BOB

By Alba Pratalia
The rain was fine and insistent, a silvery drizzle that
made the cobblestones glisten like wet fish scales.
Bob’s boots made quiet splashes as he walked, slow
and unbothered, shoulders hunched under a grey
waterproof hood. His hands were buried deep in the
folds of a coat that had seen too many seasons. The
alley smelled of fish guts, cigarette butts, wet
cardboard, and something indefinably sweet, like rot
dressed up for church.

A door clanged open ahead with the rattling clatter

of someone in a hurry. A young man in a stained
apron stumbled out, lugging two black garbage bags
that looked heavier than whatever promises the
kitchen had made to the health inspector. He threw
them toward a dented bin, missed, swore softly.

“Evening,” Bob said, voice flat but not unfriendly.

The boy looked up, surprised, blinking under a mop
of wet hair. “Hey.”

“Busy night?” Bob asked, stooping to pick up an

empty wine bottle that had rolled near the wall. He
gave it a lazy spin between his fingers, holding it by
the neck like a poor man’s baton.

“Packed,” the boy said. “Rain makes people hungry,

I guess.”

Bob nodded, letting the bottle swing in his hand. “Or

just drives them inside. You toss out anything good?”

The boy laughed, not sure if it was a joke. “Not unless

you like half-eaten lasagna and shrimp tails.”

Bob tilted the bottle toward a flickering lamp above

the door, peering at the label like it held secrets.
“Chianti. Terrible vintage. But it’s got a nice shape
to it.” He tossed it up and caught it again, one-
handed. The glass made a hollow clink against his
palm.
The boy wiped his hands on his apron and leaned
against the wall, watching. Bob was quiet for a
moment, turning the bottle in slow arcs like a
metronome thinking about something else.

“You work here long?” he asked without looking.

“Couple months.”

Bob nodded again. Rain kept falling, rhythmic and

gentle. The bottle twirled.

Bob’s hand stopped twirling the bottle. For a breath,

he looked at the boy—really looked at him—as if
measuring the depth behind those wet, blinking eyes.
Then, without a word, without a change in
expression, he brought the bottle down hard against
the corner of the dumpster. It shattered with a sharp
crack, jagged glass blooming from the neck like a
crown of teeth.

The boy didn’t even flinch at first. Just looked

confused.
The first stab caught him high on the cheek, just
beneath the eye. A wet, tearing sound. The second
sank deeper, slicing across his nose, opening his face
like meat. He tried to scream, but the third blow took
care of his mouth—glass catching on teeth, gums,
lips.

Bob’s arm moved with grim rhythm now. No rage.

No thrill. Just a steady, mechanical purpose. Stab.
Stab. Stab. The boy slumped but didn’t fall. Not yet.
Not until Bob stepped in, placed a hand gently on the
back of his head, and drove the broken bottle down
into his throat.

A thick, bubbling noise replaced the rain. Then

nothing but the sound of water on stone, and Bob’s
breath, calm and even.

Bob let the boy slide down the wall, crumpling in a

heap among the slick trash bags. The broken bottle
stayed where it was, jutting from the neck like a
gravestone nobody would visit. Blood mingled with
rainwater, winding its way down the alley in lazy red
threads.

He adjusted his hood. No hurry, no panic. Just the

shuffle of boots on wet stone as he stepped around
the body and back into motion. Hands in pockets
again. The city, indifferent, continued humming.

At the next corner, neon spilled out from a crooked

sign above a low door: Tavernetta del Porto. The
kind of place where the beer was flat, the bartender
half-asleep, and the music an insult to silence.

Bob pushed the door open. Warmth and damp

cigarette smoke hit his face.

He walked in like any other man with nothing urgent

to say.

The bar was dim and low-ceilinged, walls sweating

with the breath of a dozen damp coats. A jukebox in
the corner whispered something slow and out of
tune. Bob found a stool that didn’t wobble too much
and sat.

The bartender—a woman with a nose like a

switchblade and the patience of a stone—didn’t ask
questions. Just looked once and nodded.

“Whisky. Tap beer,” Bob said.

She poured the whisky in a thick glass, slid it over,

then drew the beer slow from the tap, letting the head
settle like a sigh.

Bob took the pint, ice cold and sweating. Drank half
of it in one long, slow pull. Let it settle in his gut.
Then took the whisky, raised it slightly as if to toast
some invisible thing across the room, and tossed it
back.

