This story is dedicated to the little rat who lives in my room and seems to think watching me type is just the most interesting thing in the world.

There was a rushing water type noise in his ears. No, more like a thumping that dragged on and on as if in echo of itself. His last words began floating through his head: a startled voice yelping, "Shoot" followed by a grunting moan of pain. They joined in rushing, thumping noise and the sounds drifted into one another in a continuous sequence.

After some time, Mort finally roused himself enough to feel something, to search out something beyond the repeated sounds in his head. He was laying on something hard and there was some scratchy, fluffy stuff under his right hand. Behind his eyes hurt and the pressure and pain seemed to increase with every throb inside his head. And there was something wet and warm running repeatedly across his cheek.

Slowly opening his eyes, Mort saw the yellow porch light above him, bathing the ceiling with light. Rolling his head carefully to the left, Mort received a big, slightly slobbery lick across his nose. At the movement Chico's tail started to wag furiously and the dog stepped back a little. Mort blinked a dozen more times before rolling his head back to look at the ceiling.

He hurt.

After laying and blinking, breathing through the pain and confusion for several minutes, Mort sat up slowly. He felt his stomach roll and instinctively brought one hand to his mouth, trying desperately not to hack up his guts. When something tickled his lips he pulled the hand away and looked blearily at it. There was wood shavings stuck to his hand. Suddenly, Mort remembered the cage and dizzily turned his head, upper body swaying as he looked around for the cage.

He now noticed there was wood shavings all over him and around the porch, mixed in with the loose bits of dog food. In his fall, Mort had broken the cage. The wire part of the cage lay at his side and the bottom was a couple feet away. Sandy was nowhere in sight.

"Shit!" Mort swore softly, afraid to use much volume as his head pounded furiously. Chico whined and paced to stand in front of him.

"IssssokayChigo," Mort slurred, aware that he was swaying a bit where he sat. Not sure whether to try standing up, Mort decided to play it safe and crawled over the wood shavings and loose kibble back into his house. Once back inside, Mort used the door jam to pull himself up. He waited until the spots cleared and he could again see his living room before he let go of the support and staggered to the couch across the room.

Mort collapsed onto the squishy sofa for the first time in months not out of emotional exhaustion and avoidance behaviour, but rather out of actual physical need. Carefully settling his aching back and pounding head against the cushions Mort patted Chico's head as the dog nuzzled at him.

Chico didn't stare at him, didn't watch him drag himself inside after tripping. Chico didn't have black, unblinking eyes that watched him every second as if to catch the very moment when Mort would next screw up. Chico walked right into, and then around, the coffee table to see if his master was okay.

"Well," Mort said softly, "you may never run an obstacle course buddy, but you never stare at me, never judge me." Chico licked his master's hand, happy he was again making normal Mort sounds. "But you're a shitty cleaner," Mort finished, remembering it was dog kibble he'd slipped on.

'Wonder what happened to Sandy,' he thought.

Chico yawned and licked his lips.

'I wonder if Chico ... nah, probably couldn't catch him without seeing him,' Mort decided. There were enough open areas that a rat could easily squeeze out of the screened porch to freedom.

'Probably headed back to town to look for his rat wife. Probably killing whatever shifty rat she ran off and shacked up with,' Mort decided.

Chico licked his lips again as he laid down beside the couch. Mort wasn't sure what happened to Sandy. He hoped the little critter hadn't ended up as his dog's latest snack. He definitely preferred to assume the rat was off getting his rodent revenge.

END