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The Infestation
For the past little while I've had a pest problem. You see, there's a rat in my home.
A nice, selfish old rat. Everyday it gnaws at my walls, crawling through the woodwork and annoying me with it's constant chewing down of my living space. I never asked for it to come-- well, maybe that's not exactly true. I always wanted a pet, but not one I couldn't control.
So this rat has been in my house for a while, scrabbling around under the floorboards, leaving messes for me to clean up. It never seemed to give a damn that it was in my house, sharing my food and my warmth. It wasn't so much the rat's presence but it's ingratitude that irked me. Yet, I did want a pet. I couldn't deny that, and my rat was company. I even went out of my way to make it comfortable-- I left out food for it and went looking for it from time to time, to see how it was. It wasn't really all that bad.
But then, one day, I went looking for it, only to find it in the backyard with a squirrel. They were playing tag and running around, and I smiled because I knew my rat had a friend. Maybe then I wouldn't have to check up on it so often.
It came to be a daily thing, and it was then that I realized that the rat had known its friend from before. I began to feel... insignificant. Like I wasn't good enough to keep the rat as a pet. Suddenly it was chewing away at my insides, and I didn't know how to stop it. Wasn't I just as important as any other squirrel? Why didn't it spend time with me?
And every night, the rat would come back in and I would sit there like an angry parent, fuming in my lack of control. Every night it would scuttle beneath the floorboards and my head would start to ache as I thought about it all. I left the house for hours on end, just so I wouldn't have to listen to or see my ungrateful rat-- now the enemy, the pest I wanted out of my life.
What could I do? Shoot the squirrel? I wish, but no, that would be cruel. Besides, it wasn't Skippy's fault. There was only one rodent who was using me.
So, when the opportunity arose, I got a cat. I loved my kitty dearly, the company that I had never had before. My kitty would rub against my legs when I was sad, and roll about on the floor until I laughed. Sometimes I heard the scuttle of a rodent in the woodwork and felt a familiar pang of worthlessness, but then kitty would purr and the noise was drowned out.
My kitty actually needed me. I felt so grand, so loved. It was awesome.
But then I realized something. Kitty liked the rat, too. They were pals. Soon, my kitty was chasing my pest about, under chairs and through nooks and crannies. The rat had an advantage-- it was small and so it came first. I couldn't play with kitty like it did, it seemed. I was too big.
That familiar feeling was coming back, the one I loathed. It wasn't fair! I had spent so much time trying to find company, and what? I was ignored. I was undervalued. I began to question myself-- was I overreacting? Did I have the right to complain? Maybe I just wasn't meant to have pets. Maybe I wasn't meant to have anything. Maybe I didn't deserve anything.
Then I realized something... That damn rat had taken my self esteem with its cruel, ignorant ways. I hated myself. I hated the rat more. It was that vermin's fault I was like this.
So I went out and bought a trap. Not a killing trap, just a little one. I would catch it and take it out to live by itself for a bit, with no one around. No company, no one to play with, no one to care for it. Maybe then it would realize how much it had hurt me. Maybe it would apologize, and things would be like I always wanted them.
I set the trap, and waited. I was righteous in my anger at the damn thing-- I, who had given it a home, and food and a friend! Was I nothing? It would taste its own medicine. It was petty, far below what my pride would allow. But it needed to be done.
And so I waited. I plotted. I planned. I became consumed with revenge.
And the trap snapped. I had caught the rat. Kitty and I went for a walk and I left it all alone for a little over an hour. Did it understand now? Could it picture Kitty and I in the same brilliant mindscape that I had of the cat and the rat? Did the rodent feel what it was like to the one ignored and undervalued, the one left out?
I came back later that day, happy and smiling and feeling loved-- kitty has that effect. The rat was angry-- so angry. But then, it had always overreacted. In that way, I was a rat, too. But I was righteous in my anger.
There was something I didn't expect, though. The rat could chew, just like it had on my walls and my soul. It chewed and chewed and snapped the cage. I went to catch it, to hurt it, and it bit me.
It bit the hand that fed it. I didn't deserve this. But that stupid rat didn't even realize what was going on. It thought I was just selfish and wanted to keep kitty for myself. Such a stupid thing, how could it not see that this was revenge? Why couldn't it just bow down and accept responsibility for its injustice towards me?
It bit me. And then it ran off to play with kitty.
And you know what? I got sick. So sick. I was sneezing and coughing and my head ached. I was so confused by it all. Why hadn't things gone as planned? Why was the rat still happy, and me suffering even more than in the beginning? Didn't I have the right to punish it?
It's not fair. I wanted revenge so badly. I wanted to heal, wanted others to suffer my pain so that I could move on. I'm not perfect, no one is. But I didn't deserve this.
But now I'm sick. Sick sick sick.
For the past little while I've had a pest problem. You see, there's a rat in my home. It won't leave. I can't get it out of my head.
Who do I blame for this?
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