Fiction: The Singing Mice by Ankur Razdan

By Ankur Razdan

​It breaks my heart to say I only visit my dad when I really have to. Not when I need anything from him—we are way past the point of him supporting me through tough times. But it has been very hard to bring myself to go over there when I haven’t been obligated to.
​
I wasn’t under any obligation to go visit him today, but I could sense it, that there was a need which he hadn’t expressed. I was sure that I would discover what it was when I got there. It had been a real shock to me when he moved out of the house, into that cheap third-floor shoe box in the south east quadrant. I had always imagined my parents, or at least one of them, linked forever to the home I grew up in. It took me a long time to realize that that was like asking someone to live as a troll under a bridge their entire life. 

​Now, unfortunately, it’s hard for me to imagine my dad living anywhere else. The location of the apartment, in not-so-great a part of town, has never been the reason that’s ever kept me away. Even if I don’t like that he’s decided to make what should have been a temporary situation into a permanent one, that’s not up to me. The street he lives on always has the most dismal weather going on, no matter what it’s like elsewhere around town. You simply can’t forget to bring an umbrella no matter how silly it seems. There’s always engorged, sprawling garbage bags in the stairwell, and there is a disgusting smell which I’ve never smelled anywhere else. Whenever I go, I always see the same guy smoking on the stairwell. Now, I used to smoke in college, I don’t have anything against it, I’ve got a friend who opened up a CBD shop last year. I never could understand how someone could look at a normal activity like smoking weed as sketchy or depressing or low-class until one day, as I was leaving my dad, I said to the guy:

“Do you have to stink up the stairwell all the time?”

And he puffed and said:

“I smoke to cover up the stink….It’s a public service, see?”

He laughed, and I laughed too, but I didn’t like it.

Again, there are far worse parts of town. But my dad has complained about the smell before. This is maybe a place for a young person who is moving on up in the world. Not one for a gentle man to come to a stop in life.
​
Today was about the same. The elevators (both of them!) were broken down, as usual. That was one problem those fucking rats weren’t capable of solving. So I was working on it, without even being asked. I’ve been tied up on the phone for, collectively, probably several weeks of my life with the building management, trying to get the things looked at. Or if they got looked at, to get the necessary parts ordered. Or if the parts came, to get them installed. And so on. But it’s gone nowhere, and so my dad has to take the stairs. He’s not such an infirm old man, he says his knees are mostly fine. But it’s just one more reason for him not to go out.

I rang at his door. I had been wearing heels in the office, but on account of the stairs had traded them out for flats in my big purse. I listened for the sound of my dad shuffling to the door, maybe humming to himself or singing along to something, probably with a scratchy sweater to hug me in. But I heard nothing, and when the door opened I saw nobody. Then, after rolling my eyes at my own naiveté, I glanced down. There was a fucking rat standing on its hind legs, looking up at me.

“Hello,  Kestrel.”

“Hello, Nebuchadnezzar.”

“Do come in—”

But obviously I did not wait for him to fucking invite me in.

Nebuchadnezzar went scurrying away. I think I hid my surprise well enough. I looked behind me, casually as I could, as the door shut. There was one of those contraptions of theirs, except more complicated than the others I’d seen, with steel parts intertwined with the door and burnished as if mass-produced. The interior of the apartment was pristine. No grime, no bad smells: the paint had long-since been recoated, the air hummed with lavender, the hall was lined with posters, an award or two from before I was potty-trained, and pictures of every familial relation you could think up, including of my mother. I hung my purse from a peg on my dad’s old hat rack. It was the one he used to keep in his home office for some reason, which in retrospect makes no sense. My purse had a really heavy zipper, too heavy for them to open. I was sure the rats could climb the hat rack with ease.

I heard music from the other room. It was a song from Hello Dolly, I couldn’t remember which one exactly. Not the title song. There was a voice singing along, which then stopped, muttered:

“Who’s there?”

“Dad, it’s me!”

But he hadn’t been asking me. After a pause, he said:

“Kestrel’s here?” And then louder, over the music, “Kestrel!”

Then the music stopped.

