Bella Essay, Research Paper

Just a story

In that I was born a rat, there is no tragedy. “In each creature there is a breathing of Gods”. So my teacher spoke. Much worse that I was born a clever rat. And that is legible of outlined life, which one is conducted by me. People, for me there is nothing interesting and unpredictable. Therefore, with the very first weeks of the existence I tried to be pulled out from a cellar in searches of fresh impressions, other than fairly frightening images of the parents. To me in general there always was a special attention. The problem was that I was born white. Completely white, sparkling, as my teacher said. Everyone in our colony was dirty gray, and I was born white. The leaders marked it at once as a tag, and my mother was shaking every time when I departed on a walk from the house. She left out, that her Bella so I was called is very clever and cautious. Once in front of the house a corpse of one of the oldest rats was laying, crushed by an automobile. Upon seeing the turned up, insipid muzzle with the intestines out of the stomach mother never could get rid of obsess ional memories and phobia, that something similar can happen to somebody from her family. And on the first place in the candidate list was always I.

As soon as I was taken off from mother s chest, I have started having conversations with the teacher an aged rat with a nickname Mavr. He told me about the world in which we live, about the people who become a ruling race on the ground, about our antagonism with human civilization and at the same time – our relation to it. His stories, as I now realize, were rather poor, because, being pulled out from a cellar, I have seen so much interesting, new and mysterious, that the Mavr s lessons seemed miserable abstracts of genuine life on ground. Nevertheless I am grateful to him for everything. Mavr was in his own way wise and independent, deferring from many other rats, who were primitive, as though programmed for eating, sleeping, having sex and dying.

Cellar, in which one our colony was leaving, belonged to a large, not very aged house. When I just started the travels among its floors I was drawn by unconscious curiosity. Only later, I have understood, that most interesting and relevant of all occupations in life is analyzing the humans. Because, how should I say? Certainly, many of them are not too much different from the rats. As senselessly going through their days and as senselessly finishing them… But among the people there are such types, on the analysis of who it is not a pity to dedicate the whole mind and time given by God. We, certainly, have no such thing. It is a pity, that rats do not possess written culture. I could have kept numerous slips of paper containing notes about human characters and relations between the people. The house was divided into small cells – apartments. In each flat there was a special odors, sounds and things, its unique atmosphere. Sometimes watching whole day long the life of a human in an apartment, from a ventilation shaft, I found out a lot of new things, I listened to conversations of the people among themselves, their quarrels or their love for each other. I read the newspapers and books, watched TV, together with them. I opened a whole, huge new world, in which there were dramas mixed with farces, the meanness turns to goodness, and good intentions turn to catastrophes.

There were apartments, where I spent especially long time. One of them was on the second floor. There lived a family: mother, father, two children and a huge dog. A little bit later a third child and a turtle appeared. If it wouldn t be for the interesting books, which they possessed, and remarkable records with music, I would have left a long time ago, because no one had such a ridiculous living hood such as this family, no one in the whole building. The dog frightened me with its size at first, turned out to be harmless and confused, as well as its owners. When the woman listened The First Concert of Rahmaninov, the dog started to howl so loudly, that it muted the music. When the people left the house, this enormous creature would get up on the parents bed, laid its head on a cushion and slept all day long, shaking the walls with its snoring. And I at this time sat with the turtle, which offered me some of its food. Usually while we ate we discussed a problem of non-uniformity of time as categories of universe. Then everyone else would return and create chaos. I would go back to my place at those times.

The other flat, where I liked to spend long time, was 63rd apartment. It was on the eleventh floor. There was a remarkable atmosphere. After the visits to that flat I as though became healthier and also freshened up. In this flat lived a family consisting of the mother, father and a daughter. Apart from them there was a dog, a parrot and fishes in the aquarium. At first the animals were afraid of me, but then they got used to me when they understood that except for reading the books, I need nothing. Probably in this family I lived for the longest. Fully fed, quiet, and interesting, only the father complained all the time about something. I had clear feeling, that all the complaints he addressed nowhere and to no one, because he never needed an answer. Once I have decided to play a trick on him and on next rhetorical question such as “When will it all be over?” or “What do I live for?” I cautiously answered him from the vent: “Yuri Vasilevitch, do not tempt the Gods.” To my amazement, he used my advice. A dialogue started between us, which repeated over and over again. Yuri Vasilevitch continued those conversations with me, thinking, that he talks to himself. All the dialogues we had were most interesting, and maybe later on I will describe them in more detail, and now I want to talk about the main incident of my life.

