WEBVTT

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The Rat Story.

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"There was a story
he liked to tell

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about a rat who wandered into
a Japanese teriyaki fast food

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restaurant.

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'This was no mouse,' he'd
say, 'This was--' and here,

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paused to measure a
length with his hands,

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'--as big as a newborn.

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A giant Norwegian rat.'

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It was here in this
story that she,

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since she'd heard
it many times, would

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begin in her mind to
confuse the image of a rat

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with the image of a baby.

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She imagined the rat lying in
a little wooden cradle, wrapped

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in a pink blanket, its eyelids
fluttering and breathing

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in a labored, dying way.

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And at the same time,
she pictured a baby,

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dead like the rat, in a sad
heap on the kitchen floor

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of a Japanese fast
food restaurant.

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While her mind shuttled between
attraction and repulsion, baby

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and rat, she studied
his mouth, forming

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the words of the story in a
way that was simultaneously

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charming and off-putting.

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'The rat headed for the
kitchen,' he reported,

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stumbling in a kind of stupor,
and everyone in the restaurant

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got up and left.

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He, on the other hand,
approached the counter

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to ask for a refund.

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'Well, we don't know,' said
the girls who were in charge.

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'These were very
young girls,' he said,

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'very wide eyed and
vacant looking.'

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'We don't know if we can give
you a refund,' they said,

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'We'll have to check.'

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'Do you know rats
carry bubonic plague?'

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he asks them.

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'We know,' they said.

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'Well, it ran into
your kitchen,' he said.

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'We know,' they
said, 'but it died.'

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At this, their dinner
guests usually laughed.

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Even she laughed,
but her laughter

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felt automatic and insincere."

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