Good morning. Good morning I say, and it is a good morning, as I wake under a pile of bodies, slumbering, soft, warm, robust and familiar. Did you know rats sleep in piles? Pancakes on top of each other. Not like humans that sleep two to a bed, back to back, refusing to talk or look each other’s way. There is love in a pile. There is no love in a bed.
Out of the pile I go, taking their warmth with me, pondering love, love, love. I have no shortage of love. There is no shortage of love as a rat. In a colony of one hundred and fifty there are plenty of nose touches to go around, there is always someone to groom, no one ever sleeps alone. What love! What love there is to be a rat. Up top they’ll never embrace us, except for the fanciers with their fancy rats, but down here we will never go without.
Sniff. The morning air is crisp and dry. Apple-like. Apple air. I stand on the verge of the crossing, between down there and up top and pause. I pause to groom. Lick, sniff, lick. I do a meticulous job of it. My daily job. Up top is a filthy place but I will not contribute to the dirt. I lick and I laugh at the human notion that we’re anything but clean. As if they can talk, with their litter-throwing cigarette-stomping endless-polluting tendencies. They have the gall to call an exterminator because we are unclean, but never think to put their rubbish away in the first place. All we do is reflect their habits. Do they hate mirrors too?
Sniff. Scramble. Squeeze. My feet land on the pavement, this unnatural thing that is all I’ve ever known. I’ve been told not to carry myself with shame, to not shrink away, head-low, slinking in the shadows. I am an empowered rat. I conduct myself with pride for my species. Unafraid. Unapologetic. Shriek. Scream. Stare. They do them all when they see me, a rat, head and tail raised as I walk down the way. Fingers point. I stare down the barrel of the gun. “More scared of you than you are of them” no longer applies. I feel no fear, not anymore. When a human will move heaven and earth to be rid of a rat, when their lives fall apart by our mere presence, who really has the power? Eyes meet eyes. My only act of defiance is to not look away, to allow myself to be visible. It’s too much for them. Our stalemate breaks as they hurry off, muttering and spitting in their human language. I hear ‘vermin’. The word doesn’t hurt me anymore. I wear it like a badge of honour.
Sniff sniff sniff there’s bread in the air. Warm, freshly baked. Ready for eating. My expert nose guides me to just where I need to be, my whiskers instructing me how to fit through every crevice and gap they’ve failed to plug up. Their carelessness is my victory. There is no oversight I can’t exploit, not with my excellent swiss-army body. They cannot keep me out. There is nowhere I don’t belong.
Squeeze. Squeak. I trade pavement for floorboards. Crumbs litter the cracks, but I’m not going for table scraps today. My eyes settle on a different prize - the loaf. They say it’s sourdough. I don’t know what that means. Whilst nobody looks - hop, jump, scurry. You might think it indecent to steal, I say we used to feast on berries and fruits. It’s their fault their trees aren’t around anymore. We can’t be blamed for adapting to survive.
Up on the shelf, I spot something - brown, glossy, far more legs than me. My friend, the cockroach.
“Good morning, Brother!” I say, spirits high. What a joy to be in such fine company!
“Good morning, Rat.” He responds, gathering up stale crumbs. “You’re in a fine mood. Too fine a mood, when we could be beaten with a shoe at any second.”
“It’s not that I do not fear the shoe,” I pause to leap onto the loaf, then continue, “But I’ve learnt that we cannot sacrifice our pride - our joy to be - just because those humans despise us.”
“Easy for you.” He shrugs with his whole body, it’s really a marvel to see, “Your intelligence is of great renown. What do we have to be proud of?”
“My friend!” I gasp, really gasp, unable to comprehend the words I’m hearing. “Are you truly saying that your resilience is for nothing? That the cockroach hasn’t earned a title for surviving any threat?”
He concedes with a nod of his beady little head.
“Despite their best efforts, they cannot kill you, Cockroach.” I continue, “Your will to live is far too strong. For that you should be proud.”
“And how should I be proud?”
“Don’t resign yourself to scraps and crumbs! Take back what they’ve taken from you, feast on loaves of bread and croissants! Why - you’ve never hurt anyone, your crime’s only been to exist, to thrive on the conditions they’ve made. And how do they repay you?”
“The shoe.”
“The shoe.” I nod, “It’s high time you sought out reparations. Merely being joyful in your existence is an act of defiance, when the whole world wants to stamp you out. Enjoy yourself, gorge yourself, fly around the room if the feeling takes you!”
“That’s plenty to consider.” He says, and pauses in his gathering of crumbs. “I might take your word for it, Rat.” And to my amazement - he skitters onto the loaf of bread! My heart bursts with joy at the sight, for him to be freed of his shame and take what he deserves. With a joyful chitter we get on with our feasting, eating until we are fit to burst. A hypocrite with a dachshund yelps. People point and stare and shriek when they notice us, but none so brave as to shoo us from our perch. Chew. Crunch. Gulp. I wish the cockroach my best and set off once more.
Where to next? I find myself faced with that question. For a rat, there is no such thing as being idle; our brains are far too active to be content with lounging all day, like any cat or dog would. Perhaps that’s why we have made such great conquests, reaching out to every corner of the globe save for the extreme north and south. Funny. When they do it, it’s ‘progress’. When we do it, it's an ‘infestation’.
I walk, I can’t stay still. Sniff sniff sniff. Rat about town. Rat of the city. They tower above me as I walk past, these great giants and their even-taller homes. So fitting for a species of excess, I think, dodging gum on the pavement. They clear out of the way for me, V.I.P that I am. A foot comes stamping down, but I’m far too nimble and quick for that - just who do they think they’re dealing with? They call us clever and cunning, an organised force against them, but in the same breath think we’re oblivious enough to not get out of the way of a shoe.
Twitch. Turn. I hear a scream in the distance, not of revulsion but glee. My acute ears point me towards the source: a human child, chasing a pigeon. I watch the poor thing hop and flutter, flustered and fearful of the bounding giant chasing it for amusement. I pause to wonder whether the child knows what it’s doing; has it learnt from a young age that some species are lesser than others? That they are acceptable objects for torment, where others would be labelled as acts of ‘animal cruelty’? The pigeon goes high up to where no-one can reach it, where it can’t be chased anymore. Rat with wings, they call them, my comrades. They could think of no more disparaging an insult than to compare them to us. I say they should take it as a compliment.
I linger on pigeons as I go on my way. Like us rats, they too have been brought over to foreign lands by humans, and shamed as out of place when we make the cities our homes. Our struggles aren’t so different, I think. If we, the rats, can learn to take pride in ourselves, to shake off human oppression, then so too can the pigeons, the cockroaches, the foxes.
Hop. Scurry. Squeeze. I wonder what that world would be like, a world where vermin are given their dues, not resigned to the shadows and trodden underfoot. A world where we can walk the streets proudly as any alley-cat and dog. I wonder and, as I squeeze back into my pile between the bodies of those that love me, I dream.