Sitting underneath the clearing glass, I watched the sun creep up steadily into the sky; I was getting some food from the bin for breakfast before the boys got up, deciding to have this experience. I could now understand why Burrow loved sitting here in solitude, quietly watching Nature operate in all her beauty.
I hated to admit it, but this view was delightful. The clouds crept by in the vast cerulean blue space, the orange yellow glow of the Sun reflecting a white, glowing shimmer on the leaves of the trees. There was a clear outspread of lengthy grass that shot into the air, a tree stacked with voluptuous apples stood right in the middle of it. It's a good thing the Giant hadn't decided to cut his grass. We can use the length of the bush to cover us as we moved through it, and it would be hard for predators that can fly to see us. My eyes wandered down to the flower garden right below the window.
Blood red Hibiscus flowers shot out of the ground, so long that they bent over. Pink poinsettias, white lilies, yellow sunflowers, flowers of all shapes and sizes shot up into the sky, either bending over or standing tall. They were truly amazing, a sight that I had so long forgotten.
With all the Death and suffering I was surrounded by in my child and adult life, I spent so much time in survival mode that I had forgotten how beautiful everything was. It all looked so..pristine. So innocent. So harmless....but I knew better.
This was the Animal kingdom. A dimension filled with warfare, murder, pain. The creatures of the air fought over their territory. Falcons battling with Eagles to prove whose the King of the skies, Scavengers, Crows, Pigeons acknowledging their superiority. Land creatures did the same. Dogs barked whenever strangers came into "their territory". Cats had specific spots where they hunted in the Forest. Mongooses ran anyone that came close to their pens. Could we as rodents run anything or anyone away from our Burrows? Away from our homes? No. We had to flee.
From the ones above, from the ones bellow. Both were focused on us.
And now here I was. Having been through all I've been through, having done everything, and now the Lord wanted me to send out my precious sons and give them to the World. So that they wouldn't miss out on a little "adventure".
Was risking their lives worth some adventure???
"Lord, my only sons. They are so young. Please, I beg you to protect us on our journey.." Mouthing a silent prayer to the father, I hopped off the window ledge and made my way home. I had gotten some sausages and baguette that the Giant threw away before he left early in the morning, my bucks needed a healthy, sturdy breakfast before we left today.
I got home and they had just woken up, so I hurried and set out the food, arranging their shares along the table. Even though I wasn't feeling joyous about this decision I made, at least I could pretend to be happy. For them.
"It's the day you've all been waiting for my bucks!! It's time for us to venture out into the wild, so eat up! You'll need the energy." I looked across to them as they fixed themselves into the seats, Sharp and Burrow close to me and Cheesy at the end.
Sharp and Burrow looked at each other and nodded, like some kind of secret code was being exchanged. Those two were so opposite in personality, yet they operated so well when they joined forces. They must be up to something...
I looked down to the very end at my Cheeseflower. He was rubbing his eyes and yawning, still groggy from last night. He paused, the corners of his lips tight, shoulders slouching while he lifelessly shifted his food around, pouting as he leaned his face against his fist.
My poor, sensitive baby. I saw alot of my younger self in him. He cared about everything and everyone around him, very in tune with his environment. Not sticking to the logistics of it all like Burrow, or bracing himself forward like Sharp.
He just wanted to eat his food and have everyone get along that Cheesy, he hated when Burrow and Sharp argued. He used to part the fights they had when they were smaller and try everything in his power to get them to speak to each other.
I loved that about him. He needn't worry about being separated from his brothers when he got outside. I would never allow that to happen....
"Ahemm" I drew my attention back to Sharp who had gotten out of his seat and cleared his throat; he rotated his head to me and began speaking.
"Mother, Burrow and I have made a very important decision." he affirmed.
Decision??? What decision had the two of them made?? Lines at the side of my eyes pinched as I peered curiously at him, wondering what plan these two possibly could have come up with. Lord forgive me for saying this, but please let them say they don't want to go outside anymore. Let them change their minds... Burrow rose from his position as well, standing firmly beside Sharp.
"Sharp and I have decided that in light of the current situation, it wouldn't be fair to Cheesy if we went outside right now. So, Sharp and I have agreed to put Cheesy on a training program to prepare him for life outdoors." Burrow explained.
"That's right! We won't leave until Cheesy is in peak fighting condition!! " Sharp asserted boldy, a fierce piercing gleam in his eyes.
"Sharp and I will do a series of exercises every day to get Cheesy down a few pounds, so that he can be faster, quicker, and smarter than those vicious creatures that we have to face outside!"
''He'll be a super rodent when we're done with him!" Sharp continued.
I couldn't believe what was happening right now. I glanced up at Burrow and Sharp side by side, my pupils swiveling from them to Cheesy.
Was the Lord given me another chance with this delay?
Cheesy looked down at his body, ever more so noticeable of his weight than anything else. He pinched the sides of his body, examining the overlapping, sagging fat that rested on top of each other like folded clothes, sighing in disbelief.
