macblaze.ca

4:16

It wasn’t the rat’s fault. It certainly wasn’t his choice. Somewhere deep down in his rat brain, he deeply regretted ever moving north last winter. But he’d been hungry. And the rail car had had such tasty tidbits.

But ever since he’d gotten off that car, nothing had been going his way. He’d been cold, hungry and most especially lonely for months now. And after he’d finally found a warm place to stay, with access to some juicy tidbits next door, along comes this giant bully rat to steal the very bed beneath him.

Not much could penetrate the single-mindedness of any rat’s existence, but the injustice of this situation came pretty close. And now he was lying pinned under this grumpy fat rat with the deformed tail, and he couldn’t move. Not a bit. It was enough to make a more intelligent creature cry. It was certainly enough to make this one whimper.

As so he did.

“Whimper…”

 

4:15

Edward stared at the sad little lemon tree and its single bloom, sitting slightly askew under the boughs of the pine tree. It obviously hadn’t been there for long but already a few pine needs lay in the soil of its brown plastic pot. There was no sign of how it had been manhandled into its present position, but for the life of him Edward couldn’t imagine how the beaver had brought it to its current resting place.

There were no other signs that anyone had been in this particular gap in the trees and bushes lately. No tracks, no scuffs nor drag marks in the leaves and needles that littered the ground. It was as if the lemon had been magically transported to this site; and that, as Edward knew perfectly well, was ridiculous. He had more than enough experience with the universe to know magical things always had a rational explanation. It really only depended on whose rationality you were using.

Still, was it really important to consider the how, or was that just a dead end that would waste even more of his time? Time, Edward was acutely aware, was in fact running out. The moment was now, and he had little time to act if he wanted to retain any sense of control over the situation. And, Edward admitted to himself, control was always an issue with him.

A moment, nothing more, and then we will move on. There’s just a chance that this sad-looking citrus is the key to something useful.

 

4:14

In the end it was not keen eyesight nor swiveling ears that confirmed Edward was on the right trail. About halfway down the path, his nose twitched once, twice, and Edward’s descent came to a sudden and jarring halt. From somewhere upwind came the distinct smell of lemon.

Now why would I be smelling lemons in a park? An out-of-the-way lemonade stand? I think not.

“You don’t suppose the silly beaver took the tree with him do you, “ Edward mused. “Silly, silly…” he mumbled as he approached the little copse of trees by the path at the bottom of the hill. “Beaver!”

Edward pushed into the thick undergrowth and emerged in a small quiet space that contained a small potted Meyers lemon tree but was otherwise quite unoccupied.

“Bugger,” he muttered.

4:13

Edward moved through the park, ears perked and eyes slowly scanning back and forth. He knew it was likely he had guessed right. It was highly unlikely that the beaver had been able to travel far in the short amount of time he’d had, and it didn’t seem likely he would head to the more populated parts of town at a time like this.

Edward didn’t think the beaver had exactly panicked, but he likely wasn’t thinking completely straight. He put up a brave face, but underneath that sleek pelt he was pretty easily rattled.

“No, no, he hasn’t gone too far,”  Edward said to himself.

He paused at the top of the hill and slowly turned 360 degrees. “Yup, I’ll bet my fuzzy little tail he’s around here somewhere.”

Rat-a-Tatty

4:11

The beaver went back on his haunches. The rat went backwards out of the box. And the contents of the box went pretty much everywhere as it overturned.

“BLESSED Garfinkle!” shouted the beaver as he swung his small brown arms, trying to regain his equilibrium. “What the hell’s the matter with you, you vile stupid rodent? Are you trying to kill me?” he finished between taking big gulps of air.

Dropping back to all fours he took a menacing step forward, fur bristling until he looked twice the size. “Get your scrawny carcass out here where I can see you,” he growled, realizing he sounded not unlike a rat terrier he had once met in the south of France.

The was no movement.

“I said, GET. YOUR. SCRAWNY. ASS. OUT. HERE. Right now!”

Still no movement and nothing but a lot of silence.

“I am not crawling any further under this disgusting furnace for the sake of a rat,” he muttered to himself and took a small step toward the scattered papers from the overturned box.

He started scooping the papers together and then grabbed the ratty box and dragged it toward himself. He kept an eye on the darkness behind the furnace and occasionally thought he saw some movement.

“I hate rats,” he mumbled to himself. “Only good thing about this job was there weren’t supposed to be any rats. And what do I find? Stupid rat.”

Eventually the beaver got everything collected into the now much less than sturdy cardboard container. It could hardly be called a box anymore as the one side was torn down to the bottom and none of the tape seemed to have any adhesive left. He dragged back out from under the low ceiling, keeping half an eye on the space where he had last seen the rat.

“Now what?” he called aloud to the darkness. “Am I supposed to just leave you there?”

Silence.

