MicroHorror

“Have you got it?” he asked, stern, a judge by profession, and never a friend of mine. He chilled me, and referring to her as “it” coursed ice in vein. She was only in my care for thirty minutes, from pet shop to home, and I wasn’t sure how I’d been roped in, but that’s all right; it was a quick dollar. She was a lovely maudlin gray, the most beautiful rat I’d seen, bright, black eyes, inquisitive, as a rat should be.

“I’ve got her,” I answered, “in a cage on my back seat.”

“A cage?”

“A shoebox. It’s got holes in it, though. She can breathe.”

“It’s a rat.”

“Yes, she is a rat.”

“Has it chewed through the box?”

“Can she do that?”

“It’s a rat.”

“Oh. Well.” I walked to the car and peered into the back seat, and the box sat, undisturbed. I opened the back door and picked up the cardboard, light, and saw the hole in the bottom, the hole in my back seat, leading into the trunk. I popped the trunk, and out she jumped, scurrying past and into the brush.

“You horse’s ass,” he chided me, and I felt like a child, ruddy cheeked and sobby and short of breath.

“I’m sure I can find her, or, well, sir,” I answered him, “I’ll go and get you another.”

“No, no, too late now. I’ll have to find something else for dinner.”

“You were going to eat her?”

“I was going to eat it, boy, I was going to eat it.”