For the longest time, the man enjoyed the illusion he was living by himself, blissfully unaware there was a rat using his address, using his bathroom, eating his food. The rat, on the other hand, tiptoed and pranced around the apartment uncertain about who he was, coping with the presence of two different identities—a survivor and a conqueror—feeling grateful one minute, entitled the next. Though man and rat had plans of their own, they did not remain strangers under the same roof forever, as the critter was found at last.
On the night it happened, the rat was reading labels in the cabinet when the man reached for the cookie jar and touched his tail instead. The surprise of the encounter was mutual but particularly overwhelming to the animal, who despite his better judgment bowed down and asked “how may I be of assistance?” to what the man said “just a cookie.” The rat had a lot of anxiety around death, and a great fear of leaving Earth as if he’d never been there in the first place—unseen, little, irrelevant—but once again, his time had not come just yet.
Perhaps in a different scenario, where the man posed a real threat or the rat hadn’t observed him so closely to actually believe him dangerous, the critter would’ve been taken aback by his indifference. Instead, he felt a mix of relief and outrage, and five seconds after another, in his own words, “test from life”—which would be passed on to his nieces and nephews with less chit-chat and more mano a mano—he was consumed by arrogance, thinking about the man, and how he might as well fix him.
The man was fine, thank you, and needed not be fixed: as soon as he got his cookie, he was back to his bedroom with ears pressed against thin walls, neither impressed nor alarmed by the presence of a rat in the kitchen cabinet. Such a dull critter, he thought. Apart from a few broken whiskers he had no special features and was nowhere near as interesting as the familiar voices next door, to whom the man mumbled as if he were part of the conversation. Ten months later, he was still new in town. He had no one to say shit to.
From that night on, the rat decided he would no longer hide. A little voice in the back of his head told him this encounter might be his way out of mediocrity, so he made sure to approach the man in the hope of becoming his friend and letting him know he was forever grateful, and setting up a cleaning schedule, and adding a few items to the grocery list. Knowing the man was not the most welcoming fellow—and unlikely to engage in small talk—the rat left him a note: “dinner tomorrow at 8?”
The man did attend the first and all the following dinners hosted by the rat in his kitchen, at his own expense, to the soundtrack of the critter’s choice. He became less indifferent to domestic life, and little by little replaced the unknown voices with the companionship of an animal. And even though the man’s voice was barely heard, soon enough the now official roommates could swear there was nothing one didn’t know about the other, still the rat’s true nature remained as concealed as the man’s.
Months followed. An enormous amount of cheese and beer later, with bites of joy here and there, the rat still hungered for the certainty that his time wasn’t coming. In despite of where he was and what he had achieved for the first time in his life, the critter often felt the sour taste of fear flowing back from his stuffed stomach, and spent many a day dreading his end, regurgitating his insignificance. The man wouldn’t hear any of it, dropping a “dude, just eat “whenever fears rose to the surface. Should the rat push it too hard though, be it by talking rather than eating or by requesting the constant checking of whether the doors were locked, the man would suggest he locked the monsters in his head instead. Unlike the man, he was not comfortable being surrounded by strangers who could very well have a criminal record, or worse, a humongous feline, and would sleep with one eye open until his fears were proven unfounded.
No longer having to scavenge the trash for food gave the critter too much time to think, and whenever done looking for mousetraps under the bed, or checking the cereal box for rat poison, he would then dwell on his roommate’s lack of ambition. His constant walking around the house mumbling “losers” and “nice try” gave the animal a lot to consider, and even though he was mostly cursing at headlines from newspapers that got in and out of the apartment unread, he believed that once harnessed, all that anger could be used for the greater good. And while the man’s grumbling gave him hopes of a better future, his laughter had such an unsettling effect on the rat that the day he heard his roommate laughing outside for the first time, he promised himself to never let it happen again—curious to see whether he was mocking a colleague or the government, the critter rushed to the door only to find out he was not talking to himself: the neighbors next door and yet a third man stood in front of the apartment, and they giggled and talked beer on Friday and giggled some more.
The critter decided to intervene before it was too late. He knew there could be no other reason for the neighbors’ sudden interest in the man’s friendship than to disrupt peace and corrupt their simple yet honest life. The rat waited until dinner time to approach him, and as soon as the cat-shaped clock struck eight, handed him a stolen Notice of Pest Control Service: “Those seem to be piling up. I know, I know. No worries. I promise I’ll be extra careful just in case. My being here is something the neighbors haven’t gossiped about just yet.” The man hated gossip even more than he hated headlines, but the critter would not be stopped: “Ah, yes. They talk sometimes—you know, the same old no wonder he has no friends, I bet he’s still a virgin sort of trash. Ugh. To be honest, these people make such a racket next door one cannot nap for more than five minutes. Considering the amount of time they spend minding other people’s business, my guess is this is no book club. Not that I expected much from their lot, but the way they go on and on… people, get a life!”
The man couldn’t take it anymore, but the rat wouldn’t give him a break until he was done naming and shaming: “There’s the old lady from the fourth—what do you mean, she died? Well, can’t blame God for cutting her short. I imagine her last words would’ve been “he could be your son”—the brothers next door—really, a couple?—the tall guy with the ridiculous thunderous guffaw, and the lady with the chihuahua and teens and newest prospective dad—hopefully of age, not that I care. Beer?” In an attempt to set clear boundaries between friends and enemies and claim his spot among the former, the rat reiterated the losers next door could all, except for the chihuahua, go to hell, and the man made it crystal clear he would be more than happy to offer them a shortcut, chihuahua included, because unfortunately word for word he secretly agreed he came across as a loser, and if the neighbors had ever had him over, if he had ever been invited to chat or to have some coffee or a piece of carrot cake, he’d have to bite his tongue not to mock himself, too.