It burned, but only faintly. The kind of fire you forget

even while it’s still burning.

He set the glass down, empty. Fingers traced the rim

of the beer. Then he drank again, slower now, eyes
on the mirror behind the bottles. Watching the door.
Watching himself not look.

Three beers and three whiskies had settled in Bob’s

belly like tenants with nowhere better to be. The bar
noise had dulled to a low thrum in his ears, voices and
glasses and the cough of a jukebox coughing out a
ballad from a dead decade.

Nature called—not politely, not insistently, just

matter-of-fact. Bob stood up, walked slow and steady
through the hazy warmth, past tables, past slouches,
toward the cracked door with a hand-painted sign
that read “Gentlemen” as a vague suggestion.

Inside, the light flickered like it had a grudge. The air

was tiled in piss and bleach. Two men stood at the
urinals—jackets unzipped, backs curved, eyes fixed
on the yellow-stained wall. Neither turned.

Bob stepped up beside them.

Without a word, he reached out and took the nearest
man’s hand, holding it as if about to check his
fortune. Then he snapped the pinky sideways with a
clean, focused motion—like breaking a wishbone.

The man shrieked, his knees buckled, piss spraying

the floor. Bob let go and turned to the other one, who
was still processing the sound when Bob grabbed him
by the back of the head and drove his skull into the
porcelain. Once. Twice. A third time, just to be sure.
Blood and ceramic mixed in a spiderweb crack
around the flush button.

The first man was still wailing, trying to crawl, when

Bob knelt beside him. Calmly, deliberately, he
pressed both thumbs into the man’s eye sockets. Met
resistance. Pushed harder. Something gave.
Something wet. The screams turned to gurgles.

Then, silence.

Bob stood, unzipped, relieved himself at the same

urinal now slick with other fluids. Zipped back up.
Went to the sink, washed his hands, checked his
reflection once, then walked back out into the bar.

The bartender didn’t look up. He slid back onto his

stool.

“Beer,” he said. “And a whisky.”

The bartender poured without a word. She didn’t ask

about the faint red smear on Bob’s sleeve or why his
knuckles were wet. She had the look of someone who
had seen worse, or at least learned the cost of
curiosity.

Bob took the beer first—no rush now—and drank

from it like it was the only honest thing in the room.
The whisky came next, a dark little pool in a thick-
bottomed glass. He knocked it back, felt it coat his
throat like varnish.

The jukebox changed tracks. Something mournful

and full of brass.
He lit a cigarette, even though it was technically not
allowed. No one objected. Smoke curled up into the
dim rafters and joined all the other sins already
hanging there.

Behind him, someone coughed.

To his right, a man with a shaved head and a snarl

carved into his face looked over. “Rough night?” he
asked, grinning with teeth that looked more
borrowed than owned.

Bob didn’t answer. Just dragged on his cigarette,

stared at the beer, then at the mirror behind the bar.

The man leaned in. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you,

raincoat.”

Bob took another sip. The beer was warm now, and
tasted like blood.

The man tapped his shoulder.

Bob stood up. Not fast. Just... upward. The stool fell
backward with a wooden clatter.

The room got quieter, as if it knew.

Bob turned, looked the man in the eyes.

Then he smiled. The kind of smile that never reaches

the eyes.

The shaved-head man blinked. Confusion flickered

across his face like static.

Bob didn’t raise his fists. Didn’t posture. He stepped

forward with a slowness that was somehow more
dangerous than speed. He brought his hands up—not
in threat, but with a softness that made it worse. One
hand cupped the side of the man’s head, the other
slid behind the neck, fingers splayed like he was
holding something fragile. Intimate. Deliberate.

And then—without a word, without a grin, without

warning—he pulled the man’s face toward his own
and kissed him.
Mouth to mouth. Full. Lingering. Wet. A kiss soaked
in whiskey and smoke, open and insistent. Tongue
and all.

The bar froze.

Even the jukebox stuttered.

The man didn’t move. Not away. Not forward. Just

stood there, paralyzed by the sheer force of confusion
and spit.

Bob pulled back an inch, their lips still brushing.

“Now,” he whispered, breath hot against the man’s

mouth, “let’s never speak of this.”

Then he patted his cheek twice, almost fondly, picked

up his beer, and returned to his stool.

The jukebox resumed. No one said a thing.

