I couldn’t put it off any longer, bad back or not… the sheets needed changing and the mattress was overdue to be turned. My son, for reasons best known to himself, chose to furnish himself with one of those huge beds of the mega-super-king variety that are the size of a small playing field. The kind that is so heavy, it is impossible to move without a crane and which has a solid-seeming base that extends between mattress and floor. He is also furnished with one very small mother. Changing the bed is a job I dread as, given my vertically challenged status, I could use the duvet cover for a bivouac and still have room in there to party.
The very idea of turning the mattress makes me break out in a cold sweat. It is not a job I can easily do alone at the best of times. This time, however, the bad back was going to come in handy. There is always a silver lining somewhere, if you look hard enough. My son would have to help.
This is not as simple as it might seem, considering that standing and balancing are things he cannot do well, especially while trying to do something else. But I saw no reason why that should get in the way.
Stripping the bed was easy. It was when we came to turn the mattress that things took a turn for the worse. Halfway round, the edge of the mattress caught the slats on the bed base and pulled them out of place, unclipping them from the centre of the bed. The only thing for it was to balance the mattress as best we could, while I tiptoed between the remaining slats to put things right. All well and good… until I lifted one offending slat from the floor.
There, before my poised toe, and right beneath where my son lays his head, was a rat. Not just any rat either. Both it and its population of insect casings were mummified. I may have squealed. When I gingerly picked it up by its tail, it was a stiff as a board and the mummification process left a rat-shaped stain on the carpet.
Many things made sense. My son has a well-stocked bird table that attracts a lot of wildlife… including the creature he had watched, fascinated by its agility, before calling me to ask if there were any such thing as ‘a bald-tailed squirrel’. Boots, the first cat my son had taken pity on a couple of winters ago, is a huntress and, for the first few months of her residency, had regularly brought ‘gifts’ to his bedroom door. Usually birds, occasionally a mouse and once a full-grown rat. Or, as we now knew, twice.
After one particularly bloody episode, Boots had finally understood that her gifts were not appreciated and had given up, much to the relief of the cleaning lady… I hated seeing those poor creatures torn to shreds, though the rats she had killed and left intact.
That spring, while my son was away, I had taken the opportunity to deep clean his home and garden… everywhere except under that mountain of a mattress, which had been declared out of bounds. I did the bedroom first, shut the door to keep the cat out and started on the rest. A week or so later, I had arrived to feed his fish and found his bedroom window swarming with huge black flies. I had looked everywhere for the source of the problem… except under the bed. I let the flies out, but the same thing happened for several mornings thereafter… then nothing. Not one. I cleaned the windows again and thought no more about it. Flies nest in window frames sometimes. I’d had that happen at my own home one year.
Oddly enough, Tim, the tomcat who has also adopted my son, and who is also known as Frank and Nigel to the neighbours where he deigns to dine, has been trying to get under the bed for a while. This morning, we had found out why.
I disposed of the mummy, cleaned under the bed, fixed the slats and together we remade the bed, finding, in the process, a lost favourite sock that had lodged itself in the corner of the duvet. Bonus!
It was odd that the poor rat had lain hidden for so long, slowly decomposing while my son was away and thus not plagued by the smell. The timing of the burial beneath the bed had allowed it to pass unnoticed… until I began to see the flies. Even then, the source of the problem lay hidden until we finally found the corpse and disposed of it once and for all, cleaning the mess left behind.
I wondered how often the same thing applies to the hurt, guilt and fears we bury in the shadows of the mind and heart? We may not even know they are there… or, if we suspect their presence, choose not to look too closely, knowing that it will be unpleasant. Although we may be unaware, there is something about such things that may draw others to us, for all the wrong reasons. Such things fester and rot, eating away at the soul, leaving behind immovable stains and providing a breeding ground for darkness and pain that can cast a cloud across our own lives and those of the people we love.
No matter how unpleasant the task, it is better to delve into the dark places, tackle the mess, and decently dispose of the copses. We never know what we might uncover, or how much we will ache as we essay the task. There may well be uncomfortable surprises, but as we allow light into forgotten corners, there may also be a gift just waiting to be uncovered… even if it is something as simple as a favourite sock.
