the extravagance of what was unfolding before him. When this now systematic by-stander came out of his hole that day and ‘saw’ the half successful first escape attempt, he was struck by the realization of his great fortune and how he had frivolously squandered it for such a long time. He was born and he had always lived free, and he was truly moved by the two animal’s deep desire for freedom. What he had in abundance, they could only wish for.

Now, of course things were different, they had evolved into something new, now both of them were out, especially thanks to the three pigeons extraordinary abilities and foremost to their sacrifice. Yet, like a wise and well thought equilibrium, his fear of involvement in anything real, his awkwardness and retreat were balanced by his ability to think things through, to foresee the things to come if you wish. This momentary and costly at the same time turn of events could not go on with no consequences. As much as he would like to think that every morning the dynamics of reality were reset to a zero starting point, a bliss for those who wished for it, he could easily appreciate that the silly monkey and the stupid far bear had not truly gained their freedom, but merely climbed the first step onto the struggle to fight for it, a situation they most likely were still unaware of, even though they would soon reunite amongst tears of joy and frustration.

It could be of course that it was his sick allure to their story that demanded it to go on for ever, a well written and directed sitcom for his own satisfaction. Nonetheless, this was not the case, instead it was far worse. It was both. Within the bounds of a perverse logic and the natural flow of everything earthly, he indeed did want their story to twist and turn like a convulsive eel trapped in the nets of a mad scientist, and at the same time this is exactly what would happen independently of his wrecked train of thoughts. Yet, just the illusion that his ability to predict the rational turn of events was the same as controlling them, was enough to fuel his addiction, his wasteful adherence to other animal’s lives, an epitome of the moral perversion of his.