Rats

Caught a glimpse of what I took to be either quite a large rat or a fattish squirrel at work today. At the time I was gazing out of one of the windows in the canteen area (known as the SAC for some reason) in a zen-ish attempt to become one with my cup of tea. The area beyond the window is home to a bit of landscaping and vegetation, including a couple of trees with a fascinating set of mangrove-style secondary roots, so the creature was in a suitable sort of creaturely environment.

It's odd but I can't recall ever seeing a rat 'live', as it were, back in England. In Singapore I've seen quite a few. I saw one positively avuncular specimen strolling around an area in which I taught drama some years back, in the all-girls' school I worked in. Broad day-light as well, shameless fellow. And then there was the time I was walking to the same school, about twelve years ago, along East Coast Road (I lived quite close) when I saw a crowd (tribe? posse?) of about ten rats scavenging around a couple of bins below an overhead bridge. I took a few steps towards them, assuming they would scatter, and they just ignored me and carried on with their ratty business. Discretion proved the better part of valour on my behalf and I found myself walking down the middle of the road to leave them in peace.

I can't say I'm overly fond of them (pace the estimable Ratty in The Wind in the Willows) but I must say the sheer otherness of those with whom we share this world feels, in some strange way, like something to celebrate.