The Rodent Part I

Last night, I turned into a rodent.  One moment, I was closing my eyes in anticipation of slumber, and the next, I felt the keenest alertness, with all sensations brought from background noise into foreground awareness.  I felt the motion of the air, heard midnight insects as if they were playing their winged chorus in front of me, and smelled the strong odors of breadcrumbs and my own chemical adrenaline.  Even in the dim light, I saw dull pink little toes and, to the right and left of my long grey nose, even longer whiskers. 

One might think that I would have spent a good deal of time bothering about such a transformation—like how on earth this came to pass, or what my boss would say if I were late for work, or what my family might think of me—but you would be wrong.  Those were the furthest concerns from my mind. 

A new state took over, a state of proud and furious curiosity, countered by a mortal fear. Instantly I knew that the world in front of me, the world I thought I had known, was now exponentially more vast, full of nooks and crannies and friend and foe which, either now or later, I was destined to meet.  Some sweet hand freed me from my previous life of social convention and transformed it, with all its blasted expectations, into a grand adventure. So I was off.

I scurried down the side of the bed, onto the carpet which tickled the bottom of my feet, and alongside the wall.  There, where the baseboard met the door, I knew I would find it waiting.  And I did.  A hole, which I had seen dozens if not hundreds of times before, but never bothered to inspect.  It was just my size, beckoning me into the depths of the walls within.