We Could Be Rats

by Emily R. Austin

If I could have picked what I was born to be, I would be a fat little rat at a fair. I would ride the Ferris wheel all night. All the carnival lights would reflect in my happy, beady eyes. I would feast on candy apple cores, discarded peanuts, and melon rinds. I would spook ladies and carnival workers for kicks. When the lights went out, and the gates were shut, I would scurry around on the ground, rummage through trash cans, and squeak happily with my rat pals. I would live to be about two years old, which is as long as most rats live. I would get my money’s worth out of my little rat lifespan, and I would leave the earth happy to have been there.

Obsessed

wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there, at least. There was no moving turtle in a poster. I didn’t see a deranged elephant, God’s face in the sky, or tentacles growing out of anyone’s head. I made that up. It was symbolism, I think. I don’t know. I was playing. I can’t play like that anymore, can I?

There was no way, really, for me to run away. It would have been nice if I could have run away, wouldn’t it? I would have done that, if I could have, I think.

When we hatched, we were these little white moths, destined for nothing greater than chewing through wool sweaters. I realized then that I couldn’t be anything I wanted. I understood that if I mustered every ounce of my will, Greta would still be lost. I comprehended, finally, that life doesn’t work the way I thought it would, and that I had no control over that.

I knew I couldn’t sound exactly like her, so I tried to be manipulative by writing that she’d asked me to edit this. Anyone reading who suspected the note sounded like me could think it was because I edited it.

I don’t know what I’m doing. Why am I writing this? I can’t believe she hasn’t woken up. It’s been five days, and this stupid note is so long now.

I wouldn’t be shocked to learn there is a reality where I died to spare a portly little forest creature.

I say things I regret when I drink. I morph into this strange version of myself. I gripe about the stress of my student loans and my classes. I bemoan my childhood; I talk about how angry my parents were, and how my sister was a loose cannon. I cry about ex-boyfriends and guys who have been mean to me. I talk about how I have no money, and how I hate all my clothes. I unload on my friends in ways I would never dream of sober. I have sobbed in bar bathrooms and in the back seat of more than one cab. I have flashes of this mortifying memory where I’m sitting on a curb. It’s three a.m. My makeup is smudged on the cuffs of my shirt. My friends are surrounding me, and I can hear myself weeping. I’m ruining their night.

They argue a lot. The sound of them fighting often confuses me in my sleep. I wake up thinking I’m in my childhood bedroom with Sigrid, and it’s our parents fighting. Despite the fact that being in the vicinity of an argument ignites my fight-or-flight response, I have this instinct to whisper, It’s okay, Sigrid, before I open my eyes.

College is bizarre. These scholarly, cerebral professors are surrounded by ignorant, hungover young people. I guess that’s the point, but it’s an odd crowd to be in. It’s strange for an old man to speak for hours in front of an audience of disinterested youth on Adderall. It makes me feel like everything is fake. It makes me feel like I am in another dimension.

Preach

I repeated, “I don’t remember. Are you alive?” She said, “Obviously I’m alive.

Is she?

I can’t recall when I stopped thinking about her. I spent over an hour crying, hugging my crew necks and T-shirts on the floor of my bedroom. I had makeup on. I got foundation and mascara marks all over my things. I was rubbing my face in the fabric.

I find it so strange that he is responding to her supposed lack of love for him with violence. It seems so counterintuitive. If I worried someone didn’t love me, I would sink into myself. I would become as small as possible. I would be silent. Inoffensive. Why does he behave like that? What is his goal? Does he think through his actions at all, or does he just act on his angry compulsions?

The person who asked me held my hand. I didn’t want my hand held, but they didn’t know what else to do, so I let them. Sometimes it’s kinder to let people believe they are helping you even when they aren’t.

In fact, lately I’ve been questioning whether God exists at all. I feel suspended between suspecting God is bogus and worrying that I’m being punished for thinking that, and for lying to him. Maybe that’s why I feel sick. Maybe that’s why everything feels so terrible right now. God, if you exist and you’re mad at me, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have made a good nun. Every nun I’ve ever met has been resolute and unemotional. I am the opposite of that. Furthermore, a defining characteristic of nunship is a profound understanding of sisterhood, and I feel profoundly oblivious when it comes to that.

I overanalyzed his messages and talked to my friends ad nauseam about whether he would ever finally ask me out. I am on the floor of the bathroom hurling into the toilet. There are trucks upside down in ditches. People are dying in hospitals.

I hadn’t seen her since the hospital. I thought maybe I might hug her or say something important, but I didn’t. I looked at her, she looked at me, and we nodded.

