Rats



            Sometimes they keep me awake at night, too restless to fall asleep, with their moving. The tops of their backbones and sometimes a nose or foot can be seen pushing outwards on my skin. This must be what mothers see during the later months of pregnancy, only what they are pregnant with is very different from my own abhorration. A happy, rose – painted infant is infinitely better than these slinking, creeping creatures. There's a big one, as big as a softball maybe, which scurries up to my heart at night to sleep heavily upon it. His breathing moves eerily in time with mine. The others scamper haphazardly chewing here and there, tasting the dark inner systems of my body. At times a sudden sting is felt as one sharpens his little teeth to points on my bones. When it's quiet – very, very quiet – the muffled sound of ripping and swallowing can be heard as they feast on my small intestines or spleen..

            If you would have told me as a child that soon my bowels would be infested with beady eyed creatures lacking mercy you probably would have heard a hearty laugh and something like yeah right, give me a break. But this is no laughing matter. In fact, it hurts to laugh now because they dig their talon-like hands into the soft spots of my insides and hold on tight. No laughing is allowed when they are awake. Everything is of serious business to them as they methodically consume me from the inside out.

            I don't remember when this happened, exactly, couldn't pinpoint a precise date on the calendar because it happened so gradually. They couldn't even be felt at first, just a small bunch of hairless pink animals curled warmly between my lungs. So fragile and innocent; I didn't worry at all about them. But they didn't stay small and fragile, and they became hungry. Soon they were growing fangs and claws to scrape and to chew at me with. They grew plump on my fleshy organs and devoured me greedily. It became increasingly harder to conceal and it became an obsession. What if someone saw their movements? What if someone heard their awful muted squeaking?

Worry pervaded my every thought as they grew larger and hungrier, their awful twitching noses and sinister bulging eyes searching for more of me to consume. I couldn't help but wonder what would become of me and our twisted relationship as they discovered there is no more of myself to give. Would they burst from my pale flesh in all their teeth and claws and fury? Their hairy bodies matted a dark blackish red with my blood, bits of me still hanging from their yellowed pointy teeth, and soulless black beads of raging greed explode with a loud crack through ribs and skin? What is going to happen to me?

They're plotting down there, sitting oddly quiet at the bottom of my gut, waiting for the opportune time to exact revenge. They know their truths have been told, what they are all about, and it makes them angry. They've tied my intestines into knots and breathed hot acid into my belly. If only I'd have known how much trouble they'd put me through once they were revealed I wouldn't have said anything, Just let them grow and feed until one day I burst from the strain of trying to contain them. Or maybe I wouldn't have allowed them to take up residence at all.
If only I had known.