Rat Squeaks

Rat squeaks – is that what they are? Rat squeaks, says W., who is visiting. Without doubt.

We look out at the yard. My God, it's disgusting out there, says W. There are rat droppings on the concrete – black, elongated pellets, ten or twelve of them, some forming a haphazard pile, others scattered. Rat droppings! It must mean they're thriving, W. says. And they've been digging in your pots, too. They've been looking for bulbs to eat.

It was the bird feeder that brought them here, I tell W. Or rather, the bird food I intended for it. The bag of food was full of just-hatched flies, I noticed. I threw it away in horror. Swarms of flies kept from sweeping up the seed, I tell W. And that's why the rats came, I tell him, for the seed.

They would have squeezed under the gate, I tell him. It's only a two inch gap, but they can dislocate their shoulders to get in, I tell him. Another squeak, like strangled birdsong. Where's it coming from?, says W.? Inside the flat? Beneath it, I tell him. That's where they live now.

There's a five foot gap beneath the floorboards, I tell him, all the way to the mud. Once I pulled up the floorboards and shone a light down there. I saw three of them dashing into the space by the pipes where they've made their nest. Three of them, as though made of liquid, streaming back. Two little ones, and a little one, young, streaming. That's where they keep themselves, by the pipes, where they can get in and out.

What are they doing down there?, says W. Chewing, I tell him. They have to; their incisors never stop growing. If they stopped chewing, their incisors would eat through the walls of their mouth, I tell him. Imagine that.

They're chewing now, I tell W., in between squeaking, in their nest next to the pipes. – 'What do you think they're chewing?', says W. The pipes? Maybe, I shrug. But they're chewing something, theirs no question of that. They have to. Their incisors are constantly growing, I tell him. They'll grow through the roof of their mouths and through the bottom of their mouths, all the way down, through the jaw and out.