We met in the living room. He had gotten up, but hadn’t gotten far from the couch. He looked up at me (I’m much taller) and smiled. We hugged, and I got the sweater-scratchies I was looking for. My father looks like Ben Kingsley. Ben Kingsley, but with some meat on his bones, by which I mean the flab that led to his successful heart surgery two years ago. And not fully bald either, not Gandhi-Kingsley, but Ben Kingsley with some weight on him and some salt and pepper on his temples. And from time to time, as today, sporting an older-gentleman beard. On a stand opposite the couch was a wide-screen TV, which a long time ago Brad had paid for half of. It was paused on a staged version of the musical—it looked like a local production. Not surprised my dad had a tape. Next to the TV was a vinyl set-up with speakers, and an impeccably ordered bookshelf of records. Also in the room with us was a horde of rats, splayed on the floor and jammed into every other odd nook and cranny. A few of them were occupying the couch, and from their postures (you could almost, almost say expressions) you would think I had just peeled away the most interesting conversation partner from them at a party. One they expected back.

“You don’t usually surprise me like this!” my dad said. And quickly added, “But such a delightful surprise.”

I laughed and pulled away from the hug, squeezing his shoulder.
“It’s not a surprise! I called you, I set this up. Two days ago?”

He laughed, too, and rapped the top of his head with his knuckles and sat back down on the couch.

“Course, of course. That’s what Jimothy here said, too. I’ll be getting calls from your sister and your mother about my terminal case of Alzheimer’s next.”

By Jimothy he meant one of the rats, which was curled up upon a supine beanie baby atop the book shelf. He held a small planner open in front of him. It was about as big as he was, and plain to see that he guarded it with jealousy. I knew that among other things, they scheduled his doctor’s visits. Who picks up the prescriptions? I had to get in on that.

I was about to sit down on the chair across from him, but then thought better of it and launched my rear end at the spot on the couch next to him, where the rats were. They had to dart in all directions so as not to be crushed by my broad ass. I saw on my dad’s face a sharp look of displeasure, but it went away again.

The rats unpaused Hello Dolly, but they turned the sound down so we could talk. They always put up this front of thoughtfulness, so you can never blame them for anything. From the back of the apartment I could hear the weak whine of a metal wheel turning, and the sound of singing while they worked. I refuse to repeat any of the lyrics of those songs they sing. An acne-scarred Cornelius was getting into major hijinks on stage, some of which appeared to actually be scripted.

“How are you? How is Bradley?” asked my dad. “Is he still being a jack ass?”

I looked around at the furry bodies littering the living room. Not so many that if I stepped on one, I could convincingly claim it was an accident.

“He’s fine,” I said quickly.
​
His face brightened.

“You mean things are better now?”

There was no way to get away from this question, but my salvation came at that moment in the form of a metal rolling tray which thrust itself in front of me. Well, it didn’t thrust itself—I didn’t catch exactly how it got over to us all the way from the kitchen, but there were some very pathetic-looking rats down below, catching their breath and leaning against the wheels. On top of the rolling tray were two glasses’ worth of water. About half of that was actually swaying inside the glasses, clinking the ice cubes violently against the sides, while the other half was spilled all over.

My father smiled with the kind of weak-kneed embarrassment you get when your kid is bad at playing the violin or something, when why would it matter if they were? But it would be better if they were.

“The mice have been practicing. Trying to be more hospitable.”

“Right,” I said, taking a glass and going bottom’s up. I had been practicing at being a better guest. “What have you been up to, dad?”

He smiled and shrugged, genuinely befuddled that I would need to ask.
“I’ve been at home mostly. You know me. I watch shows, or listen to old records. Or I watch the little guys, they’re always practicing something or other. Sometimes I go out for karaoke. My friend Jimmy and I are actually going to go out tonight. Have you and Br…”

He was going to ask another personal question, and I had to interrupt with something. It broke my heart, but I knew the only casual-enough question that could get him on a different tangent would be something about the fucking rats.

“What are the mice practicing? Or do you just mean getting people drinks?”

“Oh, no, well…They try to do different numbers. They nearly have the routine down for A Spoonful of Sugar. Do you want to see? Um, Gastronius, Zanzubrian, do you think—”

Things had swung too much in the other direction. I most certainly did not want to see a shoebox rendition of A Spoonful of Sugar. That was even worse than their work-songs.

“I was thinking actually, maybe we should head out?”

“Head out? But Mary Poppins is your favorite! Head out where?” he said in a mixture of confusion and inborn rebelliousness, grabbing his own glass of water now.

“I’m taking you out to lunch. Sher-e-Punjab?”

“Oh, I didn’t know you wanted to go to lunch. I didn’t even know you were coming…Are we going to lunch?”

This was directed at Jimothy, who popped his narrow head up from behind his tome.