I had a tomcat that was always bringing me “gifts”. Sometimes it was a whole rodent, other times it was just part (eww) of one. He brought home little snakes too. Gifted hunter, but luckily I never found one of his gifts in the house. Nice post Sue. 🙂
I had to clean up an awful lot of tattered corpses, until Boots realised we weren’t enjoying her gifts. 🙁
I like the look of Boots, the sun behind her gives her a glow. And I like tuxedos
She can be as soft as a kitten… but she’ll fly across the room and sink her teeth in your ankles without notice too.
Stealthy kitty! My former girlfriend’s tuxedo used to give love bites, but he was a stray so he could be rather wild in his affections. And he could be extremely vocal.
These are real, blood drawing bites…yet the next minute she’s as affectionate as you could wish. We don’t know if she was a stray or just chose to move in.
I think the attraction of cats is that they retain some of the wild inside of them.
Yes… that and the slightly amused air they have when dealing with mere humans 😉
Great post, Sue! It reminded me of a friend I used to car share with. Once he arrived at our agreed pick up point looking very flustered and bleary-eyed. He informed me he had woken up during the night and felt something on his pillow, he assumed it was the cat but he said something made him switch on the bedroom lamp anyway and inches from his nose was a dead rabbits head, no body just the head, godfather style. Funnily enough, he said he struggled to get back to sleep after that XD. KL <3
Oh dear!
We had a cat that used to bring me presents when I took a bath… mice were bad, half a mouse was worse though… x
Reblogged this on anita dawes and jaye marie.
Thanks, Jaye x
That is one of my least favourite parts of being an animal lover… they don’t seem to grasp that we don’t appreciate their many gifts, but at least being dead is preferable to running all over the house for weeks!
Nick lives in a spot surrounded by trees and gardens… but in the midle of the town. There will always be rats for the cats to catch. But do they really have to be dlivered to the bedroom?
precisely…
🙂
At first this was a fun post being able to empathise with the back and height issues! Not that the issues are funny but you had put humour in there Sue.
Then you slipped in the life lesson and that’s where the message kicked in. I have a dark hidden sadness which I was pondering . Hubby at that moment got a call from the shadow. I thought it was a good thing.. it was but it’s knocked hubby back… I understand but I don’t. Life is sad at times… Sorry I am rambling. I loved the post… strange that phone call came at the time I was reading it. 💜
I am sorry you are both suffering, Willow. These dark places within us never stay quiet forever. But, like the deep places of the earth, they can be fertile ground for growth. Hugs xx
Well I do harbour hope but hubby only sees black at the moment. Still onwards and upwards. 💜
I hope all sorts itself out for you both. xx
Thank you 💜
<3
My cat, who is very small, brought in a live pigeon. How she got it through the cat door I don’t know. It was frantically trying to escape thorugh the closed window and every time it flew upwards, she swiped at its tail feathers. I caught it, opened the window and let it go – very relieved to see it was able to fly. The cat gave me a filty look before stalking off.
Nick managed to save one mouse… heroic efforts and frantic phonecalls were involved… but the rest of her catches were sadly beyond help. And she did not seem to understand why we were not happy about that…
I love how you can turn any experience into a life lesson, Sue. Even a mummified rat under the bed. Lol. 🙂 I’m so glad that mess is now in the past. 🙂
I’m sort of glad myself, Diana… and that I didn’t find it when it was still squishy 😉
I so agree. The smelly ones covered in maggots are enough to make me gag. 🙂
This had obviously been that way… I’m glad I missed it 😉
We had rats in the fields when we were in the cottage. If they came into the garden, they never left as Hubby would get the rifle out and never missed (pest control).
I’ll never forget we were having dinner in the bungalow in Poole when Hubby excused himself from the table of one of my roasts. He calmly returned, opened the patio door, took aim, and the rat on the bird table did a neat double flip. He put the rifle away and resumed his dinner as if he’d just passed the salt. My Mum watched in fascination but didn’t say a word and got stuck in again.
My Dad used to be the same when the rats raided the pigeon loft.
Good golly, what a story! I was trying to figure out how that dead rat went undetected…but of course, he was on his trip!
He was, and I cleaned the bedroom the first day he was away, with the windows wide open to air the place and loads of smelly cleaning stuff.
It is indeed a good thing to do, though it is one of those things that is a lot easier to say than to accomplish. It took me many long years to clean out the evils that lived deep in my brain and heart. Years. Decades. A lifetime. Not that it wasn’t worth doing, mind you. In fact, it was THE best thing i ever did. It just took more than 60 years to get it done.
I think that, like housework, it is an ongoing prcess… but far better to get it done than leave it undone and getting grubbier.