A Little Frog’s Heart:The Golden Quill, Angel Or Executioner?

A Jailhouse Tale I-1

A Jailhouse Tale II’m writing this story in remembrance of an old Rat.

It all began in 2004. This was the year when Misfortune caught me in its talons, and landed me in a jail in the south of France. In times long past, within its walls, old lady guillotine had managed to hatch the offspring of fear in the souls of all the denizens, because the heads of the entire royal family, elevated to the throne by the will and blessing of the Lord, had fallen under her ruthless blade, followed by those of the men who cherished hopes of building a new world.

During a spring day of that year, the sun tenderly caressed the bosom of nature, bringing back to life many a bitter offshoot, and instilling savour into the luscious green of the buds.

I was sitting with my eyes closed in the cold dark cell. I could only imagine the matchless beauty of this time of the year. I was trying to get my noon siesta within the four concrete walls, which had been crucified for ages on the skeleton of the framework, whose sighs I couldn’t help hearing during the small hours of the night. The cell suffered, as the rust gradually gnawed at it, nourishing the work of moisture, the faithful chambermaid of pain. In fact, everything around us seemed to conspire in catering to the suffering, which flouted on its livid lips the tragic destinies of all the inmates of that accursed place.

It was rather like a catnap, during which all kinds of thoughts flooded the mind, similar to the way that people are laid to rest in their coffins within the confines of an old and inhospitable tomblike cell.

All of a sudden, a noise coming from somewhere close by gave me a start. I opened my eyes still troubled by the thoughts which had taken hold of me. I Iooked around, trying to make out the nature of the noise, like a wild hawk foraging desperately for prey.

What should I lay my eyes on? A rat, of all things! Wrapped around in white silk thread, famished, his ragged ears bearing countless scars, he was sitting on the table, right next to my bed. He was gnawing ravenously, though scared to death, on the little crust of dry bread left on the corner of the table. I didn’t budge. I thought it was very bold of him not to take notice of my presence. I sat still, casting sideways glances at him, wondering how and from where he had popped up. He gripped the bread with his little paws and gnawed at it voraciously. That reckless act of bravery must have been the fruit of hunger. That is exactly what we ourselves do in order to satiate an empty stomach and fill it up, no matter what. That is the wellspring of the daredevil risks we are willing to run at times by doing ungodly deeds, turning a blind eye to their consequences.

I was trying to guess the Rat’s age. The scars told a telltale story about him, his whereabouts and what he might have gone through. He’d certainly had a rich life experience; rich enough, anyway, to be free and foraging for food inside a prison cell on a fine spring day. I was watching him awestruck, when another sound, this time a familiar one, reached my ears: Two doves had alighted gently on the ledge of my cell. They stared at me intently, turning one eye on me, and then the other. They cooed their off-key song in a gentle muffled way lest they should wake me up, though I eagerly longed to hear it every day of my lonely life.. They let me know that they were there and that they were waiting for me to arise from my troubled sleep, in which I wandered off aimlessly each day, searching through sunless gorges for the one rewarding dream that had once been loyal to me. They had all forsaken me because of the dreadful place I was in. I was looking for a dream that, when I woke up, would give me hope to hold on, a dream that would whisper to me that boundless freedom was at hand, resurrecting in me the power to revive feelings, withered for so long without the embrace of the sun.

The doves were old friends of mine. They used to come every day, after reveille, to be fed on bread crumbs. I often asked them:

“What’s the colour of freedom these days?’

The doves opened their little wings wide. They showed me their dirty dark grey feathers. They wanted to show me “the colour of freedom”

”But what’s wrong?” I asked them in astonishment. “Has the earth run out of water?”

They closed their wings and shook their heads in disagreement. Then they whispered to me sadly:

”The water is still there, but clean fresh water is out of reach for us. Giant eagles, protected by the law (for it seems they’re an endangered species), have taken the water into custody. They barter it to whomever they see fit in return for tender fresh meat. What kind of meat? Dove meat, of course. You talk of freedom,” they said, turning their heads in fear. “Why do you think we keep calling on you?” they asked me rhetorically.

Then they answered themselves:

“Believe it or not, in here, within the prison precincts, we feel freer than in the “Freedom” outside. In here we are welcome and loved whereas outside we’re constantly under the watchful eye of the enemy. It would be no surprise to find out that we’re objects of envy for being tolerated in this place. They say about people bereft of opportunities that the best place to be in is the one they cannot reach”

I had to get up to feed the Doves but I didn’t want to scare away my new guest, so I sat still a while longer.

I turned to look at the Rat. I couldn’t imagine how he had got into the cell. It occurred to me that he might have crept in through the iron bars of the window, or some crumbs might have fallen down to the base of the concrete building from the window sill, where I had put them for the doves. Having found them the Rat might have put his very life on the line to climb up. He must have crept up the wall to appease his nagging hunger and chances were that he might have fallen in from up there.

I cast another glance through the gap that the space in the window offered to my sight.