The man stood there for a long second, slack-jawed

and blinking, as if he’d just walked into the wrong
decade. His fists were still clenched, but the
aggression had bled out of them, replaced by
something raw and rattled. Maybe shame. Maybe
curiosity. Maybe a memory he wasn’t ready to have.

He turned without another word and disappeared

through the front door into the wet night.

Bob sipped what remained of his beer, then held the

empty glass between his fingers, watching the
condensation run down like slow tears. He set it
down with a soft clink and exhaled smoke through his
nose.

The bartender finally spoke.

“You always kiss the ones you don’t kill?”

Bob shrugged. “Only the pretty ones.”

She didn’t smile, but she poured him another drink.

Time drifted. A few regulars wandered out. Someone
snored in a booth. The jukebox played a slow Elvis
tune nobody had asked for, but nobody stopped.

Bob sipped his new beer. The night outside was still
dripping down the window like time itself refusing to
move on. Somewhere out in the dark, footsteps
echoed—maybe the kiss had turned the man poetic,
or just insane.

Bob didn’t care. He’d done what he came for.

And he wasn’t done yet.

The motel was a long strip of peeling paint and

flickering lights, the kind of place that looked like it
had given up trying to pretend it wasn’t a crime scene
waiting to happen. Bob’s key clicked in the lock of
Room 7, and he stepped inside. The air smelled of old
carpet, bleach, and a memory of someone else’s bad
night.

Double bed. Lumpy, but wide. He liked to roll.

He sat on the edge, stared at the floor. Not drunk
enough. Not even tired. The night hummed behind
the window like a broken promise. Sleep wouldn’t
come. Not like this.

So he stood, dressed again, zipped the coat up to the

throat. The hallway was quiet, except for a distant TV
muttering nonsense through a wall.

He tried the first door: locked.

Second: same.

Third—Room 10—gave a soft creak and swung

inward.

No alarm. No voices. Just a quiet couple breathing

the thick, heavy air of cheap sleep.

He stepped inside like a shadow. The man was on his

back. The woman curled against him. Bob leaned
over, placed a hand on each of their faces in turn,
then drove his fist up under their noses, one after the
other—quick, surgical strikes. Crunch. Crunch. The
bone folded. The septum jammed upward.

Their limbs kicked once, then nothing.

He stood for a moment. No rage, no pleasure. Just a

stillness.

Then he turned, closed the door behind him, walked

the length of the hall back to Room 7.

He stripped off his coat, dropped it to the floor, fell

back onto the mattress, and stretched his limbs wide.

Sleep took him fast, heavy and dreamless.

Morning cracked through the filthy blinds like an

interrogator’s flashlight. Bob blinked once, twice,
then swung his legs off the bed. His back ached in
that quiet, insistent way that reminded him he was
still alive. Barely.

He shuffled to the sink. The water from the tap came

out cloudy, but he let it run until it cleared. He
brushed his teeth with a toothbrush too old to be
trusted, stared at himself in the mirror without
judgment. Just took inventory. Skin still there. Eyes
open. No blood on the face. Good enough.

Shower next. The spray was lukewarm at best, more

a drizzle than a wash, but it did the job. He stood
under it with his hands against the tile, water tracing
slow rivers down the planes of his back. No music, no
thoughts. Just the sound of rusted pipes trying to do
their job.

He dried off with a towel that smelled like every other

body that had used it before.

Got dressed. Same coat. Same boots.

The world outside was bright, too bright, the kind of

sun that made yesterday feel like a rumor. Cars
passed. People existed. No one looked at him.
He started walking. No plan. Just motion. The kind
that keeps the blood moving and the conscience
quiet.

The squad car rolled up slow, like it was afraid of

waking the building. Sunlight glanced off the
windshield, too clean for a place like this. Two
uniforms stepped out, one older, one trying to look
like he’d seen things. They hadn’t drawn their
weapons yet. Not here. Not at this dump.

The manager, still in a stained undershirt and with a

cigarette that never lit right, led them up the narrow
staircase. He pointed down the hall with a shrug like
this sort of thing happened once a season.

Room 10’s door stood half-ajar. The senior officer

pushed it open with two fingers and let the smell
confirm what the call already had.

The couple lay exactly as Bob had left them. The

man’s mouth open, the woman’s eyes glazed over,
both faces crushed in the same brutal, upward angle.
No signs of struggle. Just precise, clean violence.
Surgical. Personal.

The young cop swallowed hard. “Jesus…”

The older one crouched beside the bed. “No forced

entry,” he muttered. “No defensive wounds.
Whoever did this knew how to kill without waking the
neighbors.”

