The Rat fearfully peeks her head out from the safety of the home she has created for her babies. A home that is warm and cozy and hidden from view by the outside world. In a few days the cloistered rat family will run out of essentials.

The Rat, wary, peeks out into the sunlight. Drinking it up like the water she will consume as soon as she finds some. She daydreams of the time when she and the baby rats frolicked in the sun and wonders if they will ever be able to do it again.

The Rat cuts short her stroll down memory lane knowing she mustn’t waste time. She needs to get to the essentials before the other Rats beat her to the goods. She takes a deep breath, says a prayer and moving as quickly as she can she races from the safe space into the dangerous world called the outdoors.

The Rat passes garbage cans and sewer drains. The smell of decay makes her salivate and her hunger pangs intensify. She maneuvers around discarded bikes, scooters and basketballs. Gloomy reminders of a time when this spot was teeming with life from that other species. She scurries on past overgrown green yards. The warm sun-lit sidewalk beneath her paws ends at the asphalt paved alley. She stops giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light of the alley. In the distance she spies salvation. A golden nugget of cheese. It sits alone, center stage on a Rat Trap taunting her and casting a hypnotic spell that all rats succumb to sooner or later.

The Rat looks around assessing the danger. She is alone. Cautiously she moves toward the trap. The alley is littered with rats who have failed in their quest to get the cheese. Their bodies now one with a trap they could not outwit; some are dead, others still gasping for air, slowly dying. All Rats know that if a trap catches you there is no escape.

The Rat is millimeters away from the cheese. She doesn’t need all of it. It’s just a morsel, a tiny snack. She feels a vibration beneath her. She scurries away from the trap and hides in a dark shadow. Out of nowhere a pack of rats appear. They speed toward the trap, all eyes focused on the cheese and oblivious to everything else. They engulf the trap in one chaotic swirling tornado of rat asses and elbows. Their squeals and scratching so loud the mass of ravenous rodents are oblivious to deafening snap as the trap is triggered. As if in slow motion the cheese is thrust into the air. The Rat Pack freezes for an instant until the cheese hits the ground. The nugget is doomed as the pack engulfs it once again. They now bite, scratch and claw each another for possession of the cheese. The biggest, strongest, fattest Rat of all wins! Without hesitation or looking back he runs off with the prize and the other rats following closely behind.

The Rat decides it’s best to go home and carefully leaves the camouflage of the shadow. She tries to convince herself that if she is smart and careful maybe she can make the most of what is left at home to nourish herself so in turn she can sustain her rat babies through these dark uncertain times. She creeps out of the shadow; dispirited she turns in the direction of home. A few more feet and she will be out of the alley and making her way back down the sidewalk and across yards that led her here. She pauses and turns back for one last look down the alley. The rat group left behind a sacrifice to the trap. A question gnaws at her, “is he angry that his pack left him there to die all alone?”

The Rat makes it back to the safety of her hidden home. She cleanses herself before nuzzling her rat babies. She finds comfort in their innocence. They are blissfully unaware of the thin line that separates them from the danger that lurks outdoors. The baby rats have had their fill of nuzzling and scurry off for another round of their favorite game, play fighting. She is too tired to stop them and in need of a respite. She succumbs to the call of sleep.

Without warning the ground shakes. I am jolted awake by an earthquake. The shaking stops leaving me scared and disoriented. I look around my dark quiet bedroom wondering if I am really awake or still in the dream that recurs each night... the one where Death lays a trap, the trap is COVID-19, the cheese is life and I am the Rat.

Cindy Rucker Trost is an Actor, Producer, Writer and Meisner Teacher. She has enjoyed a creative professional life working in TV, Film, Marketing, Production and Event Planning. She also volunteers and supports the mission of several non-profit organizations including The Miracle Project and The Beverly Hills Education Foundation. Cindy is married to Scott Trost, founder of the Meisner Institute and they have two adult children, Hunter, an actor and advocate with Autism and Noelle a poet and college student majoring in neuroscience.