next_to_nothing raze the kid needs a bigger cage. this plastic prison won't do. he calls one rat dumbo. the other one doesn't have a name yet. grey-blue coat with sky sewn into the folds. he imprints on me in an instant. climbs me like a vine. i only feel the sharpness of his nails once. no skin broken. he cries from beneath a perennial plant when his tail is bruised. i bring him inside the house that's meant to hold him, greeted by parents as caustic and uncaring as their child. i tell the mother people are selling cages for next to nothing online. some are even giving them away. hell, i might have something useful at home. she doesn't acknowledge the gesture. so the rat leaves with me. he spells my name aloud. only one letter removed from getting it right. i introduce him to the woman who helped make me. he asks her what mother means. she says she carried me inside her until i was ready to meet the world. and i guess it's true. that's the one thing she did for me. 230403 what's it to you? who go blather from