"Quicker, Smarter.....Faster???" he asked slowly, bringing his head up slowly to Sharp and Cheesy. There were tears in his eyes.
"Guys, I-"he paused for a moment, his voice on the edge of breaking.
"I can't. I just can't. I would hold you and Burrow back and you both know it's impossible for me to lose all this weight. Much less gain agility like Sharp, or smartness, like Burrow. That would be a miracle, and miracles don't happen-" just as I was about to reach for Chessy's hand and reassure him, Sharp sprang up.
"Oh would you shut up with the self-pity talk! Can it with the excuses Cheesy!" Sharp's voice rung out like an alarm, the buck fuming as he got up and walked past Burrow, making his way to Cheesy.
"Sharp wait-" I whined, raising my hand for him to stop, he walked around the table and sat beside Cheesy, seizing his shoulders and looking into his eyes.
"Listen Cheesemiser. You may be a fat, greedy, cheese obsessed pig, but that's how it all starts out!! If me and Burrow have to drag you through hell and high water, we will do it. Cause brothers don't leave brothers behind! No matter what, we will always be here for each other! And we will turn you into a machine!! A proud, brave, ass kicking, cheese grabbing rodent!!!"
"Sharp!!" I planked out of my seat and brushed his hands from around Cheesy's shoulder, scouting Cheesy closer to me and running him away. Burrow punched Sharp in the shoulder, cussing him under his breath. I get that Sharp was trying to help, but that's not the way you go about doing things. Sharp's problem was that he always felt the need to be rude, which was unnecessary. Chessy's eyes were dreary, glossy balls of tears now, his eyebrows pinched to the bottom of his eyelashes. He blinked and the tears flew down his face, turning away from me he spun to face Sharp.
"I may be a fat, greedy, cheese obsessed bastard but I'd rather die of loneliness in this cramped little hole than train with hypocrites who think the worst of me! I don't want to be like you and Burrow, slim and conceited. I'll stay this way! Forever!! Therefore, go by yourselves!" Cheesy ran off angrily, upset with the barrage of insults that Sharp had given him as "motivation".
"Cheesy! Cheesy, my baby wait!! Sharp didn't mean anything, he's just an idiot after all!!" I ran after Cheesy as he headed to his nesting.
...................................
Cheesy was obviously, deeply hurt by being called out on his weight and other disadvantages, Sharp foiling the plan that we carefully plotted. And this wasn't anywhere in the script of things that we schemed to say. Why had he gone off the rails like that despite what we discussed?
"Great job Captain motivation. You''ve completely destroyed Cheesy's self-esteem, even more than how it was already trampled. Why didn't you just shut up and let me do the talking? What happened to "Okay Burrow, I'll be gentle'' Hm??? What happened to all that??" I asked, Sharp flashing guilty looks at me and scratching the behind of his head.
"I got carried away" he whispered.
...........................
POV-
Perkins -The Farmer
That afternoon, Perkins Wilford, the owner of the house, noticed something that was quite upsetting. Perkins was a farmer, and every day he trotted through the yam filled fields of Westmoreland, carefully cultivating a field that was supposed to be filled with yams for acres, and he just couldn't, for the life of him, keep the parasites away. He stood there in the ruined field with his little nephew, both of them in soil stained, dirty jeans overalls and water boots, the blazing sun beating them on their backs. The top of his was shaved clean and hot, like an egg could have been fried on it. Drops of sweat crawled their way into his scraggly mustache, three distinct lines curved on top of each other above his eyebrows; one hand on his hip, and another barely covering his face from the sun.
The nine-year-old stood beside him, the boy fixing his hat as he chewed on a piece of straw.
"Uncle Perkins. Did dem stinky rats do dis???" the curious boy asked. Before them was a field filled with hundreds and hundreds of yams that were ripped out of the soil, thrashed and scattered all over the place. The man bent down and examined one, touching its white flesh, which was now exposed due to a plum sized bite in the middle of it. All the yams were destroyed. They were bitten into, jagged pieces torn and ripped apart, all of them decorated with teeth marks, claw scratches and other signs of demarcation.
The disarrayed farmer felt a heat whelm up in him, he got up and flung the half-eaten Yam to the floor.
"Damned, stinky dreadful rats. God's worst abomination to man!!" he spat tobacco filled gunk to the floor, rubbing the temple of his head and sighing, closing his eyes as he imagined the sweet, sweet cries of the rats that he would set traps in the field for.
"Neffew if i coulda snatch all dem dirty lil rats and drop em in the fiyah. Ohhhh-those dirty bastards!!!" he flung his fists into the air, cursing his mother, the land, God for making the pests. He cursed everyone, for now his hard work of plowing the fields and watching his yams grow had amount to nothing.
"Hell's hottest fire still couldn't give the satisfaction of be ridding those things...'' he muttered to himself. He was tired of them after all, the whole species of them. The rats were savages in the summer, and this was the third of his crop that they had eaten out.
