There was a little rat who always wanted to have time to do his special things; rat through the rubbish bin,
chase cats, scare people with his tail, that sort of thing.
Well one day he looked around and there was no reason for him not to do those special things.
Just a short time before, he had got on a bus. Buses always fascinated him; as a matter of fact he had
a history of getting on buses.
But one bus at one time had left the road and turned over violently till the poor dented bus was on its side,
wheels spinning, smoke curling.
Rat severely bruised slowly but deliberately climbed up the hill back to the road.
As he walked along that long road many buses passed him. He felt contempt for that bus and he started to wince.
No bus stopped to pick him up. He was glad.
But anyway, Rat now had time for his rubbish bins and cats. He saw a cat. He chased it. The rubbish was superb that day.
No one told him to put out the rubbish....or the cat.
He made a plan for the next day. He would line up several rubbish bins and prowl the neighbourhood for cats,
and if he had the opportunity, scare some humans with his tail.
He was up early.
He headed straight for the bin.
Lo and behold, before his eyes, was a bus. He winced. It was a beautiful big red bus with headlights that seemed
to look at him, a grinning grill and eyebrow wipers.
He was gone. The time for his special things would have to wait. There's no time like the present to hop on a bus.
So he did.
This bus took him high up the mountain where he held on. Around the bends one after the other,
hardly stopping for the corners, this bus carried him away, screetching through the bends, crossing the centre,
driving as close to a straight line as it could. It was exhilarating. He didn't want it to stop.
He thought of all his special things, but the sway of the bus knocked him off his concentration.
Rat had positioned himself in the best seat in the bus next to new friends; he could see the cliffs flashing to his left,
too fast, and on his right, the horizon, far, too slow.
Suddenly the conductor said to Rat that he had to move to the back of the bus.
He liked it up the front, but he had to move. Still, the bus careered through the bends like its wheels were airborn.
Rat felt that he was air-born. So moving to the back of the bus didn't seem so bad.
Rat, grasping the impossible seats for stability could see his friends smiling and laughing from time to time.
Without warning the back of the bus came off.
Or should I say the front of the bus took off and left Rat stationary in the back half of a bus on a road
where he didn't even know where he was.
Rat was remembering this time as he tinkered with his bins and eyed off a cat .
Some mornings Rat would awake to bus sounds in the next street, or for an instant flash
a bus seemed to park next to his bins. Cats kept running away from Rat and hiding behind buses.
At least Rat was doing those things he always desired.
He missed buses. Not in the normal sense. I mean he remembered them longingly.
Rat pondered on how he might have his cats and bins and tails and risk a bus ride.
The buses he remembered always careered around not caring where to stop, not really knowing where to go,
but so rapt in their journey that they put the bus and the rat in jeopardy. Buses didn't give short rides any more.
Once you were on that bus you were committed to its course; no matter that neither you nor the bus
knew where it was going or where or when it may stop.
Last seen Rat watches buses on their urgent journeys from his position in the bush. In between he chases cats,
rats rubbish and scares the mailman.
copyright 2002 Blue Who & Old Shoe