By Sulayman Jammeh
After witnessing the ‘cake cutting’ of my friend’s birthday, he fumbled a parcel in a paper bag and handed it over to me. In the parcel were the famous chicken leg and some beautifully designed snacks which were gently placed in a foil paper. I paid a farewell and took an exit from his humble abode to mine. I jumped on my red motorbike to ignite its combustion chamber, and drove straight home.
When I reached home, without further ado, I opened the parcel and began to swallow the evening nourishment. Immediately, when the delicious aroma consumed my entire house, I saw my rat lazily strolling out of its hole. It came up to where my foot was, then I threatened and shouted ‘Ah Cha’. It frowned its face and looked at me eye ball to eye ball; I wasn’t comfortable with that look. But also judging from the look on its face, I knew it was hungry. I was as well thinking to saying ” hum…if you know how hungry I am, you will not even think of criss-crossing here tonight”.
I later waited for it to come closer and hit it with my slippers; then it screamed, and finally rushed into its hole.
I ate and grinded all the bones of the fried chicken and went to bed. A hungry rat, is an angry rat. It waited till 3:00am while I was in the middle of my mid-night summer dreams; probably snoring like an old Chinese generator. The rat came out of its hole, it didn’t touch my money which was visible and crystal clear on the table; however, it entered my cupboard and brought out my *university certificate* and placed it on the floor. It was as if the rat could read. It chopped out the most sensitive parts of my document and left it meaningless. On the certificate was written “Sulayman Jammeh has successfully completed four years of study at the University of The Gambia; in the school of Engineering and Architecture, major in Community planning and Design. And acquired a CGPA of 3.0″.
In the morning, when I woke up I found small pieces of paper littered on the floor with my certificate. When I read my hard-earned document I was shocked with what I saw. It reads *”..layman Jam… .as …….fully ….leted .our .ears of stud. at the …versity of …bia in the ..hool of Engine……and…chit, major in …munity .lanning and ..sign. And acquired a CGPA of ..0.”*
I nearly developed heart attack. My heart boomeranged repeatedly in my chest. I said to myself “is this a mere rat?” . Well I don’t believe in Murphy’s Law but Theory of Causation. At that moment I was thinking of a blueprint on how to send my rat to its early grave or give it a doomage. The inglorious and hobgoblin of a rat has become an eyesore and a bee in the bonnet in my abode, because I was bitten by a bug.
Initially, I wanted to pour some hot water in its hole or permanently plaster the hole with cement; however I knew that the rat understood the architecture of the house, it could have made some windows for safe exit. Immediately, I remembered a very powerful Rat poison called Sniper. I rushed to the market like a headless chicken to purchase the mighty rat poison.
In the market, the rat poison seller projected two types to me. “This one is called Sniper and danger, its powder, very powerful. Its ability to kill rats, ants, flies etc is undoubted” he said. Before he finished, I grabbed it from him and said “how much is it?”, ‘D50’ he eagerly replied. I bought it and went home.
I was eager for the night to fall to give the rat a rough justice. I gently rapped the leftover food and carefully amalgamated it with the poison and placed it just near the rat’s hole in an apple-pie order. Three minutes later, the target came out; our eyes met first, then I pretended that I didn’t see it.
My house rat must be a saint among the rat race. It just smelled the food and passed by. My thoughts were scattered, I said “how come, hope it didn’t know what i did?” but what shocked me was when the rat finally went to defecate on the bait of food which was meant tp assassinate it. When Plan A failed, my plan B got activated which was deadlier and suicidal.
I rushed into my kitchen and brought out my electric kettle, filled it with water and connected it on the socket. Few minutes later I heard bubbles of water bouncing and boiling in the kettle like a steam turbine. I was saying to myself “belie this rat doesn’t know me”. A child that can’t allow his mother to sleep, he can’t sleep too. If my house rat doesn’t want to sleep because it doesn’t want to die, it will die because it doesn’t want to sleep.
I carefully lifted the kettle with the blazing liquid, carried it to the rat’s hole and started to pray for its soul to rest in peace, because I thought that’s going to be the end of its days.
As I forcefully poured the hot water in the hole, in my right hand was a big stick to finish it; in case it jumped out. To my surprise, all the water went straight into the hole and I didn’t hear or see anything. Two minutes later I heard my neighbour complaining about water coming out of his living room, at that instance, I knew that the idiot had an exit plan. Then I had to think of plan C.
The rat really got me frustrated in my own house. Now my plan C was to plaster with cement all the mini holes in my house. When I remembered my store which was the origin of the rat, it got me thinking because clearing that store is another two weeks of setsetal. It was already late so I had to wait till morning to finally deal with the rat.
I didn’t know that my rat had a revenge plan for me that very night. It understood the architecture of my house more than I do. It mastered my house from the strip type of foundation to the double cavity walls; even the entire ceiling to the last nail on the pitch roof.
The rat waited till I was in the middle of my night on my soft bed. It went through the ceiling and measured the location of my bed and where actually I placed my head. It made a small hole directly proportional to my face and finally released its nuclear weapon on me…..