"I'll get those sons of bitches. I'll get them, I will godammit!!" Perkins marched into a wooden shack that he built nearby, reaching for his gun and running back to the field.
"Go ta Hell ya sons a bitches!!!!!!" the little boy jumped as he heard a series of gunshots fired out into the air, he jumped and tripped stumbling over. Dirt flew up in the air while Perkins shot at the soil, vowing to find some way to not only kill them, no, that was too quick for what they had done. They must suffer.
That afternoon an exhausted Perkins pushed through his door and entered the house, thinking that he made it home at least, all of his troubles were done for the day. Now he was fully focused on enjoying a roast beef sandwich, with an ice-cold, tall glass filled with lemonade. Dashing his boots off his calloused feet and leaving them by the door, he dragged his tired body by bare will and brought himself to the fridge.
"Oh shit wait-" The man stopped himself from going into the fridge and turned the Kitchen sink on, splashing some dish washing liquid in his hands and soaping them up, the brown water going down the sink drain. He turned the water off took his rough, opening his fridge door. The frigid breeze blast from it rushed on the man's face, the cool blast easing him from standing in the hot sun all day. He only had one straw hat that he had to give to his nephew that started working with him yesterday, since the rats eat a darn hole through the middle of the thing.
He shoved his tanned, slim face, in the fridge, closing his eyes and enjoying the breeze, straightening the bushy mustache that sat on top of his lip. His bulgy eyes carefully perused the contents of the fridge, as he searched for his roast ham and his wonderful French baguette that he bought last Tuesday.
"Hmm...last Tuesday?? Or was it Wednesday?" he talked to himself curiously, grabbing the baguette, half roasted ham, tomatoes, and lettuce out of the fridge and cradling them until he dropped them all onto the marble counter.
Wait. Something was amiss.... he paused. There was something that flashed in the corner of his eye as he dropped the ingredients on the counter. He picked up the loaf and inspected it at his mind's eye. Then he saw what was wrong.
There was a lengthy stretch of green and white mold on the underside of the bread.
"Damn!!! threw out one of em bauggettes dis here morning an now dis?? Gotta stop buyin these fancy french breads. Mr.Loius bread woulldda neva spoilt like dis. Hmmm...maybe if I cut off this nasty portion" so he grabbed a knife and cut it, only to realize that the entire loaf of bread had been infected.
"You've got to be kidding me!" he uttered to himself in disgust. Perkins threw the moldy baguette that was no longer up for consumption in the bag, cursing under his breath. His appetite being turned, he decided that he would go by his sister instead, maybe having some of that delicious roast chicken she always managed to have in the oven. With that he sunk his smelly feet back into the boots he left by the door, heading to out to see her, the door slamming behind him.
A few hours past after he successfully got a nice meal by his sister.
After coming home with a full belly, he went straight to sleep, getting up the next morning he took the full bag out to the garbage. He lifted the bag painstakingly, knowing that these new garbage bags he got from Roy's were cheap and good for nothing so just as he was about to lift it out of the bin he heard the sound of cans, papers and other stuff toppling out of the bag and crashing to the floor.
''Gaaaadamn!!" he screamed out.
A can of opened peas had rubbed against the sac and ripped it open; but that wasn't the issue. Amongst the pile of empty cans, yam skins, paper and other general garbage, laid the two baguettes. The lengthy baguette laying close to his toe was covered in white and green blotches of mold at its top, it had been bitten into around the edges of each side. He kneeled down, the tips of his fingers touching the bread. Looking to his far right, the next baguette that he threw out the same morning that day laid across the floor. He went over and inspected it as well.
This one didn't seem to have been touched. No bite outs to the side of it, just mold all over the top.
"Lemme take a look see herre..'' a tiny voice had whispered in his mind to turn it over, and as soon as he did he realized that his deductions were wrong.
The entire middle of the bread was gone, leaving a hollow whole that extended from the upper part of the bread, down to the middle. Gone, nothing.
The man swung up on his feet, flinging the bread in his hand down and screaming.
"Rats!! In ma house???? - ohh damn!!!! they gone make me sin today an its Sunday" he bent over and continued taking up all the garbage that was on the floor, putting them into a new bag and wrapping it up to burn it by his Apple tree outside.
Perkins had made up his mind. This would be the last straw of him having to deal with these wretched beings. He had a huge infestation of them on his farm, and having to come home to face them as well? Enough was enough.
He jumped in his truck and headed down to the convenience store, picking up a set of rat traps and poisons. He sighed looking at what he had to go through. Look at all the years he spent setting traps and poisons in his fields. All the buggers had done was avoid the poisons and take the bait, only skunks and opossums were caught in those traps sometimes. Every year they were growing more too.
'' These funky traps aint gone do shit" he mumbled to himself.
There had to be another solution.
It was time he got serious. It was time he tried something, that he had never tried before.
.......................................