He looked back over his shoulder at the manager.

“Who was in the room next door?”

Bob found a diner three blocks down, the kind that

still had smoking sections marked by faded signs and
the ghost of bacon grease soaked into every surface.
The windows were fogged from cheap coffee and
cheaper conversation. He liked it immediately.

He slid into a booth by the window, cracked the

laminated menu open like it might bite him, then
closed it again. He already knew.
The waitress came over with a pencil behind her ear
and the dead-eyed cheer of someone who’d been up
since 4 a.m.

“Coffee,” Bob said. “Black. And the breakfast.”

She didn’t ask which one. Just nodded and shuffled

off.

Outside, the street moved like it had something to

prove—people with errands, lives, appointments,
mistakes to make. Bob watched them with a vague
disinterest, then lit a cigarette even though the sign
on the table said not to. No one stopped him.

The coffee arrived. Burnt, strong, perfect. He drank

half before the food came: eggs, sausage, toast, some
gray hash that might’ve once been potatoes.

He ate slow, mechanical. Each bite a method. Each

chew a meditation.
Behind him, a TV above the counter murmured
about a double homicide at a local motel. Room 10.
No suspects. No leads.

Bob wiped his mouth with a napkin, drained the last

of the coffee, and left a crumpled bill on the table.

He stepped outside into the morning, exhaled smoke

into sunlight, and walked on.

The liquor store stood on the corner like an altar to

vices both petty and profound. Its windows were
smeared with handprints, ads for discount vodka
peeling in the sun. Fluorescent lights buzzed
overhead with the zeal of dying insects.

Bob pushed the door open. The little bell above it

gave a nervous jingle. He stepped inside and paused
at the threshold, smiling faintly, clicking his tongue
against the roof of his mouth—tsk—like a monk
greeting forbidden knowledge.
This was his toy store. His reliquary. Rows of glass
bottles lined the walls like saints in stained-glass
windows—each with a name, a promise, a memory.
The single malt corner glowed like Jerusalem.

He moved through the aisles with reverence, fingers

trailing the edges of bottles, labels, corks. Bourbon.
Rye. Scotch aged long enough to remember better
times. Gin that smelled like regret and forest floor.
Tequila that bit back.

He stopped at a shelf with a dusty bottle of Laphroaig

and picked it up like it was made of bone. Smelled the
cork without opening it. Smiled wider.

Behind the counter, the clerk—a man with a t-shirt

that said Life’s a Drink—nodded. “Morning.”

Bob didn’t respond. Just set the bottle down with a

lover’s care and added two more—something French,
something vicious.

“Special occasion?” the clerk asked.

Bob tilted his head, considering.

“Always,” he said.

Bob moved deeper into the store, past the branded

neon signs and the cardboard cutouts of grinning
drunks, into the back—where the lights buzzed
slower, and the labels wore dust like monks wore
habits. He walked with the solemn, measured steps
of a man who knew he was being watched, if not by
eyes, then by judgment itself.

Each shelf was a codex, each bottle a parchment,

fermented wisdom sealed in glass. He moved his
hand across them not to touch, but to read—fingers
just above the surface, tracing the arcane symbols of
distilleries lost to time. He muttered softly, not in
words, but in ritual clicks of the tongue, the ancient
liturgy of the true disciple of poison.

Then he saw it.

Behind a stack of novelty rums and ironic craft gins,
half-obscured by a poster advertising "buy two, get
third for pain," stood a black-lacquered cabinet, tall
and narrow, with a rusted keyhole and no key. Most
wouldn’t notice it. Most would never even reach this
part of the store. It was where liquor went to be
forgotten—or remembered, depending on the
visitor.

Bob crouched. Felt the sides. Clicked something

loose. A tiny panel gave way under pressure from his
palm. The door creaked open not with resistance, but
with recognition.

Inside: a single bottle, unlabelled, no markings, just

the dull sheen of aged glass and liquid as dark as
confession. It had no barcode. No price. It didn’t
belong to the store. It didn’t belong to the world.

Bob exhaled softly, reverently, as though he had

reached the finis africæ.
He took the bottle. Held it to the light. Nothing
passed through. He smiled.

“Truth,” he whispered.

The clerk called from the counter, half-bored. “Find

what you need?”

Bob stepped back into the light with the bottle in

hand.

“No,” he said. “I found what I deserve.”

