To Elsewhere and Beyond

When the trap snapped shut around her leg, cold metal biting fur and flesh, she didn’t scream. Others would have chewed their limbs off to get out of this, but she didn’t fight. She simply stared at it, blinking slowly. She knew how to get out of these, but for some reason, she didn’t care enough to react. The keeper would come around six anyway, giving her a few hours to avoid the exertion of being free.

This was not the first time she had found herself lost in a moment like this. Once, it was paint. A dried spot on the bathroom tile—white and irritably noticeable. She could stare at anything for limitless time for no reason in particular. Sometimes it was seconds; sometimes, it was minutes or hours. Once, she sat beside a broken toaster in a kitchen where the scent of burnt bread had lingered for days. She’d felt mesmerized by the odd glint of light on the chrome, and the muffled ticking of a forgotten clock. That time, she was supposed to be stealing crackers. She never took them.

She would pass her days being lost and her nights curled in the lowest, darkest places—under damp basement shelves or the shadows of crumbling plaster walls. Places that smelled of rust, wet concrete, old oil, and faded detergent. Her heart would rest even lower than those corners—sinking into the heavy hollows of thought she never voiced.

Lately, for some reason, these thoughts had become persistent. She would move aimlessly through scraping tunnels, moist sewers, and overhead wires. It was an unusual dilemma for a rat to be in. But then again, she had never been your usual rat. She was charming in her own strange ways—a kind of charm dangerous for her kind.

It was coming up to two years since she left her village. No scandal. No disgrace. Just one day, she took her small satchel, strapped it tight, and left behind the warm meals and the gentle, content rats with humble souls. Her heart had pounded with every step she took toward the city, toward the clang of pipes, toward limitless avenues, the clank of boots, the blur of shadows. Not quite a dream. Not quite a plan. It was homesickness for something she had never seen.

She had changed four neighborhoods in those two years. It used to hardly take her a month to understand her gated locales. She had flagged a few apartments where the landlords left regularly, identified attics, basements, crawl spaces, and wall voids where she could slip through vents, gaps, and tiny holes. She was the smart one. She never entrusted her survival to anyone. A lone rat, dismissing the intricate hierarchies her fellows clung to. She carried the profound sadness of those who don’t quite fit. Who don’t quite belong.

She hardly ever had friends in her current attic, where the other rats of the locale slept. She hung around where she felt welcome. Not that anyone troubled her. Since she moved from her leisurely village to this fast-moving, soul-crushing city, she had learned many things. One of them: after a wearying day, it’s worse to be bothered by others’ scraping and squeaking. Once the squeakiest, she now tried to maintain silence—for everyone, even though nobody had asked.

There were swarms who kept their energy meaty, even after a draining day, and others who didn’t have to race for survival. She never compared herself with the lucky hordes or the generational ones. Nor did she feel lifted when looking at the worn-out unlucky ones. Each had their own maze. Their own serendipities. Comparing labyrinths, she believed, was something of a loser’s choice.

Still, with each passing day, she felt an unknown weight pulling her further down. She was surprised by how much she could bear. It wasn’t misery—it was restlessness that had grown too loud to ignore. Sometimes, she could hardly breathe.

She’d dared to share these thoughts with a fellow buck living in her neighborhood basement and does living adjacent to that neighborhood. There was this one particular burrow that had once felt like home. Bucks were kind—some in love with her. One, the one who loved her the most, lived there. But now she despised the place. The same old jokes. The same stories about moldy bread, sewer adventures told like fables. The same routes to the compost bin. The same tales about does and their little dramas.

Once, she had felt embraced there. But the burrow started shrinking on her. Like too-tight fur. Like breathing stale air.

And yet—for some reason—she couldn’t leave. She had expressed the intention, but something always held her. No one took her seriously, anyway. She was a settled rat. And rats, they say, aren’t brave enough for impulse.

Recently, conversations circled the same rhythm:

“It’s actually getting unbearable,” she’d whisper. “At first, I thought I’d figure something out like I did when I left home. But now—it’s like things are going nowhere. The quiet—it’s unbearable.”

“Like how?” gnawed one buck, who was in love with her.

“Do rats have a purpose?” squeaked another.

“Yes. I’ve heard there’s a swarm that…”

“Oh, the artist, performer, musician sweez-sweeez swarm? I’ve heard it a hundred times. What happened to the one you joined last week—the community swarm? Did you feel content?”

“Look,” said the buck who loved her most, “it’s not that you can’t do anything. But those famous rat swarms—those are hard lives. There’s no guarantee you’ll be happy or free there either.”

“So what, I should chase crumbs? Titles? My own tunnels? Be happy with measly discoveries? My fur itches for motion. I want meaning.”

“I’m not saying don’t move. I’m saying there’s no end to running, hoarding & endless scurrying when you're a rat. You can just choose your maze. Start where you are. The problem with you is, you think too much and move too little. It’s easy for a rat to reach where they want—if only they know what they want.”

“Why don’t you come out of your maze?”

“I don’t see a reason. I’m not miserable. Invariability doesn’t scare me. I have food. I have a burrow. And I have you—until you decide to leave.”

She didn’t say much. He scared her, in the gentlest way. He was kind. He was wise. And that was the weight of it—love, the kind that rooted you. But her soul ached to become something. She could never define what. But the pull was strong enough to make her pack crumbs for the road. To stare at her favorite burrow wall again and again. What if she never found such people again? What if the journey ahead was too cold, too loud, too lonely?

Her whiskers twitched at the thought.

But enough was enough. She could die of yearning if she stayed.

In her attic, that night, she heard a few talk about a ship bound for a faraway country. A ship of chance. Veterans had made their name sailing to and from it. That night, she decided to go.

She dreamed the night before departure. Of soft bread from her village, warm with honey. Of vines curling around window frames. Of her mother’s scent—dried grain, warm fur, river mist. Of dancing on pipes above a bakery, sugar crust under her paws, and laughter echoing from kitchens below.

Sometimes, any change is a good change.

She packed, once again. She sat at the threshold of her burrow, beside the leaking pipe. The droplets fell like a ticking clock. Her small paws trembled—not from cold, but from everything she was trying to leave behind.

The night she left, the stars were quiet. No grand farewell. No glorious send-off. She left a note for the buck who loved her the most: "You’re the only goodbye that still feels like home. No roof, no city, no sky has felt as safe as your presence."

She remembered the last time they met.

“If I stayed, I’d never know who I might become.”

“Who could stop you? If you go—I think I’d have to start from the first crumb again. I’d hate that. But I don’t want you to think about me. You never belonged here anyway. I was just grateful for every day you stayed and chose me.”

“If I leave, I’m carrying you with me, Buck. I hope you can forgive me.”

Creaking wood. Cold splashes. The heavy thrum of the ship engine. She stood near the bow, her paws braced against the wind. The air smelled of salt, rust, and distant rain.

She watched her old world grow smaller. She didn’t feel brave. She felt hollow, as she thought she would. But she was there.

She had moved. Forward. Away.

Maybe that was enough—for now.