I have noted, that the inhabitants of both flats – the on the second floor, which I named “Mess”, and that, on eleventh, which I named “Peaceful place”, often meet together in the third flat, near by with “Peaceful place”. I have never before ventured there. When I got there the first time, erratically thought that here lived a mother with a daughter and two cats – white and black. I did not know yet, that there also was an owner of this flat, often leaving somewhere. After having acquainted myself with the cats and revising all that stood on the shelves I have departed further in the house, I was gone probably for several months. Summer arrived. Once upon a fine warm afternoon I was jumping from one balcony to another. I was in a very joyous mood, somewhat airy perhaps. I almost felt as a bird. Once I jumped from the twelfth to the eleventh floor, I suddenly have stopped, there was sitting a large human with a beard and was making something. He had a stereo with him from which poured the music. In the hands of this human something of celestial blue was flashing. I sat on my hind legs, crossing front legs in front forward, in a stiffened posture and, looked at him, unable to take my stare away. Music poured, blue stones in his hands beamed tender rays, fresh warm breeze caressed our bodies, and it has come to me… Love.

Since that day I spent all my time, sitting on this balcony looking constantly on my dear. I knew all of his songs by heart, and the jewelry that he made from aquamarine, I imagined it being there against my white fur coat. The feeling that has enveloped a small soul of a rat was so great and unusual, that occasionally it seemed that I was a human, and I am not alien to the human feelings. I literally bathed in this love, noticing nothing and no one around myself. Returning in the evenings to my cellar, I did not hear the noises of the sewage drain I heard the delightful sounds of distant waterfalls, picturesquely decorating rocky slopes of mountains. I did not notice the vermin-like masses of other rats all I saw were the fields of dandelions, daisy wheels and poppy flowers. I did not think of death that, indispensably would overtake me in one of foul-smelling drains death, was no more, was not and could not be, because there is only pure and eternal love. Thusly the summer has passed.

In the beginning of autumn of the elders of the colony have decided to marry me off. The husband they chose for me was the Grey H -H , young, chubby, spending all his life in a sewer. They have decided that Grey Ha-Ha was the best couple for me. No one ever asked what I thought about it. Wedding was assigned to one of days, when in the sewers a large arrival of watermelon peels was expected, and the housekeeper should be having her day off. There was only one day left before the wedding. And one night

In a house where everyone is fast asleep there were no sounds, except for the vibration of the electrical wiring, clocks ticking and snoring. I mounted very slowly on back stairway, counting out the step, as minutes. Finally, her is the eleventh floor. I jumped on the floor, and a black cat woke up, hissing on me up me. When she has recognized me, she just turned on another side and continued sleeping. I approached the bed, on which the large human slept. On his chest white cat was laying, all curled up. I softly bit the cat s paw, he woke up and looked at me not understanding what is going on. I only said: “Let me”. The white cat has jumped off and left to join the black cat, and I climbed on my beloved s chest and lay down. It was our first and last night together. I heard dogs barking in the distance, last trains have passed by, a late bus screeched its brakes. The autumnal night sucked in the sounds and gestures of vanity of the dying day just like a huge black hole… The large person breathed peacefully, lulling me to sleep. Once he suddenly woke up, slightly opened his eyes, but closed them again, tenderly murmuring: “Miawson”, and laid his hand on me.

I have not noticed, how the sun dawned. The black cat approached me and said shortly: It is time . I gave my beloved the last glance and jumped on the floor. The black cat looked at me with condoling and pity, as she knew everything that I will do. I have touched her with my tail as a sign of gratitude and walked out on the balcony. The freshness of an early autumn morning is falsely promised the beginning of life. “Most important – to not think” – I have said to myself and climbed the rails…

I have imagined my self a bird many times, but I had never reached such happiness as now. It seemed, that wings have sprouted on my back and I haven t felt the impact. Therefore I still fly. Further and Further