“The Rat”
by
Kyle Clark


He hunched and bent over. With his right hand, he grabbed the little girl and flung her into the torch-lit room. With his left, he closed the stone door. Torrents of water pushed through Suchikos’ sewer system in the annual flushing. Water hissed within door-cracks while he strained to shut the door. Water began to force its way into the room, swirling around his feet. With one grunt, he forced the stone door in place. A large brace fell into place that kept the door still and secure.

The Rat fell to his knees drenched and tired. The twenty-foot by twenty-foot room was lit with one torch. In it, Rat’s hulking form silhouetted mounds of golden trinkets. His forearms were distortedly huge while his back curved forward and his shoulders tilted down toward his left. He put his hand to his face. His fingers were bent and crooked, with his left pinky jutting away at a right angle. His nose sloped narrowly from his face, once smashed and never reset to heal.

Even in the shadows, the girl could tell that his face had been mangled. His right brow was one inch lower than his left while his right cheekbone was crushed in and pitted his face. Greasy hair grew from his face in uneven clumps of hard grizzle. His eyes? Who could tell? They appeared to be nothing more than black holes within the shadows.

The Rat lowered his head, sniffed, and stretched out his arms. Joints popped and the room filled with cracking. He breathed deeply, exhaled, and looked at the girl out of the corner of his eye. “Silly, silly girl.” His voice raked across her ears. It wasn’t deep, but not high, rather akin to a wounded lion groaning before death. “Sewers,” he continued, “bad place, not for you, lass, not for you. Not safe, no it isn’t. Not safe.”

His cloths were matted leather made of rat hide and stitched together with rat teeth and hair. His hair was unkempt, slick, and stringy. He looked at the little girl and cocked his head. “Why are you here?”
“You.” She was no more than nine years old with the face of an angel, burnt blond hair, and wore a gown of blue with white trim.

“Me?” His laugh wheezed within a painful cough. “Heard the rumors? Curiosity got the better of you? Dangerous, dangerous game to play, in this game, in this maze. Many die here. Some by accident, some not.”

“I play no game.” Her voice held strength.

He lunged forward and stopped a few feet from the girl. Brave, Rat though, most would have flinched or run. “No game it is then. Here for my baubles?” He filled his chest with air. “You cannot have them!”
“I care nothing of gold, silver, or sacrifice. What is offered exceeds your useless trinkets.”

“Useless?”
“Useless.” She crossed her arms and held a stern look.

He chuckled. For a moment, her lower lip stuck out as in a pout. “What is it you want of me, little princess, golden walker of the light world, surfacer and royalty, begging the time with me, the Rat?”

“Do you remember how you got here?”

Yes, he remembered. His upper lip snarled with the memories. His voice lowered to a gentle, cold tone. “What is it to you?”

“What is it to you is the better question.”

“Riddles? You riddle me in my home, charging with riddles and questions, puzzles perhaps, in a game, a twisted game? Little girl, youth protects you some, but not much.”

“Do you remember?”

“Yes, I remember!” His face raged. For a brief second, he would have struck her. Something told him not to. “Long, so long ago. Parents? Yes, they were parents. They died and left me alone. Alone. So alone. Then with Lavell. Sold to General Lavell.” He growled, “a slave to Protectorate General Lavell. I hate him! Good enough to protect within the city, but I was no good for him, no I wasn’t. I was nothing but a dog to him.”

Rat pounded his right fist in his left hand repeatedly. “Beaten, and beaten, throttled and beaten, his hands would wrench my throat! Kicked me to the street.” He touched his face, the scars and deformities. “Then they,” Rat stuttered, “they thought I saw. Now what did I see? Tell me! What did I see? They asked if I saw. I even said yes to stop the beating. Then they asked me what I saw. I don’t know, I said! What do you mean you don’t know. But I didn’t know. I saw nothing! They beat me more! Took a knife to me, they cut me! Stabbed me! Threw me here, here to die. That would have been a blessing. But no, I didn’t die.”

Rat sat down. “Who are you that I tell this. No one else has heard me. Not one.” He turned his back to the girl. “Who are you to care or come down here? Here, no light, no warmth, no friends save the rats. Multiple use friends, very forgiving. Eat some yet they return for love. No friends. Alone. But I have a plan.” He grinned, turned back to the girl, and gleamed in excitement. “Funny what people throw away. So many precious baubles, gold, jewels, things lost. Mine now. Get enough, and then I’ll be important. Then I’ll be able to walk in the sun, in the light, with the others. Beasts there are, up there, with money and things and importance. Will need more than they to be accepted up there. Scared, I am. I know. Ugly, they say. A monster. I’ve heard them scream when they see me. Unnatural, they say. But if you listen in the sewers as long as I, you hear things. Things that ought not to be said, the murders they plan. They hide behind better faces than mine. They see what is beautiful and see innocence. They have dark and wicked hearts. Enough baubles and they’ll like me. Enough gold, then I will have friends.”