“We didn’t have lunch on here,” he declared with the voice of a pipsqueak magistrate.

“Well, I don’t know what they have down there,” (I said this a little snottily. It’s good to let your real feeling shine through from time to time. I didn’t want to get caught so deeply in the pretenses of politeness that he could keep himself in complete denial about how I felt) “But you sounded really happy on the phone, dad, when I suggested it.”

“I don’t know…” my dad said, not looking at me or any of the rats. “I was going to clean out the air ducts today.”

I stood up. When he didn’t imitate me, I sat back down. On the coffee table, among innumerable other knick-knacks, was a ferret made of painted glass. The why or wherefores, as they say, my dad’s owning it, I didn’t know. Out of sheer nerves I grabbed it, toyed with it in my hands as I spoke:

“Thought the mice did your chores for you?”

“Yes, they’re really helpful. They can take care of most anything. And they’re getting smarter and handier all the time—”

“They’re even opening doors now.”

“Yes, they’re even opening doors now. But they just don’t seem to have figured out a way to dust the air ducts decently. So it’s the one thing I do myself. Not a bad arrangement!”

I had to nod along with that and as I did so I caught sight of me, I mean a picture of me, aged about twelve, a child with the grace of a child, cradling a beautiful wildcat tabby in my arms. One of those arms was in an orange cast, which I had not had friends sign but had gone over in jagged scars of sharpie ink to imitate the pelt of the cat. The cat, whose name had been Chillvester (named by my older sister, but she was my cat), was long gone. A short while after she died, though, while I was in college, my dad had bought another cat of the same breed, just because mom and him missed Chillvester so much. I was never too close to this cat., which they named Mr. Mushnik. How could I be? But he was a lovely cat, nearly identical to my little Chillvesty in coloring. The day I first heard about the rats was also the day I found out my dad had sold Mr. Mushnik, to a stranger. In my hands the painted glass ferret broke in two at its svelte waist.

“Oh shit!” I said and opened my hand.

“Oh dear! Are you alright? You’re not cut or anything?” He wasn’t mad of course—it was just a real knick-knack, not a memento of any kind, it meant nothing to him—but I nearly cried as I put the pieces down on the coffee table. All my hands are good for, I thought.

I saw the rats eying the pieces of ferret, like they could feed on it. I also heard some pitter-patter, followed by a pack of them scampering into the living room in colorful, ornate little costumes. They started getting themselves into place….

“Let’s go to lunch! I’ll fix it when we get back.”

“But I—”

“And I’ll dust your air ducts, too! Now you have to come! Besides, Sher-e’s your favorite.”

The rats getting ready to sing had, even I could tell, such a downcast look to them now that they realized that they wouldn’t get the audience they thought they would. And I could see what was within my father’s glance to them—an apology, a promise for next time, all encoded without a word passing between them. I hated being such a hard-ass in front of them.

“Ready? I’ll drive?”

“Sure, let’s go.” He turned to Jimothy. If I recall correctly, his full name is Jimothy Mouse. His last name is Mouse! Isn’t that ridiculous? “Maybe we should call Jimmy, cancel karaoke tonight? Lotta action for one day.”
“But Gary,” said Nebuchadnezzar, his gaze steady, his voice gray and irritatingly wise. “It would be better for you to get out more. Instead of shutting people out? Like we talked about.”

He nodded, reached over and turned the TV off himself—I was surprised he didn’t have one of his rodent lackeys do it.

##

My dad seemed to age about five to ten years in our journey from his apartment to the strip mall Indian place down the street. I had been getting lunch there with him ever since he moved into his building. Whenever I’ve tried suggesting another place, I only ever get resistance. So it was tomato-based rogan josh for me, and palak aloo for him.
He stumbled into his side of the booth with an unpleasant bounce, picked up the menu, and immediately dropped it back onto the tabletop. Our waiter, tall, broad-shouldered, silken-locked, came by with some waters and was about to say something bland and bright, which my dad felled at the roots:

“Could we get some ice in these?”

The waters were removed from our presence. My dad’s uneven scowl glided roughly over the room, like a worn tire over gravel. I didn’t really know what to say. My father is the biggest flirt in all of existence. Men, women, grandmas, older teenagers, anybody, he didn’t care. He is a very sedate man in terms of his pursuits of pleasure, I know this, but he’s always willing to tease the idea of anything with anybody, with his perennial quibbling lip, saucy word, gleaming eye. Last time we were here—a month ago, maybe, or two—we had been served by the same waiter, I remember, and my dad had been shameless! With the guy right on the event horizon of earshot, he’d asked me if I thought he was cute or not. We laughed and laughed and laughed.

