As the Sun burrows No.21
Vigil No.18
Rat Left his vault at a late hour.
After the encounter with Coati, he could not sleep.
The burrow was dark and quiet, as he stepped into the tunnels, the shadows were not a typical pitch, but a pale cold blue.
There was a feeling that Rat knew, but couldn’t quite put his claw on as he silently crept the paths.
As he neared the commons vault a cold breeze from up near the burrows entrance winded down and passed by him, through him.
His eyes were reflective silver points in the dark as he looked towards the entrance.
There, caught between the entrance of the commons and the path to the entrance, feeling that cool wind..Rat thought of something that struck him as odd.
The path to the entrance……he turned this phrase over in his mind.
He was inside the burrow, so this path, from where he stood… lead to the exit.
The exit of the burrow. Not the entrance.
Rats head spun for a moment over that simplicity.
And then came the questions.
He slumped against the entranceway as they filled his head.
“What was any of this?” “A house above ground where Possum and Bear, whoever they were, stayed? But the rest of us animals come down in a hole Badger dug for the winter?”
Coati and his obviously bizarre behavior and Raccoon??? Was Rat the only one who noticed these things and how strange it all was? He felt Dizzy…
“Badgers Don’t hibernate? Do they?” Was Badger actually dead?” Dread filled him, anxiety and suffocation pressed him down.
“Who was Rabbit???” Rat didn’t know him. “There are tvs and lamps and….how did any of that work down here? Why did we leave a house with heating to stay underground for winter? Whats happening to me here? Why do I stay? I could simply leave! no more Possums and sickly Bears! No more candle nonsense! No long empty nights…No more blindfolded psychologically aggressive Raccoons! No more Cum….thats right it’s called cum!…not silver pearls! No more fucking surprise cum slurping rude assholes like Coati…If there were tvs and football games here, surely there are cars and planes and trains..all I have to do is take a few steps up that tunnel and out the exit.”
“THE EXIT!”
“I could be miles away from this nonsense!”
Rat shoved himself off the wall and quickly began his ascent and was at and then through the exit before he even thought about it.
The night air was cold, but it felt good.
He felt a massive weight shifting, not leaving, but moving to a less tired place in him.
He walked into the house and began collecting his things.
He had left his phone in a drawer in the kitchen…why? Maybe he thought it would help him experience something else.
Rat began to feel anger over having spent so much time in such an idiotic manner.
He tapped the screen of his phone but it was dead.
He fished a cable and charger out of the drawer and plugged them in, trying to be quiet as he did not know where Bear and Possum were.
If there even WERE.
As he sat there in the dark of the kitchen of the house, waiting for his phone to charge, he thought about where he might go, maybe somewhere warmer or at least more lively than this purposeful tomb. The Southwest was where he was born, maybe he would winter there.
As he flicked his phone to check the battery percentage and the time he caught a glimpse of his Lock Screen image…a photo of Badger in his football attire.
He was so handsome.
Rat sat and thought of him, his smell, his warmth and size, his gentle smile, his hard work and of the time he had come to his side late one night after a hard game and never left it.
He ran memory after memory through his mind
And suddenly was frightfully torn.
Badger wouldn’t come with him would he? If he was sleepy couldn’t he just sleep in the god damn car? On the plane? At a house somewhere? Why this??? Why was this the choice? Was there undoing it?
As rat wrestled with his thoughts a faint silver glow grew brighter in the dinning room of the house. As rat noticed it he locked his phone and stood.
He wasn’t under his own spell anymore, he knew that if he went to the light there would be the next “happening” The next something that “meant something” or was supposed to anyway.
If Rat was being honest, he’d had enough of chasing the “secrets and meanings” half of them seemed to only lead his nose to his own anus most of the time.
He unplugged his phone and began to pack his small bag.
The light grew stronger and from the dinning room he heard Bear coughing.
Rats heart felt heavy at this sound, suddenly worrying tenderly over an old friend….But was he? Who was Bear? Rat shook his head and shuddered the feelings down. Shoving the last of his things into the duffle. The duffle was embroidered with the numbers five and seven….Badgers jersey numbers….wasn’t that also? Rat felt dizzy and nauseous thinking on it.
Bears coughing sounded out again but this time, it sounded as though he was choking.
Rat steadied himself, looking at the white numbers on the black bag and then to the growing silver light in the direction of Bears distressed coughing.
And with a bitter, angry countence he began to walk towards the light but stopped and looked back at his bag and there at his strange crossroads he angrily sighed.
SIGH No.21
Let go!
Keep going
Lay it down
Never give up
Give it a break
Don’t stop
Put it away
Not yet
Let it be over
Never
Now
Hold on!
End
Begin
End
Begin