I called Mo from my car. I was beside myself. I blubbered to him about Sigrid and deferring my exams. I cried that I was sorry for not telling him sooner, but that’s why I’ve been so weird. He came over to my apartment right away. He was waiting at the door before I arrived home. I noticed his shirt was on backward. I think he threw it on without looking as he hurried over.

She said, “I’m okay. Thank you. It’s weird. I can hear him pacing over your room, I think. I can hear him talking on his phone.” I nodded. “Yes, the floors are thin. I’ve been hearing you for a while. I was really worried about you.” “I should have known that,” she said. “I can hear you too.” “What do you mean?” I frowned. “I heard you crying the last couple weeks. I was concerned about you, too. Are you okay?”

Mo knocked on the door wearing his security guard uniform. Dan peeked his head out into the hall and said, “Can I help you?” Mo said, “We need to evacuate the building. There’s been a bomb threat.” My roommates and neighbors were in on it. I texted them about what was happening. We all stood outside across the street. Isabelle was inside hiding.

In the same way that puppy litters cuddle, she curled into him and nodded back to sleep. She and I used to do that when I slept over at her place. It was platonic; it felt like we were drowsy baby creatures in a nest. Little pink baby rats, or ugly little birds.

I think I’ll be sad about Greta forever. I feel like I’m the only bird left on the planet. I feel like my one bird friend got shot down from the sky. I’ve been left to live among the monkeys, who don’t understand what it’s like to grow feathers or lay eggs.

I used to joke, “I wish we were rats” because, if I could choose how the world worked, we would all be rats at a fair. We would all live well, sampling every possible ounce of happiness. We would roll around in garbage and suck on sour keys.

“You’d just have to come from across town. It’s like five minutes. What are you doing? Do you have other plans? You could just come for an hour. This is mean, Sigrid. It hurts my feelings. It means a lot to me that you come.” While she ranted, I questioned myself.

I could hear her paws stomp across the floor. When she came down the basement stairs, each of her steps thudded. She walked without questioning whether her steps could be lighter. She occupied the space she was in with the weight that she was.

When they were angry, dust showered down from the beams in the ceiling. It rained on me and my toys. When that happened, I hid in the basement like a bird before a tsunami.

Sad

I usually brought Jo with me. I pretended the toy world was planning Jo a surprise party, and that we had to leave the house so they could decorate.

Omg sad

Even discussing the weather is unsafe. People say, “How’s this for global warming?” when it’s cold out. There has never been a lady mayor. Everyone in town is baffled when a pro-choice politician is federally elected because they don’t know a single person who voted for them. They think it has all been rigged. For some reason, asking for no meat in your salad invites strangers to scoff at you.

Real

I wish I could have existed in a bubble where snow really was icing, clouds were made of cotton candy, and everyone lived like rodents eating hot dogs. I think that could be possible. If everyone could just be rat-like, find a hot dog, and work together to turn rain into sugar.

Please

I decided that if I were a doll, I wouldn’t have picked myself up. That was when I decided to kill myself. I didn’t like myself. When I was a kid, I thought I would grow up to be someone different. I thought I’d be a better person, with a better life, in a better world. I can’t explain why I tried to kill myself. I’m embarrassed writing about it now. As I’m sure you can imagine, I wasn’t in a good headspace. I made a rash choice when I felt particularly out of sorts.

I decided that deep down we’re all who we were when we were kids. I think being a teenager is about hiding all your quirks and contorting yourself to fit in and impress people, and being an adult is about re-finding who you were when you were eight years old.

think I was meant to be a rat.

I felt myself getting older, sadder, and angrier.

Sigh

I made the bomb threats. Well, I made most of them. I didn’t make the one that happened while I was unconscious in the hospital. Margit made that one to negate any suspicion that it was me.

Love

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t want to stand under fluorescent lights for ten hours every day and watch the world rot. I want to see magic monster fingers in tree branches, and ride in cars with my head out the window like a dog. I wish I could move away.

She said rats help each other. They remember individual rats who helped them. Isn’t that cool? They demonstrate empathy and avoid harming other rats.” I frowned. “I’m pretty sure some rats eat each other.” I looked at my hands and imagined I had little rat fingers. I imagined that Marg and I grew up in a rat’s nest; that we were two little pink baby rats together.

Yes!

I exhaled, looked up from my exposed feet, and saw the clouds above me were pink.

Wow

I wrote this while listening to the songs “Devil Town” by Daniel Johnston, “Afraid of Heights” by boygenius, Noah Kahan’s Stick Season album, and “Another Sun” by Tracy Chapman. To anyone who has spent their time reading this, or anything I’ve written, I am really grateful.