RAT TRAP Mujtaba Farooq

RAT TRAP

Mujtaba Farooq 

mujtabajourno@gmail.com

There is a rat stuck in the trap of glue. Its skin is entirely stuck with it. I can see its effort to move every inch of its existence—its silent cry for freedom, the kind of scream humans refuse to hear. I have been staring at it for quite a while now. Like a cruel man, with no feeling of sympathy, no guilt, nothing. I simply stare at it.

Its claws, so minute, have been paralysed yet they shiver in hope. Its tail, that once danced in joy, now lies flat, a cage of its own existence. The belly that once fed over cartons, wools, or wood has lost its essence to expand. Its eyes are filled with something that i see dripping from the corners. Should I consider them tears, or should I even believe they are tears? Rats don’t cry. You’re right—we must not trust them. They mimic crocodiles like crocodiles mimic us.

It rests for a few seconds to take a pause,

a breath, before another hopeless shiver that must go vain. Its ears erect like small pyramids, sensitive even to silence, yet unaware there is none. Its cries, its silent screams—useless. The skin, covered by fine hair to keep it warm, is now burning against the glue. It might be cursing.It must have been complimented earlier, but time flips the coin.

Close to its nostrils—sharp, sensitive to odour—there are flakes, what might have been what it loved or for us just a bait. I think love is a good bait of nature; everyone surrenders to it, aware or unaware.It did too. And as I watch it drown, conflict, collapse—what strikes me most is how it doesn’t seem to regret. Its incisors, once its pride, a nightmare for humans, are still raised in defiance. Its whiskers, arrogant as ever, wave with every faint breath.

I stare at it, waiting for it to ruin, to rot. Still no sympathy. No pain. No guilt inside me. It takes its last move and bites at the cost of last hope. Its incisors are stuck, nostrils blocked, whiskers ruined. Suffocation. Suffocation. Suffocation. No shiver. No hope. Death.

I should never have stared at the mirror.