When the waiter came back with ice in the glasses, my father started sipping immediately. After we ordered, he added:
“It’s hot in here—can we get some AC going?”

The waiter successfully failed to make a commitment and scuttled away.

I felt like my dad was looking everywhere except at me. Whenever there was an unexpected noise, his eyes flickered over in that direction immediately, then cooled like embers brought to a sudden glow.

“Dad…everything’s not alright me with me and Brad,” I said. I wanted to get as much of the talking as possible in before the food came.
“What do you mean? Back at my place, you told me everything was fine.”

Satisfied with his own logic, he continued to sip ice water and avoid my eyes.

“I know, it’s just…it doesn’t matter. It’s not fine. I’m really disgusted with some of the things he’s done. And I know he thinks the same about me.”

“Did you two have another argument after he got back from California?”
“Dad, he’s still in California.”

My father put down the glass, bowed his head slightly while lifting his eyes, and tapped the glass tabletop with all his fingers kind of joined together. That’s how he gets when he’s really paying attention. He looked at me very deeply then, without any of the animal fear with which, for some reason, he now confronts storefronts and waiters and sidewalks. No, it was the look of deep, sad fear for somebody else, the feeling that you are about to watch a terrible tragedy unfold in front of you, whose pain you can feel none of but from which you are not allowed to shield your eyes.

“He’s staying in California? When’s he getting back?”

I was fidgeting with my silverware set. Now I wished the food was here, so I could stick a spoonful in me when I didn’t want to speak.
“I don’t know. He hasn’t told me. He might not be coming back. I think he’s leaving me.”

The food came out and my dad pointed out something to the waiter with unctuous irritation. I don’t even remember what it was he said, I was so lost in my own self. Probably about the AC again. I didn’t know what he was talking about, I felt fine.

He dug into his aloo while it was still steaming, mashed it in his mouth. Wasn’t it hurting him? He took a sip of water and then said:
“How are you holding up with him still gone?”

Intense sorrow and spicy mutton cooperated in pulling one over on my tear ducts. I wiped the tears away, but I did not have to glance in a mirror to know how splotchy my face now was, how revealing-red were the rims of my eyelids and the outer banks of my eyes. Blood visible, as from a wound.

“It hurts so bad, daddy.” I winced and covered my eyes. I needed my daddy like nothing else in my life.

“I know, baby, I know.” He took my hand away from my face, rested it there on the cool glass tabletop. “I didn’t expect it to happen to you two…so fast.”

“My life is falling apart,” I squelched out.

“Your life might change. But it’s not falling apart. Trust me.”

I sniffled. I was about to ask him for some advice—I had neglected to do so before. I thought, why should I get advice about marriage from someone whose own marriage failed? But now I had nothing else to do in the whole wide world but to unload my feelings and find out what he thought about them.

But at that exact moment I lost him. Or he was lost again. Clicking his fingers at the waiter. If at the same moment I had not been feeling the tip of the spear of universal nothingness penetrating my vital organs, I would have been extremely embarrassed. The waiter was busy ignoring him far away and over the fields at his host stand, possibly praying for a new party to walk in. An unsuspecting waitress came over from the other direction and was instantly caught in the AC quagmire.

When she left, I was already starting to feel the after-effects of Talking to Someone About It. A more powerful drug has never been sold in a legal pharmacy. Lifting just a fraction of the pain felt better than any positive pleasure I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Already, like eating on a full stomach, the thought of raking over anything more nauseated me. Everything was just moving so fast, all the time. Outside of me, inside of me. I tried to focus.

“Is there anything you need help with?”

He looked at me for a second like I was crazy, and then said, amused:
“The air ducts. You still want to dust them? It’s okay if you don’t, I can tackle ‘em tomorrow.”

I clicked my tongue and said:

“I don’t mean the air ducts. I’ll clean the air ducts today. I mean anything—on-going? If you want, I could come by one, two nights a week, cook you some dinner.”

He worked his spoon through his aloo cagily.

“It’s okay, Kess. The mice make pretty good stuff.” He looked up at me, genuine happiness breaking through his grimace like sunshine through ripped clouds. “Sometimes I just like to watch them do their stuff. The singing and everything, it’s like a musical just for me. Or I sing with them while they work.”

