As the Sun burrows No.8
Vigil No.7
As Rat finished tidying his vault that Raccoon had left so disheveled, he heard a faint thrumming on the curtains. Rat opened them to find Mouse standing a polite distance away smiling. “Did you get the tea from Rabbit?” Mouse asked Beaming. Rat looked at Mouses soft brown fur and bright eyes, and then down to the miserable clump of semi dried green tea in his own rough pink paw. For a moment Rat was lost, here was Mouse, youthful, spry, able and quite beautiful. And here he was, Caught between young and old, health and unhealth, alive and dead and he could feel Foxes mirror begin to swivel in his mind. A lump formed in his throat as he reached out his hand to Mouse. “What is it?” Mouse asked in a concerned way.
“Take them to Possum”, Rat said smiling but as his smile crested tears were forced out of his eyes and down his cheek.
Mouse held open his paw and took the leaves, a concerned look upon his face.
Without a word Rat hurried past him down the hallway, wiping his eyes and giving a huff. The fear and the sadness were here with him, why had Raccoons accident sent him into such a state? At one moment he was feeling bright and warm and comforted.. and now? Now he felt as though his chest would burst and his anger and misery would eat him from the inside.
Mouse watched him go and shook his head smiling, a knowing look that only a mouse face can quite make.
As Rat made his way to Badgers Vault he collected himself, stopped his crying and decided he would go and sit at the corner opening of the vault.
He could not enter it.
No animal could.
But he could at least be near him, the one so full of youth and power and warmth, the one who could protect him and drive away the dread, make him feel like the animal he was, not the one he was or could be. In Badger was the forgetting of loneliness and fear for Rat.
As Rat thought of Badger he felt a bit stronger and as he rounded the corner there coming down the hallway was Raccoon who stopped and stood still immediately at hearing him coming…
Mouse who was now brewing a cup of tea in Rabbits vault with the leaves Rat had given him, blew steam off the cups rim and smiled, “I wish hed gone to Possum, but a lesson is learned in many ways”
“What?”
Asked Rabbit, one ear cocked, leaning back to look at Mouse. They were the only ones in the vault and Rabbit had clearly heard what Mouse said.
Mouse, looked down at his tea a moment and then held it out to Rabbit.
Rabbit looked at the cup puzzled.
“Would you put a bit more honey in this please?”
Mouse said playfully to Rabbit.
Rabbit took the cup from Mouse glaring at him.
:HMHCUTDS:
Rat stood for a moment, his anger immediate at Raccoons presence.
“Its me” Rat said flatly, “I’m not going out to meet Possum tonight, but Mouse will be, if you hurry you can catch him and go up together I’m sure”
Raccoon did not move or speak.
Rat Stared at him, he felt sticky and aggravated, like his fur was full of scabs and mites. He shook his head and walked past Raccoon quickly.
He had not made many steps past him when a strange understanding came to Rat.
Standing there very still, he knew something was wrong, but he could not quite tell what it was.
He turned on his heel to Raccoon to ask if he sensed something as well, but upon his turning he was met with the sight of an animal he did not expect.
There in what seemed to be an endless dark tunnel, stood a Rat, and this Rat looked much Like Rat himself. Rat looked Rat over and a creeping cold dizzying confusion began to wrap itself around the Rats head. “Who are you?” Rat called out, only to be answered by the same question, in the same tone and the same voice.
At hearing his own voice, Rats stomach lurched and he swayed as the walls and room began to waver.
Rat then began to slowly walk towards himself.
Rat straightened himself and staggered backward a few steps away from from his own approach.
As Rat drew Near to Rat he could see in his own eye for a brief moment, many arrows, so many that they pointed in every possible direction, Rat only glimpsed it in one eye before darting his eyes to the floor. All of his misgivings, anger, hate and confusion..all his unknowing’s and assumptions, all his possibilities came to him there in that dark tunnel, and were made plain for only the briefest of moments.
As Rat passed himself, all of himself came to a crescendo, and everything, for that split second about himself was known and everything he did not know was laid out. Rat did not look to himself as he passed by, he fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face and snot bubbling from his nose as he blindly gazed at the ceiling. Then came a yelp from some broken place in him, and the most horrible noise an animal could make , full of dread, no knowing and misery and knowing, knowing in pure contrast to unknowing, a wailing groan. The two forces passing one another so closely shattered Rat and he collapsed there. Watching through his tears as himself slowly walked into the shadows and was gone.
For almost an hour Rat lay in the dark tunnel, staring blankly down the void, until the darkness began to slowly receded and he could feel his body again.
Slowly, with great effort he sat up and hunched there, dazed, his fur matted and whiskers crooked, eyes puffy and red.
He sniffled and huffed a staccato breath in and then gingerly stood.
He looked this way and that for the self that had just passed him, he looked back towards Badgers vault, and back down the way he had come. He now wanted nothing more than to return to his own vault and drink herbs that would help him sleep and lie in purple light of his candle and be in the quiet.
As he held the arm he’d been lying on and slowly shuffled down the tunnel, something caught round his footpaw.
Startling him, he kicked it off his foot and hopped back a few steps.
There, lying on the ground, was a long black silk blindfold.
Rat looked at it bewildered for a moment, but when he tried to think of Raccoon, he felt dreadfully ill.
He staggered back and began walking briskly, almost trotting back to his vault.
He flung through the curtains and dove onto his cushions and wrapped himself in his blankets.
His eyes were wide there in the dark.
All was silent and then Rat let out a pained and unsteady sigh.
SIGH No.8
As we are unaware of the Other
We are unaware of the self
As we know
We do not know
In times when we cannot bear ourselves
And what we know is laid plain or so we think they are
May we
May we….
In all things we do not understand
In all things we do not know
We do not understand
We do not know
May there be mercy
May we give mercy and be given
For what a terror the knowing
And what a mercy the unknowing
And what a comfort the knowing
And what a horror the unknown.
BLACK NIMBUS
BLINDFOLD
Rosary of LSF
What sense are there in words here?
I DO NOT KNOW