The critter went to bed that night dreaming of a house of their own—a charming place in the woods with a keep-out sign and neighbors nowhere to be seen, flawlessly taken care of by an army of roaches in charge of cleaning and baking so that mammals could occupy themselves with noble affairs; however, what he woke up to was not aligned with his vision. His lies backfired, and rather than creating its own momentum, rage had a paralyzing effect on the man: there were no plans of leaving, no blaming the neighbors for the huge water bill, no fear they were conspiring to get his food, his TV, his apartment, only the man’s refusal to get out of bed. He told the rat he was feeling under the weather and that tomorrow he’d be fine. And tomorrow he was better indeed, just not in the mood. In vain the critter did his utmost to convince him to see a doctor, but the man did not believe in doctors or in any shenanigans the machinery of the system tried to impose on his life. Tomorrow things would go back to normal, he promised again the next day, and then the next, and then the next.
The man had been simmering with rejection since his early teens, and the rat stirring the pot came at a price. He was not encouraged to move out and seek isolation, and furthermore, his refusal to face any neighbor ever again, to face the fact that he was at the same time the joke of the building and a grown man expected to act as such not only imposed a setback to the rat’s plans of living in comfort but also threatened his very existence. Without anyone to put food on the table the pantry shrank by the hour, and the critter stomped up and down the apartment calculating how long the food supply would last. Living in squalor was not an option, and anything other than his full belly was an abomination before Nature, so the day oatmeal was the only thing left to eat, he marched to the man’s bedroom and mercilessly bit his toe, cutting deep into his skin. While the man screamed in pain, the critter crawled up his shoulder and whispered: “Surely you didn’t expect me to leave you for dead? This hurts me more than it hurts you.”
Seconds after the attack, the rat saw rage in the man’s eyes for the first time and found himself forced to improv a monologue to save his ass when the good old “I was worried about you” failed. While going through an escape route in his head, the critter mixed things he’d heard here and there with elements from movies to tell a compelling story where he was a prophet, God was a bully rat, his thick roommate was the chosen one, and anyone who failed to meet their expectations—yet to be agreed upon—was the enemy.
The morning after the attack, the man got up and showered. He greeted the rat “morning,” went grocery shopping, and left for work. His colleagues were glad to know he was finally feeling better after the fake death of his actually-dead-ages-ago grandma and discreetly surprised at how well put together he looked: band tees had given way to hair gel and breath mints, self-importance was noticeable in his demeanor, and just like that, the guy behind the counter had a new persona.
A week after the attack, the so-called revealed truth was still all the man and the rat talked about. The animal felt safer each time the man posed the same questions and waited like a child for the same reassuring answers—and since thinking, let alone critical thinking, was not the man’s strong suit, the critter let his imagination run wild and told his roommate all about God, his castle in heaven, and a crown of talking rubies, not in the least concerned about eventually forgetting any part of his story.
A month after the attack, the man started wearing a mouse ear headband around the house. Inspired by the rat’s unwavering faith in his own narrative, he had plans of quitting his job and nurturing his skills as the chosen one. The critter told him he had better stick to his job or else and taught him the chosen one should prepare to go to heaven by being a source of inspiration regardless of where he was, which the man promised to do without the slightest clue of what that could possibly mean.
God only knows how much time after the attack, the rat hit the man’s hand with a fork on a night the chosen one nonsense was brought up for the hundredth time. The critter was done telling bedtime stories. The man whimpered and lowered his head only to get hit again, this time in the forehead. “Will the prophet forgive me?” he asked, and the rat—henceforth, the Prophet—replied “yes, son,” kissing his hand, next gently nibbling on his index finger. “We’re about to write history, you and me. This is what God’s telling me right now.”
“Suppose the losers out there have no idea?” asked the man one night. He’d long quit mumbling, and years after a newspaper last entered the apartment, still wanted nothing to do with the world around him. Truth be told, when he was first told his true identity, he expected others would be joining him and the prophet—it was indeed a bit strange that the chosen one was to remain undercover, and what God intended to do with the rest of the world was a question the rat had well learned to dodge: it was none of their business.
“Suppose they have no idea,” replied the rat. The critter enjoyed the perks of being a prophet and spent his carefree days cooking, adding cheese to just about any recipe he could think of. It was his job to nourish his roommate’s faith to help him go to heaven, so as per God’s request, he delivered evening sermons with topics ranging from made-up stories about his childhood to knock-knock jokes. He’d even sing and tap dance on the nights he felt particularly inspired, but should the animal be hungry, or tired, or not in the mood, he’d simply say “let us rejoice in cheese and beer tonight” and move on to more interesting activities.
Though you might be under the impression both man and rat had found exactly what they were looking for, that’s only partially true: indeed, the animal was granted safety and relevance by being called a prophet but, be that as it may, he saw himself more as a warrior than an entertainer, and would ideally prefer to maintain power by force rather than fake-channeling messages from the beyond; and as for the man, he was more than happy to be the chosen one, but in doing so without an audience, he from time to time worried they might be mistaken for just a man and a rat.
“You’re telling me they’ve no idea who we are,” insisted the man. “That all them losers walk around thinking they’re better than everyone else…” “Ah, that’s what you’re talking about,” lied the critter. “Well, of course they know you’re special. Superior. Think, why would everyone else be that spiteful if not out of jealousy?” “The man smiled. He could go on without company, or fun, or just about anything one considers the bare minimum to survive provided he knew what life was about. He cared a great deal about the truth; luckily for him the whole truth could be translated into a squeak.
