He heard the rattlings across the decrepit modular squat that he was calling home, an old snaptite dwelling. Most of its better parts were already snapped off. It could be scavengers.
He was in a sad little twitchy state, waiting there. It happened like this periodically to nervetimers, this immobility. Nothing to do but find a place to sit and shake until it was done. The arrhythmias danced across his body without control, his eyes darting around the dwelling, down to the sunken living room where the javabirds had come to play in the coffee that had collected there. He lay with his back against the side of a doorless cabinent in the kitchen. There was no water left in the pipes to ominously drip. He heard something clang, like a metal stud hitting tile. It was obvious there was someone else in the house. He decided to be bold and just find out who it was.
"What the hell do you want?" he shouted. He heard more movement and whispering. "I don't have anything. Take whatever you see. Just leave me a window frame to look out of."
Then he heard coming from the next room, "Henry?" a crackly little voice.
"What? How do you know me? Did the Big C send you?"
"Big C? It's me, Caesar."
"Holy shit, Caesar. The Caesar I know? What the hell are you doing here?" He heard the telltale wheeze.
"We've been looking for you. Madra's been looking for you." came another voice.
"Where is she? Is that Titus?"
"Yes. She's just outside. She can't very well come in," he twittered.
"I'd get up to offer you all a drink, a cookie or something, but I'm afraid I can't stand. But it's really great for you to show up like this. But if you'll just come around, you can see what a sad state I've sunk to. And you can take what petty revenges you might have in mind."
"Don't tempt me, tweakerboy."
"Holy shit, Caligula, you mouse turd. Come over so I can have a look at you." The low form crawled into the room and stood up in the light of the kitchen window. It was the same chewed up, perky ears, the mangy-looking furry face, scarred from fighting. He held a sack in his clever hands. He pointed a pink nose at Henry and sniffed. "When's the last time you changed your clothes?" His whiskers pulled back in disgust.
"I don't really know."
"Aww, man, I shudder to think of the sad state of his underwear," wheezed the fastidious Caesar.
"Don't worry. I had most of my digestive system removed."
"Here, Madra said you'll need this," Caligula tossed the bag and it landed on Henry's lap. The rats all entered the room, five of them ambled in, as big as cats, sat around Henry on their haunches. They seemed to be much older to Henry. Nero had the start of cataracts on his delicate pink eyes.
Henry looked in the bag on his belly poking at it with a darting finger. It was several tubes of toothpaste. "I take it you want me to have fresh breath before I talk to Madra?" Titus twittered at the idea.
"No, she says it'll help if you eat some. Like, say, 2 or 3 tubes." Caesar explained. His vioce sounded like it was phlegm instead of those amazing little vocal chords doing the talking.
"Won't it make me sick?" Henry asked.
"Look at yourself, you bastard," Caligula said, "You want me to feed it to you?"
"I wouldn't give you the pleasure. I hope you at least go me some flavor crystals here, or a nice gel." After getting the paste all over his face, he was more attuned to Caligula's suggestion. Caligula enjoyed gagging him with a liberal squeeze of the stuff and almost fell over with sadistic laughter. When he saw the look on Henry's face dip into a new depth of pathos, he lightened up a bit and finished the job.
At first, the cool paste soothed Henry's dry tongue, but then the mint began to burn his throat. Tears sprang to his eyes. He was moaning through the foam that was gathering in his mouth, "No moreg, pleaseg." Caligula urged him along in an unprecedented show of brutish mothering. There was almost some kind of affection. But when he was done, he furrowed his brow, looking down at the man, reduced to infantile suffering. Caligula dropped the tube and turned, "That's it. I'm going back outside. Somebody get him some water."
Two hours later, Henry was back on his feet, if a little shaky. And his twitching had quieted somewhat, so that he could affect a sort of Saint Vitus dance. "I wish I could lean on one of you. Why do you have to be so godamn short?"
"Here," Titus handed Henry a couple of four-foot lengths of metal studs to use as canes to draw himself along. "You look like the very worst skier that ever lived."
"Or a climber assaulting Mount Headwound," said Nero. The rats had a good round of laughs at Henry's expense.
"I guess this minty fresh feeling wasn't for nothing. I'll just imagine I'm scaling the Himalayas to talk to my guru." He heard a honk that let him know Madra was still waiting. "Alright, let's see what the great teacher has to tell me."
copyright 2002 Jeff Holland/image: copyright 1999 John Bergin