Bird Kills Rats

My bird has killed my rats! Winter and Willow, the poor things--they died today, at last, and they died badly. They'd been ill for a while, of course. Winter had cancer, and Willow'd had a series of apparent strokes. But it was my bird who dealt the final blow, and he did it just to spite me. I don't want to give that no-account more than a paragraph, so I'll sum up quickly. The rats were beyond hope, and needed to be euthanized to end their pain. A mutual friend of ours, who took them when I left Sweden, couldn't afford the vet's bill, so I advised him to ask my bird for a loan. They'd been his rats too, after all. I expected he'd show pity. But our friend let slip that the loan was my idea, and my bird had this to say: "Tell her to fuck off." Thousands and thousands of dollars I spent on that man! When he asked me to keep my old job six months longer than I needed to, I did it. When he asked for a weekly cash allowance, I gave it to him. When he asked if I wouldn't mind staying home alone on Christmas and New Year's Eve, so he could celebrate with his friends, I let him go. (All this, of course, 'cos I'm an idiot. Ha, ha.) But when I asked him one favour, not even for myself, but to allow our pets a dignified death, he refused me even that.

Our friend had to kill the rats himself. I don't think I need say more.

I can still remember the day we I got those rats. (I'm going to do my best to excise you-know-who from this account. The man who let the rats' lives end so bleakly doesn't belong in a happy memory with them.)

Let me start that paragraph again. I still remember the day I got those rats. They came from the shop in a wee grey box, from which they stepped one by one--first Willow, then Winter, graceful as tiny geisha, and marked like them too, with their little white faces and sooty kuro-tomesode backs. I picked Winter up, and she fell asleep in my hand. She was maybe six weeks old, and still had her puffy baby-fur. I could feel her little heart through her ribcage, pattering away. Every once in a while, she'd twitch her feet a bit, or make a stupid sniffing noise. I put her in my breast pocket, and she slid right in. A full-grown rat, you'd have to stuff in, sort of thing, if you wanted it to sit in your pocket, but Winter fit with room to spare. Standing on tiptoe, she could just poke her nose out over the seam.

When I moved in at Gurgel's place, the rats were among only a few things I brought with me. They were getting longish in the tooth by then, but their health was still sound. Their coats had faded, turning them from geisha to snow maidens. That's a peculiar thing about husky rats, which are popular in Sweden: their coats are black and white when they're born, but by the time they die, they're anywhere from light grey to snow white. Willow retained a little pigment, but by the time I left for Canada, Winter could've been an albino, save for her black eyes. The change was so gradual, between light grey and pure white, that I didn't notice at first. One day, I just looked at her and thought--Blimey! Where'd that white rat come from?

Everything faded, now that I think about it. There was a piece of paper with my name written on it, which I taped to the mailbox at Gurgel's when I moved in. By the time I left, the writing had vanished without a trace. The plants I was supposed to be watering, those faded, too, although they went more brownish than white, and then Willow knocked all the sad, dried-up leaves off, and that was the last of them. (Forgive me, Gurgel!)

At some point during the last long winter I spent over there, I taped a rude sign to Winter's back and videotaped her running about in the dustbin with it on. Halfway through, she tore it off and tried to eat it. That was just like Winter. She always had to put everything in her mouth--like Stella, but not as dangerous. Willow was the opposite: instead of putting things in her mouth, she put her mouth on things--and then she drooled profusely. I'm not sure I'd call my recollections of drenched collars fond, precisely, but if her ghost crawled slobberingly up my arm today, I wouldn't shoo it off into the ether.

If only my cheque had come when it was supposed to! I could've bought Winter and Willow that last consideration, then. I should've known better than to expect kindness from you-know-who. Poor, poor rats. Useless, miserable bird. Always the innocent that suffer.

WINTER

WILLOW