“Stupid RAT! I’ve got better things to do with my time than deal with slimy-tailed flea-bitten vermin…”

Nothing

“Aargh!” The beaver let out a strangled growl and divided his attention between the treasure at his feet and the hidden foe lurking in the shadows. After a few moments of this mutter-filled tableau the beaver glanced down to the top sheet of paper, where the phrase “Last Will and Testament” caught his eye. He grabbed the sheet and turned to read the rest of it. Of course at that moment, the rat, mangy and hungry and very, very frightened, made a break for it, heading straight for the beaver who stood between him and some sort of freedom.

An observer, had there been any, might have quipped ’bowling for beavers’ at the results of Ezekial’s rash choice. But alas, there was no one there to see the resulting collision except a small family of spiders, which frankly didn’t care.

 

4:10

Rowan sat on the couch and sipped the glass of cold water Gareth had fetched for her. Her fingers left patterns in the condensation on the sides of the glass, and she spun it in her fingertips, drawing spirals that quickly disappeared, the moisture coalescing into drops that ran down the sides and then soaked into the beer coaster as she set the glass down.

She glanced up at the art on the walls of the tiny living room. Ink sketches framed in cheap cardboard mattes that they had obviously been bought in and a small watercolor of a coastline with the requisite waves and sailboat. Rowan wondered about that one. As far as she knew Gareth had never been within a thousand miles of the ocean and she certainly didn’t picture him as the sailing type, all avast and avant and hoisted aloft. Sailor-speak was probably the only thing more ridiculous than her southern drawl.

On the shelf by the kitchen was a collection of small figurines. She leaned over and observed that they were the animal figures her mother had once said came from Red Rose tea. A few were worn and old looking, but to her surprise quite a number looked new. She stood up and moved to the shelf unit to have a closer look. As she did, she detected the faint scent of tea. Rowan picked up the tiny beige owl and sure enough, it had tiny granules of black tea stuck to its base.

As Gareth came into the room she turned to him. “I didn’t know they still made these things. I thought they were all my grandma’s age.”

Gareth stopped, looking a bit confused, and then his eyes came to rest on the collection of figures and he smiled. “Ah, you’ve discovered my secret.” He walked over to stand by Rowan and gazed down at the motley group of animals and assorted odds and ends. Rowan was suddenly conscious of the scent of Gareth as it mixed with the faint tea. “I started collecting them when I was just a boy and my grandmother gave me this one to try to keep me quiet.” He picked up a small brown monkey. “They’re Wade figures. They have been giving them away since the ’60s. I don’t have the complete collection, but I’m working on it.”

He turned to look at Rowan and grinned sheepishly. “They remind me of Gramma.”

Gareth turned back to the living room and flopped bonelessly on the ugly forest-green easy chair. “So, what do you want to do now?” he inquired.

 

4:9

Waiting. It’s something we all do, something most of us hate. But occasionally, just every once in a while, the waiting is what makes something worthwhile. The anticipation, the building pressure combine with whatever chemicals your body pours into your cortex, producing pure, unadulterated joy when the moment finally arrives.

This time, however, that perfect storm of events wasn’t in the cards. Nope. Not in the cards at all.

4:8

It was at this very moment that —

Well, it always is at this moment, isn’t it? Whatever other moment could there be? Since the days of good old Quintus Horatius, the moment has been seized, grabbed, fondled, mutilated and spindled, but it’s always been there. After all, where would the moment have gone? The man said seize the moment and it wouldn’t have been a very clever thing to say — it would have been downright silly — if there weren’t a moment to seize.

And which moment would it be if it weren’t this one? It always is the moment right in front of one, isn’t it. Silly would inadequate to describe the situation arising from someone attempting to seize that moment or even the other one. It wouldn’t be there for the person to seize, would it? It would be somewhere else, wouldn’t it? Can you picture the poor, misinformed fool wildly grasping at the wrong moment? It would be a more farcical sight, more extravagant and foolish, than Tartaglia trying to climb out of a pool of mud while the other characters “helped.” It would be more exaggerated than Pinocchio’s nose after he tried to explain away the magazines under his bed. It would be as impossible to imagine as the the antics of a long-haired cat having a bath after living in a barrel of peanut butter for a day. It would simply be utterly impossible.

But in any case, the moment was or is upon us, within our grasp, and not in any way past, and in that precise and ever-present confluence of time, space and events, the one rat in all of Alberta, which had been living comfortably in the cool confines of the temple basement and was alone and destitute and friendless beyond all reason, was awoken by the horrifying sight of another giant rodent looming out of the gloom, reaching toward his cozy nest with its enormous claws and terrifying teeth.

The rat, whose name was Ezekial, quite understandably screamed. At the top of his tiny little lungs. At high B (although he was a bit flat due to the fright).

And the sound of fear and despair reverberated round the dark cellar.