IN ANOTHER LIFE WE WERE RATS IN LOVE

Shit was in the air. Not exactly fresh. Weeks old. Fusing together in the trash from a heatwave that had been beating down the streets for months. An unavoidable smell. I took the deepest breath in I could. Then the memories came flooding back.

A past life where we were two rats in love.

I was short and stout with matted grey fur. You had pointed ears and a white spot on your pink snout. It was not love at first sight. It was a cold April night. Between us was two-day old pizza leftovers that had been dumped in an alleyway. You were in the way of my next meal. I was in the way of yours. The way we fought was biblical. But it was in that fighting was where I fell for you. The fire in your eyes was something I needed to be warmed by. I was intoxicated. You knew what you had done to me. Stunned. In my moment of hesitation, you got what you wanted.

I thought I would never see you again. But there you were. Again and again. Together we would scavenge, scrap and sleep. A force existed between us that kept pulling us into each other’s orbits. Eventually you saw it too. Something beyond survival. Past the need to make little rats that would grow into bigger rats who would later make more little rats… Something special was forming. The smallest moments between us had importance and weight to them. Those whispers in the dark we would share in-between the moments of intimacy was where we were at our most vulnerable. Nobody else could ever have this.

The five weeks we spent together felt like lifetimes lived over. But it would be cut short by the tyres of a garbage truck on a Monday morning. My last memory of you would be your head bursting under the black tyre and your brains spraying out over the pavement. Immediately after, I followed you into hell.

Those memories gave me a new lease on living. On lonely nights I would breathe in the scents from that past life. Rotted fruits and month-old bin juice. Anything to hang onto those memories. The aromas would send my body into a pure ecstasy where my skin would tingle with a surreal electricity I had never felt before.

Eventually memories were not enough. I needed you here. You had to be out there somewhere again.

Months of searching. New places and different faces. But never you. They could never be you. I got older and the longing became unbearable. I prayed to return to a day where I never smelt that shit. I was prepared to give anything to live in a world where I did not remember our past life together.

The search deepened. Maybe you existed in another form. Our connection would cross the boundaries of the forms we inhabited. I navigated through forests and swam through seas. You weren’t a bug. You weren’t a fish. You weren’t a rock.

Looking back. Perhaps you were a rat again. I went from the alleyways to the sewers to the junkyards of every city in every corner of the globe. Living like we used too. Scuttling around on all fours, nesting in bins and eating garbage. I was home again.

And there you were again.

Another cold April night. Another piece of leftovers to fight over. You were different. Shorter ears and a pink spot on your pale white snout. It was confusing at first for both of us. I knew you wanted to run. But speed was on my side this time. Picking you up and tucking you away safely in my pocket.

You tried to claw a way out but slowly submitted. I’m sure you were remembering now too. The memories flooding back like it did for me on that summer’s day.

Never again would our time be cut short. I was going to make sure you were safe in my arms forever.

Together again, my love from that past life.