Doctor Rat Read Free

spirit.”
    “Calcified kidneys and brittle bones, that’s all that’s troubling you, with maybe a little hyperirritability.”
    “No, Doctor, it’s the very deepest part of me that I’m talking about.”
    “You mean deeper than a number eight French rubber catheter tube with a depressed eye can go?”
    “Deeper, much deeper.”
    “Are you trying to tell me, a Learned Mad Doctor, that there is some part of the rat as yet unknown to man?”
    “My light, Doctor, the light inside me…”
    “…introduced through the rectum…”
    “I saw a fountain of light inside me. Doctor, we come from that fountain.”
    “We come from the copulation plug, my lad. How old are you?” It’s unfortunate that we don’t have better sex education here in the laboratory. This is what comes of inserting glass rods into the vaginas of virgins.
    “I’m ageless, Doctor, and timeless.”
    The poor overstuffed rat looks at me with such a gleam in his eyes that I’m certain he’s being injected with small quantities of sodium amytal. There he goes, hobbling away to talk with the other rats, and spread his doctrine. I haven’t got time for such things. Death is freedom, that’s the all-inclusive doctrine.
     
4
    The wild dogs, then, are our leaders. They say they’ve been on the scent for years, and it has led them here, to this great gathering of dogs. Now we’ll move together, and move we do, out of the empty lot at the edge of town and into the forest, the wild dogs in the lead. Here they show their clear supremacy, going through the brush with paws that are swift and sure. They have the scent in their noses, and so do we. There are dogs on all sides, yapping through the trees and bushes.
    Several old dogs are in our midst, their bellies fat and their eyes weak. Nonetheless they hold firm to the general movement. Those who abandon the march do so because the other scent—the scent of home—proves too strong for them.
    I smell it, that old temptation. All of us, except the wild dogs, have to smell it because it’s very strong, compounded of love, longing, and easy meals. We can smell it in the wind, we can smell it on the ground, we can smell it all around us and we run from it, knowing its danger. There are many heavy hearts though, and mine is one of them, for my masters are good and kind, thoughtful and gentle…
    But through the forest we plunge, putting the past behind us. We drink at little woodland streams, we sever our ties. And the stray dogs, who know the woods so well, race about us, inspiring us with their calls.
    “Come on, dogs, come on!” they cry, and it’s a wonderful, thrilling cry. The wild dogs are saturated with the mysterious scent, and inflamed by it—not mad, but rapturous, and their rapture is contagious. We run on, leaving love behind us.
    In its place is a feeling of solidarity such as I forgot existed: to be with one’s own, to follow one’s own law, to hear the sound of one tongue speaking in the wind, with sunlight coming through the leaves, lighting the forest floor. I see a bright hallway of trees ahead of me, endless and beautiful. Out here, racing toward the sunset, my heart is my own and I’m free!
    “Where are we bound for?” cry some of the doubtful dogs, their old homes still claiming them by a long leash.
    “Just follow your nose, brother!” cries a laughing wild one, and away he leaps, with a fantastic spring in his legs. He’s one of the intoxicated, so deep in the scent he seems to be flying along. The sight of his tail disappearing down the golden hallway sets me racing still faster, to catch him, to run with him at the very head of the pack. I exert myself to the fullest, enjoying my run. Without human eyes upon me, I’m unself-conscious. I’m myself, a dog in motion, howling and happy.
    We follow that hallway of gold until it turns crimson, and still we run toward the setting sun. Now is the most beautiful running, with all figures blending into one, with all dogs