Rat Kiss

The shadowy woman carried a mouse and I pointed at it with my nose. My boyfriend looked and corrected me, “It’s a rat.” As the woman carrying the clear plastic box came closer I noticed the long hairless rat tail, but rats aren’t usually white and this one was, which is why I thought it was a mouse. Later I found out she was named Mabel the Unable and was the kind of rat used in lab experiments.

The woman carrying Mabel was spectacular—a mound of black frizzy curls exploded from her scalp. She was tall and wore black eyeliner and dark lipstick. You could tell she used to be a Goth Chick and will never throw away her “I’d rather be dead” albums by Morrisey and his kin.

We met her and Mabel on the train platform and started talking. You wouldn’t think someone with shy creatures of the dark as pets would be so sociable. I never found out her name but I did find out that Mabel was a gift for Rosie, a rat she’d adopted earlier in the year.

Poor Mabel was Unable because she was sick, which the Goth Lady knew because she’d done all kinds of research about rat health. The sneezes, wheezes, and clicking noise in Mabel’s lungs indicated a respiratory infection. Actually, at first thought it could be diabetes, but the rattling in the lungs indicated phlegm. Rats are apparently prone to many of the same diseases as humans, which is why we do experiments on them. Maybe that’s the same reason Aliens experiment on us.

Mabel was going back to the pet store for a refund because she wasn’t getting better and would eventually die, but not before contaminating Rosie. Rosie, like dogs, comes when you call her and uses different squeaks to communicate her needs and licks her Goth Mama’s cheek. It’s too bad that even though rats kiss, we still breed them for scientific torture. All those kisses locked up in sanitized cells. What a loss.