The Rat
by Dan Zangerl
The damned rat started
squeaking again; somehow among all the tireless whirring, sucking, and
gulping of al; the subterranean machinery, the rodent’s cries still
broke the mechanical ambiance.
I was trying to work of course. I was always trying
to work, but alas my mind, teeming with ideas was like trying to
squeeze tar through a funnel. The dread of stagnation of course led my
mind to wander, wandering led to distractions. Oh some distractions
were needed, like servicing and maintaining the machines, but the work
did not get done.
I had tried to free myself of these distractions venturing ever further
away from the world and its distractions, farther and farther away,
deep down, until I had lost sight of the way back. Now amidst the dark,
the cold and the damp, among the tireless drones of substrata machinery
the mouse continued to cry.
Images, visualizations, thoughts of a tiny helpless rodent trapped in a
whirring cog or sucked into the narrow mouth of a pipe. All of them,
distractions!
I had work I needed to do!
Hours turned to days, weeks turned into hours, minutes turned into
years! The shunning of the sun took its toll on my concept time. Much
of my progress remained stagnant as did what little of the world still
sought me, save for that vile pest, that petty, pathetic
little vermin. It and still its cries remained constant.
I needed to work dammit! That’s all there was to it. I didn’t care if
the wretched thing died or not. It was distracting me! I tried to
concentrate, masking the roar of the machines over the squeaks of the
pitiful little mouse. But still it cried on. Thoughts of searching for
the thing, finding it, setting it free or putting it out of its mystery
plagued my mind. NO! NO! I had to work! I had to ignore it! No
more distractions!
The thoughts were coming now, I could feel them. A hydraulic piston
stamped down and strained before yielding to a wrenching halt. The
machines! They’ve stopped! A sudden panic took over me as I wafted into
the flooded engine room, waist deep in cold oily water. The main pump
had failed and the hydraulics that maintained the pressure hatch to the
surface had flooded. I jogged against the icy black water, barely
touching the bottom now as I looked for a panel, a light, anything!
Then I heard, forlornly in the darkness a soft and pathetic squeak.
It was a sad and mournful squeak, as the mouse lay
trapped in the vacuum embrace of an intake hose. The cold, wet, pitiful
thing squeaked its last warning too late.
I write these last words knowing that within the
hour the unrelenting flood will fill my chamber of isolation,
swallowing me and my work in my soon to be watery tomb. Still, I feel
no remorse for the loss of my work, what I do regret is the
distractions, keeping me from realizing the urgent warnings of my
little friend….
THE END
© 2015 Dan Zangerl
Bio: Dan Zangerl is a part time ESL teacher and videographer living
in Central Illinois. This is one of his first submissions. It has been
read and performed live by Storyteller, Dan Keding at Allerton PArk's
annual An Evening with Poe concert in 2014. He enjoys dipping into
psychological and metaphorical in SF and horror and finds inspiration
in many unlikely sources.
E-mail: Dan Zangerl
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