Slade with his snake’s skin, desired to love, feels the moon, not the gloom,
Night is for delight, rest-zest, and all the rest, for let their peace and quiet have zest.
“We both want peace and quiet, you and I. We are united in this common quest,” said Alex.
Alex is a swamp rat, and the rats of planet earth are not perceived as paragons of virtue. They don’t have a good reputation. To be called a rat is not a compliment. It is an insult.
A rat could be a “dirty rat”. Calling a rat dirty makes sense because rats are dirty. Filthy dirty. Rats associate with, and even eat, with seeming relish, filth such as garbage. Now a rat running through garbage picks up filth, in the filthy, greasy hairs of its pelt. (Little particles of garbage stick to grease.)
A rat’s pelt is every bit as disgusting as a possum’s.
Interestingly, the possum is a marsupial.
Thing is, except for his tail, Alex isn’t much of a rat.
His pelt is fricken’ beautiful. It is prized.
Alex’s way of life has nothing to do with garbage or filth, at least in the way garbage and filth show up in the way of a dirty rat.
Offhandedly, Alex remarked,
“When they kill a rat, they do it to kill a rat. Then the rat gets thrown into the garbage: ashes to ashes, dust to dust, garbage to garbage.
“When they kill my kind, they do it for our pelts. They skin us, and take measures to preserve our hides, such as tanning. They make coats which they give to their wives. The wife loves wearing ‘us’ and the husband loves looking at ‘us’ adored and adorned wifey.
“Plus, the rest of us is not thrown into the garbage. Lots of trappers eat us. They plunk us into pots of boiling water, tail up. If they are feeling hungry, they’ll fish one of us out by the tail.
“I admit Asians eat rat. I don’t know, but it may be the dirty rat is a delicacy there.”
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