The Rat is Getting Flat

At the side of the road there is a rat. An ex rat. It must have run out of the undergrowth that's sprouting with wild plants and fuming with fermenting garbage. A quick dash across a busy Hem like some kind of grimy Watership Down scene and splat the rat is flattened by a bike, the thin tyre track still visible on its grey fur. Squeezed like a tube of toothpaste near its end. Everyone must have got a shock.

At the back of our building they are rebuilding after a storm that slammed into the city. It started out as a usual wet season drenching but within minutes strong winds scooped up all kinds of debris from the recyclers below and spun it around - shards of corrugated metal, plastic trays and of course American Beauty style plastic bags - funneling it all furiously, a localised tornado writhing with rubbish.

On the second day, the rat is getting flatter. It seems more like an embossed shadow now, legs still spreadeagled, cartoon style as though fallen from a great height. The tail, still looking remarkably long, trails back into the undergrowth a once safe haven of rotting food and decaying nature. It's a toxic parfum du jour that is the funk of the neighbourhood as are the two sides of our little street grunting with hidden pigs and groaning under the weight of garbage settling. Maybe someone has called the council and put up a NO DUMPING sign but then there is no council. Only the party and nobody wants to leave that.

There is no one to help the recyclers - an emerging business that gathers up the crap of the neighbourhood and sorts it into dirty piles of takeaway Styrofoam, cardboard boxes, shampoo bottles. When the storm hit, some of the corrugated iron sheets were torn off, spearing them into the muddy ground but it was also an opportunity to use the fresh water shower, and shampoo and soap quickly appeared. When the storm had passed the recyclers picked up the metal sheets, nailed them back on to the wooden poles and then flattened out the sodden cardboard boxes. Everything can be repaired, everything can be reused. Nothing is wasted.

The rat is now a crime scene; its bloody outline gradually being bled of its colour by the rain.