The Rat

White Rat by Michael Creese

Are you okay? The rat was vilified because of not what he did but for who he was. Rats carried disease and sickness yet the filth he carried attracted the other animals in the forest. To the other animals, he was a sinner that they all were deep within themselves. You see the rat did not have to lie to bring the curiosity of the others among the forest. He followed no one. Listened to no one. Believed in no one. For who he was he was not welcomed in the light, judged in the light, and outcasted in the light, but in the dark, the rat would flourish. You see, the rat did not have to search for the attention he longed for in the forest. The animals would find the rat in the night and pull on the temptations they pushed away in the day. They condoned what they condemned and the rat lavished in it. He saw the true colors of the animals. Not all the masks, status, and reputation. The rat got to see the true animal in all of them. He knew what all the animals were in the dark. They were all just like him. They were all sinners. You wanted the good times, you sought out the rat. You wanted to feel human, you sought the rat. Perhaps he was the closest one to all of them for he would give them what they hungered for outside the forest. Some wanted attention, some wanted love, some wanted to feel good, some wanted to forget, some wanted revenge, some wanted the truth and the rat provided. The animals all had the same reason to seek the rat. Pain. They all were hurting and when hardships fell upon them, they would find him. With how much all the animals found in the rat, he wondered why they could not find these things amongst each other. This questioned sat upon the rat's shoulders which overtime would be too heavy to carry. The rat came and gone and he hoped that the animals would seek what they found in him with one another. The rat was not all that bad in the end. He never turned on the other animals and he knew he would one day leave the forest as all the animals do eventually. Not to his surprise, the animals continued to go back to their lifestyle from before. They would heal their wounds in other ways. The rat was not surprised. He knew the animals would go back bathing in the sunlight and cast away anyone that did not follow them around the forest. For all the good animals were seen as pure but the rat knew who they truly were. Behind all those masks, he knew how truly human they really were.