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Dead Rat

Jaded

By JMFT MEDIAPublished 2 years ago 3 min read
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Today was inconvenient from the beginning. I woke up earlier than I usually do to attend a meeting. I was looking forward to this meeting but the seductive nature of an extra hour of sleep weighed heavily on my body and soul. I was nodding off on the subway, as I often do. I was practically boasting my shameless poor posture, reclining in the hard train chair that allowed me about six neighborhoods-worth of shut-eye. The meeting was fine, I saw some friends, made some new ones.

I remade myself at the remembrance that I had arranged lunch plans with a friend who lives in the area. I haven’t seen her in awhile, making this something else I was looking forward to on today’s agenda. The school is full of life again, something it’s been devoid of for the past year and a half. In some ways, it’s pleasant and refreshing. In other ways, it’s jarring and a nuisance. I relish in the joy of a conversation with someone I admire, though I loathe the thought of an unwanted interaction with someone I don’t care for.

I find in today’s meal, a mix of both interactions. That’s life, I suppose. Black and white is fantasy, we live in perpetual grey.

My friend suggests we sit outside in the courtyard and enjoy the warm weather. I tell her it sounds like a great idea, and we head down the stairs while making the friendly chatter of friends who haven’t seen each other in about a month. The tables are filthy, but we try our best to pick one with the tidiest potential. We settle for one in the corner, pressed against the outdoor seating built into the stone flooring.

I didn’t order a large meal, only two small portions of tofu and brussel sprouts. She got a salad with chicken. She makes note of my bizarre food pairing and asks if I’m a vegetarian, to which I reply with, “not anymore.” It’s no lie, I eat meat once in a while though I prefer to not indulge in the flesh of a creature when I can choose not to. We speak of classes and share anecdotes, catching each other up on the finale of the summer we spent in our own stories. We talk of coworkers; we talk of God.

That’s when I looked down and noticed the benighted rodent adjacent to my foot. A dead rat, curled into the corner of the university courtyard, blending in with the pavement so much so that they had gone undetected by us for the majority of our meal. Unable to unsee it, my friend suggested we move tables while now picking the chicken out of her ruffage. I agree, but for a moment I’m mesmerized by the unfortunate end this creature had faced. To have lived in the jungle of concrete only to die inches away from the nearest flora, having its eyeballs picked out by the fly that’s built its new home.

I suppose it’s silly to look towards such a natural occurrence and try to find a deeper meaning. From a purely scientific lense, this was merely a rotation of life’s cyclical nature, nothing more. But I can’t help the feeling of empathy mixed with a longing to understand the reasoning behind such a death so… public. After all, isn’t that all religion is? Looking towards the empirical realm and trying to find romance in the logic that otherwise depresses us? We spoke of God, I wonder if they’re reading this?

I know next to nothing, but I know that I am only one or two degrees away from being the dead rat.

humanity
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