“You wish to be like them? You see their hypocrisy.”

“Hypocrisy?”

She sighed. “It means a lie, saying one thing but doing another.”

“Fancy word for liar.”

“You know something of lies?”

Rat kept his eyes low. “I hate myself. I do what I don’t want to do. I know its wrong. I start to turn away, look away, turn away, low-te-do, I do anyway. Like hooks, it seems, right here,” he pulled his lower lip out with his finger and thumb, “in the lip, pulling this way and that.” He let go of his lip. “I want to do else, what is right, what is good. Yet there seems no hope within me.” His eyes glazed in despondency. “I see slime, roll in it, and become all dirty in grime.” He stepped back and his voice quivered. “Can’t clean it away, the smell, can’t cast it away, the dirt, can’t wash it away. It sticks, it stains.” He kept brushing his left arm with his right hand. “It won’t leave.” He began to cry. “Get off. It won’t go. Get off!”

“No amount of cleaning can wash it away.”

Rat turned away. He couldn’t face the girl. “I know I am ugly. My friends here, my pets, my rats, they accept me. But the light dwellers, no, they hate. I hate.”

“Your hate hardens your heart.”

“Hardens? It hurts. Heavy. Like stone on my back, a ball and chain around my neck, it covers me.”

“It is a heavy burden.”

He wiped a tear away with his right wrist. “Here.” He turned and pounded in his chest. “It never stops. The pain never stops. So tired.”

“Quit feeling sorry for yourself”

Rat, his lip curled and he straightened. “Sorry for myself? Girl, little girl, hair of pretty gold, what do you know? I live in darkness!”

“That is your choice, but light is offered to you.”

He rushed the girl, picked her up, slammed her against the wall, and pinned her with his arm across her throat. “What do you know of darkness and light, fleeting delight, a casket wrought in pain?” His gravely scream reverberated in the room. “I’ve killed, girl. Lay in wait with a set pit. I’ve killed. You’ve come where you should not have. Do you know what type of monster I am? Look at me. Look at me!”

“I see you. I will forgive you for killing me.” Her voice did not waiver.

“What?”

“I forgive you, James. And He will forgive you if you ask.”

“Who?” He set her down. James. That was a hidden name that clawed towards the surface. James, his given name. He remembered his mother calling him that. He remembered laughing, actually laughing. “What?”

“The Shepherd. He loves you James.”

His knees became weak. Who was this girl to speak of love, he wondered? “Love me? Who can love me? My eyes fall short, my cheeks have no dimples with no whiskers the fine men have and their beautiful women want! My hair is a bush, my chin is not strong, my nose dangles and hooks, a frivolous effort! My back is notched and crooked; I hunch like a worm. Who could love me? Can you? Can you!”

“The world looks to the outside. The Father, however, looks within where man dares not look. Yes, I can love you, more than you know. More so, the Father loves you. He sent the Shepherd to rescue those that are his. He promises never to leave you or forsake you.”

“But I’m unclean. The temple above cast me away. There’s no hope for me. Who am I to be loved?”

“He will clean you, James. Will you heed his call? There is no deed to dark for his love to forgive. All fall short, and you know it. You’ve heard those above. They speak death when they think no one listens. But you have listened. There are none righteous. You know what you have done is wrong and your soul cries out because of it.”

Rat looked around, raised his arms to point to his home. “I did not ask to be here! I didn’t ask to live in a hole, forgotten and shunned. ”

“But you needed to be here.”

“Why?” His fists tightened and his teeth clenched. Confusion ripped his mind.

“All things work for the glory of the Father. He has a purpose for you. But you’ve made your choices by walking in darkness. If you wish, the Shepherd will stand at the right hand of the Father and claim you as His own. Your wrongs can be cast away and forgotten. You can become one with the Shepherd. The Father has no condemnation for those of the Shepherd. You can be free?”

“Free?”

“Free from the guilt. Free from the pain. You carry a heavy burden, James.”

“How?” He closed his eyes. He felt his soul breaking apart yearning for freedom.

“The Father provided leaders for His people. But men are men, and those trusted to lead His people fell short. They turned away from the Father. You are loved, James. So much that the Father sent his own Shepherd for his people. The Father came to lead the people Himself.”

“Why?”

“Because he loves you.”

“He loves me?”

“James, His love can wash you whiter than the snow. Yes he loves you. He’s reaching out to you. His arms are open and he running toward you if you will only turn around and receive him.”

Rat turned away. His heart raced. Was it possible, even for him, to know love? “Love me? Love me. Love me! Oh, Lord, please. Please become one with me.”

He heard a voice that was not the girl’s. I will never leave you or forsake you. He looked up, and the girl was gone. Rat buckled to the floor. The pain in his chest was gone. The weight on his shoulders was gone. He wept, not in bitterness or hurt, but in joy. There, in the sewer, there was no human around him, but he was not alone.