I saw the razor-sharp faithful barbed wire ready for its disgraceful mission of hurting anyone who tried to enter, let alone those who wished to get out.

And yet, the Rat had managed to get into my cell, I thought. His mind, finely sharpened by all those scars, must have been of great help to him.

I didn’t move at all lest I should frighten him. I only turned my eyes, trying to get a better look at him. He seemed happy, as if he had discovered a magic mill or an oven that was continually baking delicious bread.

After eating with a will to his heart’s content, my Rat licked his paws a few times, mumbling something that only he and God could understand. Maybe he was praying to our Lord, thanking him for the meal he had been given.

He climbed down slowly from the table, just like an old man, and then made himself comfy under the bed, somewhere in the right-hand corner of the cell. He lay there, determined to share the cell with me. For a few days, I just let him be. He had to get used to his new shelter. During the week that followed I armed myself with all the patience and perseverance I could muster and I got him to feed out of my hand. He acknowledged my friendship. After another week, the Rat allowed me to hold him in my arms. Rejoicing in the trust he showed me, I freed him from the tangled silk thread that encumbered him and made his movements awkward. I even gave him a hot bath. I washed him thoroughly with my tallow soap, since I didn’t have any other brand. Hoards of fleas ran away from his grey coat.

We lived together like that for a year and nine months. We shared the same narrow cell forsaken by the sunrays, shared our food, and our troubles… I even managed to learn the language of rats.

His company worked wonders for me. I was glad to know that he was always with me. Still, don’t think that I tried to hold him captive for fear of loneliness. On the contrary, many times I felt pity on him. It seemed unfair that he should share my punishment as well. More than once, I put him on the window sill and tried to make him understand that he was free to leave and partake of the unique gifts of Nature, in short, to enjoy his Freedom.

I can still see him sticking out his tiny nose, breathing in the fresh air. Then he would turn and stand up on his back paws, raising the front paws towards me, signalling me to pick him up.

He wouldn’t leave. Our “friendship” grew stronger. I thought that the poor rat didn’t have a place of his own to go to, just like many of us, humans. Or conversely, according to an old saying, you should never return to a place where you felt well because you could be cruelly disappointed by what you find this time. The ugliness of the present would wipe out the lovely memories that once blessed your soul. It would be a shame if you ended up in the bitter trap of regrets.

Anyway, with each passing day, I could understand better and better the tiny animal that accompanied me faithfully. I even found out about the mission that rats were meant to fulfil on the face of the earth, but I will write about this at length in the story that I gladly invite you to read in the forthcoming volumes.

The days passed one by one, but like everything beautiful, the peace of mind that the Rat had offered me proved too good to be true. All of a sudden at the dawn of one winter day something unforeseen took place in the prison which caught all the inmates off-guard. I was dragged out of the bed I had just managed to warm. My hands and legs were secured in cold shackles and I was carried out of the concrete building like a hound caught with a bird in his jaws. If they were to abide by the letter of the law, prisoners should not be treated that way. I hadn’t broken the prison rules in any way. Forget it…

I went out into the prison courtyard where I met hundreds of other inmates, all of them just as disgruntled as I was. We all waited in the cold the whole day, without a word of explanation.

It was freezing cold and snowing. I stood gazing at the fluffy snowflakes, imagining that God was sifting them over our heads through a giant sieve, sending them to cleanse our souls.

Late into the evening we found out what had happened: they organized an unexpected search all over the prison. They had discovered that the inmates were hiding in their cells things forbidden by the rules. Like hounds sniffing for their quarry, the prison wardens turned everything upside down and, suspicious as they were, they ransacked every nook and cranny. They thought that highly evolved worms could be born even in the flush toilets and they feared that if they got free, they would adjust to any environment, situation or risk factor, and they would be in command of millions of “germs” (just as things happen in our society, controlled as it is by shrewd crooks protected by the laws they pass themselves).

I was numb with cold. I didn’t know how long I had been out there. I was thinking about my friend, the Rat. I was anxious to find out how he was, to share with him all that I had been through that day when we weren’t together. Late that night, when they allowed us to go in, I found a horrible mess in the cell I had unwillingly occupied. It was as if thousands of angry bolts of lightning had struck. The bed had been thrown aside from the wall. I laid eyes on a pool of blood in the corner where the Rat lived. Countless blood drops got loose and trickled sadly through the straws in the heap that still preserved the warmth of the tiny animal’s body.

I took it that he had been crushed by a heavy boot, for it contributed to the effort of making a dirty mark on the wall, above the place where the Rat had lived. Still, there was no trace of the Rat. His body was nowhere to be seen. I started turning around in a frenzy, searching every square inch of the cell. I felt like running to the door to scream, to cry out! I knew that it would be in vain, that there was no one there to hear me. All that I got to see was a devilish grin. He slammed the door in my face so forcibly that my ears went deaf because of the thundering noise. I turned to look at the place where the Rat had lived. I was upset and just stood there, staring into nothingness. I could imagine what had happened… and I hadn’t been there, to protect him.