The Rat Story.
"There was a story he liked to tell
about a rat who wandered into a Japanese teriyaki fast food
restaurant.
'This was no mouse,' he'd say, 'This was--' and here,
paused to measure a length with his hands,
'--as big as a newborn.
A giant Norwegian rat.'
It was here in this story that she,
since she'd heard it many times, would
begin in her mind to confuse the image of a rat
with the image of a baby.
She imagined the rat lying in a little wooden cradle, wrapped
in a pink blanket, its eyelids fluttering and breathing
in a labored, dying way.
And at the same time, she pictured a baby,
dead like the rat, in a sad heap on the kitchen floor
of a Japanese fast food restaurant.
While her mind shuttled between attraction and repulsion, baby
and rat, she studied his mouth, forming
the words of the story in a way that was simultaneously
charming and off-putting.
'The rat headed for the kitchen,' he reported,
stumbling in a kind of stupor, and everyone in the restaurant
got up and left.
He, on the other hand, approached the counter
to ask for a refund.
'Well, we don't know,' said the girls who were in charge.
'These were very young girls,' he said,
'very wide eyed and vacant looking.'
'We don't know if we can give you a refund,' they said,
'We'll have to check.'
'Do you know rats carry bubonic plague?'
he asks them.
'We know,' they said.
'Well, it ran into your kitchen,' he said.
'We know,' they said, 'but it died.'
At this, their dinner guests usually laughed.
Even she laughed, but her laughter
felt automatic and insincere."