But his good mood did not last. Maybe it was my fault for burdening him with my problems. He barked at the waiter—that’s what people say without really meaning it, but he really did seem to have a canine quality in his voice, like he was bored with giving chew toys the death-shake, and wanted to tangle with something that was capable of knowing real fear. The waiter reluctantly re-joined us.

“If you’re not going to have some sensible cooling in this place, I think we’ll have to go home! Pack this up, please. And the bill! Give to me, not her, I’m paying.”

I covered my face again, for at least two reasons and made sure we got out of there as smoothly as possible, including a big tip when my dad wasn’t looking.

##

When we got back to his apartment, we found a truly horrifying scene. It appeared that some groceries had been ordered, because the rats were jauntily stacking food in the fridge. I shuddered, thinking about the one and only time I’d, without thinking, let food they’d prepared pass my lips. In the living room, they’d roped in the birds to help them out with what they were doing—some blue birds that, I guess, nest in a tree outside the apartment. They were fluttering around and singing as they dusted the upper corners of the room where the walls met the ceiling, while the rats were tinkering with several small metal items, poring over blueprints and plans, and wielding swords of pens at various documents. My dad clapped his hands when he saw this (he had passed his leftovers off to one of the rats. Nazarenus, I think). Upon closer inspection, I realized one of their projects was--
“Hey! I said I was going to fix that ferret!”

They had stuck the two pieces back together, and now one of the rats was sawing off the statuette’s belt of dried glue.

My dad chuckled.

“They’re busy bees! They don’t like just sitting around. They like to be busy busy busy!”

I ran into the hall, over to the vent. I opened it and looked inside:
Clean, absolutely clean. No fuzzy wisps of dust, but only cool, grimy metal.

There was some commotion behind me, and I rushed back out into the living room. A man I had never met before was standing next to my dad. He had big cheesy aviator sunglasses on (admittedly, the room was very brightly lit at the moment, the late afternoon sun was coming in directly at us through the big, drapeless windows), a high-wasted belt, and a slack-jawed smile.

“Jimmy! I want you to meet my daughter, Kestrel.”

Jimmy looked me over with brief skepticism. Luckily, I had made sure to clean up my face before returning to the apartment, but I was breathing very shallowly from running down the hall and back. I stepped closer and he took my hand.

“Please to meetcha. Now, young lady. I know your father’s got some pipes on him. Are we gonna find out about yours tonight?”

I looked at my dad and he said:

“We’re going karaoking, remember? Just a bar and grill down the road. I take care of the musicals, Jimmy handles the classic rock stuff.”

“Oh!” I said, turning back to Jimmy. “Maybe I will. But first I need to know,” (here I hushed my voice sardonically) “are you on the schedule?”

I meant this as a conspiratorial joke. He seemed like the kind of guy who enjoyed such things uproariously, the kind of guy who didn’t mind being the loudest and dumbest one in the squad. But Jimmy’s response was not to grin and chuckle. Instead, at the mention of the schedule, he immediately whipped his head to Jimothy, an expression of concerned inquiry etched onto his face. The rat just nodded like there was nothing to worry about, and Jimmy, the matter resolved, relaxed visibly. My dad sat down, and we (including several rats, unfortunately) followed suit.

I tried to lead a conversation, but it quickly became apparent that to Jimmy the person to wriggle up to was not me, but the rats as a whole. He soon fell into animated conversation with Nebuchadnezzar and a few of the others, breaking away occasionally only to slap his knee or flash a grin like a casually bandied-about hand grenade. He was some kind of mechanic, and the mice peppered him with questions, being natural handymen themselves. I tried to add a bit or bob here and there to the conversation, but it ended up just as so much flotsam. It was less hurtful just to be quiet. To my surprise, my father refrained from the merrymaking as well. Usually he could not bear to be too many astronomical units away from the center of attention. But instead, after a while, I caught him just staring at me, with tired eyes, the kind of eyes that see an ocean inside a wishing well.

“I’m gonna head to the bathroom real quick, ex-squeeeeeze me,” said Jimmy, bouncing off of the couch.

My dad looked at me. He held my hand again.

“I’m sorry, honey. He came a bit early.”

“Why’re you sorry? I’d love to go hit some karaoke with you two. You don’t mind if I join, do you?” I said, squeezing his hand. I never wanted to let go of that hand.

“Course not! It’s been a while since we wailed out a good ballad together, hasn’t it?”

