Vermin Street: Life in These Walls
by Mike Robinson

EXCERPT

VERMIN or ANIMAL
By Joshua Hooktail, P.H.D
(originally published in Ranting Shrink Journal)

We vermin are a strange bunch, and at the end we’re all alike – whether we have antennae in lieu of eyes, eight legs or four, and fur rather than the soft underbelly of a cockroach. The term “Littlest People” has been used to describe us. It was a phrase coined by one of our own: a hamster, if I remember correctly, but I cannot think of a worse insult. Vermin have been around ever since the dinosaurs dissolved into an existence on the tongue of contemporary science. Insects had been around even longer, and unfortunately will continue to thrive long after the next mass extinction, which doesn’t seem to be too far off at the rate humans are going. How ironic that roaches, quite possibly the most brutish and slow-witted species of bug, will outlive yet again this generation of life.

As for the rest of us, I have doubts.

The creatures that deem us “Littlest People” don’t have a very broad perspective on the history and evolution of vermin. Sure, it is true we developed consciousness analogous to that of a human’s, and it is true our world has been greatly influenced by their culture, although we are, on average, several decades behind technologically. For the most part, our mere existence consisted of dodging predators and large feet. The fact that we evolved the way we did is indeed itself a miracle, thanks in large part to Lord Jebedias. While we’ve come all this way and in the process made unofficial pacts with other vermin species to mold a civilization, I cannot deny that a significant part of our pre-consciousness period still lingers, threatening to pull us by the tail back into the shadows of instinctual anarchy.

Lord Jebedias came at a time when all hope had been lost. While he harbored an honest and well-intentioned heart, he was also a revolutionary with crosshairs fixated on the humans. He’d arisen during the middle ages, a large white rat clad in nothing but a tattered rag, yet upholding the boundless charisma and stamina of a true leader. He chastised the humans for their disregard of the vermin race and planned to lead a revolt against them. An ‘inevitable victory’, he promised, would force men to restrain their murderous hands and to accept rodents and insects as valued additions to Earth’s ruling life-forms.

Needless to say, the feat was unsuccessful. Many a vermin died in those times, the stench of death and destruction hanging heavy on every species. Despite the death toll, many still believed in Jebedias’s cause, and over the years and centuries he became an almost God-like figure, the single embodiment of all that was strong and true about vermin. Naturally, his legend became distorted over time, splitting bugs and rodents into numerous factions that all chose to carry on his legacy and beliefs in their own individual ways. Some chose to continue fighting (there was once an army of radical rats in Europe that spread disease all over the land in Jebedias’s name), while others carried on with simple worships and pacified readings. Then there are the minority oddballs that believe Jebedias was actually a snail, or an arbitrary hybrid of a pigeon and a mouse. I will leave the head-shakes and eye-rolls to you, Dear Reader.

While I myself do not believe aggression against animals forty stories high will accomplish anything, I do subscribe to the notion that the humans view of us has been as “twisted as a bottle cap”, to quote a detective acquaintance of mine, not to mention smacking of contradictions. They see us as wretched and vile – our presence in a hash house is enough to warrant a temporary closure and grade of ‘F’ from the Health Department. Yet their books, and the images on that ornate flashing screen of theirs, choose to portray us as cuddly, lovable creatures that speak their language to a T and often wear ridiculous outfits. This detrimental portrait is most likely the source of the infamous “Littlest People” phrase, and far and away the most contorted of the two views. If they only knew the depth of crime that plagued their basements or walls or yards, and the evil that often breeds such crime, they would surely have a lot more to be afraid of than a couple microscopic organisms in our fur.

Jebedias made promises that the rats and the mice and the roaches and the spiders – alongside hundreds of others – would eventually gain enough power to live peacefully amongst the humans or, Heaven forbid, overthrow them. I know now that will never happen, and the signs of fracture within our household societies are only reinforcing the notion over and over, like a hammer emphatically pounding the nail of doubt further and further into my mind. The evils of our animalistic nature are beginning to re-surface, it seems, and it almost feels as though the world of vermin is devolving, losing touch with the ideology and pride it had sustained for thousands of years. Will the future see another incarnation of Jebedias? History has a way of repeating itself, so only time will tell.

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