I didn’t say anything, so he kept talking. This is such an iron law of familial relations that I did not consciously realize that I knew it until saying so just now.

“I mean, I’m sorry because I feel like we had more we need to talk about. About your problems with Bradley—”

“That’s alright,” I interrupted, with the subtlety of a meat cleaver. “That’s alright,” again, was all I could think to say, to put space between current reality, and his having said that. I was not about to have my dirty laundry aired in front of a gang of rodents. No matter how fine their sewing skills, no matter how ingenious their inventions.

“I mean, I love Bradley. I really do. But you might need to start thinking about how to restart your life independently—”

“I don’t think I can handle any more of this right now,” I said with the vulnerability of a leopard. His eyes opened wide in surprise. Oh God, he thinks I’m in denial!

“Okay. Okay, that’s okay. You know with me and your mom, how it happened with us, it was very different. It was a very different thing, but….”

I couldn’t possibly assert any kind of control here, not on this topic, the conversation was no longer mine to delimit. So I said:

“Uh-huh.”

“It was the worst pain I ever went through. My whole world was upset down. But I had you girls. But I know it’s different with you and Bradley. I just want to say…I know you don’t have that luxury right now. Bradley is the whole world for you at the moment. I can’t imagine if I had to undergo something like that before your sister was born. So…I just want you to know you’re being very brave. And…and…if you need to get away from that house, all by your lonesome all the time, you can stay with me, for as long as you need.”

“Uh-huh.” I said again. “I don’t think that’s the right step, yet, dad.” I was ice, I was an insensate animal, possibly a sea sponge. I could see his eyes glaze over, a dull pinprick on ancient hammer blows. I hated myself in that moment. But those rats were there. I had heard their whiny rodential sighs of relief when I said no. They were dusting the record collection, they were putting new batteries in the remote (were they watching something while we were out?), from the bedroom I heard the hissing sounds which from experience I knew emanated from their weird, printing press-like device for ironing my dad’s shirts. And their songs, their merry, simple-hearted, jaunty songs….

Jimmy came out of the bathroom. If you told me he had done a line of coke in there, well, I wouldn’t have believed you, but it would have been a funny image nevertheless. My dad went into his room to change, a neat and tidy operation of less than two minutes. I was determined to leave an impression on Jimmy, and so I shoehorned into our conversation (which was conducted standing up—I had learned a long time ago how to banish the rats from conversations through the advantages of human eye-level) the one topic about me that was really interesting and unexpected (people say), which is that I do roller derby every other weekend. What, you mean like you push over other girls on roller skates? Yes, Mister Jimmy Cletus, I push over other girls on roller skates. From the nature of his reaction to this, I determined that his interest in my father was purely that he liked having a musically-minded buddy to belt out some cooped-up nostalgia with. I pulled out one piece of information from him that seemed to be of importance: for money, he fixes up cars (and buses and motorcycles), but for love, repairs instruments on the weekend. Electric guitars mostly, but he is increasingly “moving on into the acoustic side of things.” To delve even just a little bit into another person is very difficult for me right now, but I had to practice, because that’s all there will be in the road ahead.

When my dad came out again, I told him that we would have to do karaoke another time, and I left. I don’t know if he noticed that I didn’t say goodbye to the rats which accompanied us to the door, something I sometimes do when in a less-than-spiteful mood. But I hugged my dad very deeply. Caught up in the moment, I hugged Jimmy Cletus, too, probably harder than was appropriate. But he responded to it automatically, and I realized I knew something else about him as well: he is or was the father to at least one daughter.

Outside the apartment building, I went left instead of right. Standing on the sidewalk beside a stone-cement fountain, I looked up into the living room window of my dad’s apartment. As I expected, some rats peeped down at me with their beady eyes. I raised my hand into a curled-paw shape and brought it down hard on the fountain. In my hand was the glass-painted ferret, in two pieces once again. I held one piece aloft in each hand for a second, to make sure they could see.
I couldn’t hear their singing any more, but I knew many of their lyrics by heart. Some of them were lifted off of old animated movies or commercial jingles. Or show tunes, naturally. But I know for a fact that some of them could only have been read in the journals I made when I was a tween, where in my heyday as a middle school poetess and home video singer-songwriter I pilfered those very same things myself in my own stupid reformulations:

​We work the live-long day
And we keep our troubles away
You can be
As happy as me
If you work for the live-long day
Away
Too