Bob walked to the counter slow, the bottle cradled in

his hand like a sacred relic. At the last moment, he
plucked a bottle opener from the rack beside the
breath mints—old-fashioned, with a corkscrew that
folded out like a switchblade.

The clerk glanced up, already scanning. “No need for

that, friend,” he said, tapping the bottle with a
chipped nail. “Cork comes out naturally.”

Bob smiled. It was almost warm.

He flipped the opener open, the corkscrew glinting
under the fluorescents. Then, without change in
expression, he reached forward and drove it—
deliberately, precisely—into the side of the man’s
neck.

The clerk made a soft, startled grunt as the metal

twisted through skin and found the carotid. Blood
pulsed out in rhythmic bursts. Bob left the opener
where it stuck, like a flag planted in conquered land.

From his coat pocket, he placed two folded bills on

the counter—more than enough. Then the bottle,
gently. Transaction completed. No debt owed.

He turned and walked out as the body slumped

behind the till, a slow, wet collapse.

The street was louder now. A dog barked. A child

cried about something unimportant. Bob walked past
it all, unhurried, as if carrying groceries.
At the motel, he climbed the stairs two at a time and
slipped back into Room 7. The door closed behind
him with a quiet click.

Across the hall, Room 10 had been sealed off. Yellow

tape. Flashing lights. Crime Scene Investigation.
Blue gloves on hands. Flashbulbs. Murmurs. Photos.

No one noticed Room 7.

Bob set the bottle on the bedside table. Sat on the

edge of the bed. Unzipped his coat. Listened to the
hum of the vending machine down the hall.

Then, very gently, he began to hum. A tune with no

name. Something old. Something that didn’t want to
be remembered.

Bob unscrewed the cap—because, of course, the clerk

had lied, the cork wasn’t natural, it was plastic and
modern and designed for speed, not reverence—and
poured the thick, amber liquid into a motel tumbler
that still bore the faint lipstick kiss of someone else's
mistake.

He drank.

Not a sip. A baptism.

The burn hit like a warm slap from a friend you owe
money to. He exhaled through his nose, blinked once,
and let his spine melt back onto the cheap bedspread.
The ceiling above him was cracked in a shape that
vaguely resembled Florida or the profile of Nixon,
but Bob wasn’t in the mood for politics.

He drank again.

And then it came.

Like fog rolling through a cartoon cave, like a tap

from memory's shoulder—he started to sing.

“Flintstones… meet the Flintstones… they’re the

modern Stone Age family…”
He raised the glass.

“From the town of Bedrock…” a long pause for a slow

drink, “they’re a page right out of his-tor-eee.”

A chuckle. Then a croaky attempt at bass:

“Yogi Bear is smarter than the average bear…”

He shifted in bed, rolled to one elbow.

“Scooby-Doo, where are you? We got some work to

do now…”

He snapped his fingers, off-beat. The bottle was

already half-gone. His voice cracked somewhere
between childhood and obliteration.

“Scooby-Doo, if you come through, you’re gonna

have yourself a Scooby snack!”

He laughed. Alone. Loud. Free.

Outside, the CSI team in Room 10 was dusting for
prints, photographing the bedspread, logging entry
wounds, debating motives.

Inside Room 7, Bob poured another drink and

launched into a warbled version of the Jetsons theme,
voice climbing like a malfunctioning elevator.

“Meet George Jetson… his boy Elroy…”

He drank until the toons blurred.

Then silence again. Blessed, stupid silence.

Bob stepped out into the daylight like it owed him

nothing, coat flapping lightly in the breeze, bottle
tucked under one arm like a newspaper. The motel
parking lot buzzed with blue lights and uniformed
insects, the chorus of radios, cameras, and gloves
snapping tight.

He walked the perimeter with the calm of a man on a

smoke break.
The first patrol car sat fat and parked by the yellow
tape. He moved past it, pausing just long enough to
kneel and tie a bootlace that wasn’t untied. When he
rose, the fuel cap was loose.

He unscrewed it with two fingers, reached into his

coat, pulled out a plain paper bag. Sugar. Coarse.
White. Pure sabotage. He poured slowly, the grains
falling like malicious snow into the tank. Then
screwed the cap back on with care.

Second car. A pause. A look around. No one noticed.

Repeat.

By the time he reached the fifth car, the bag was light
and the bottle under his arm had warmed against his
ribs. He stood, hands in pockets, watched the
forensics team buzzing around Room 10, one of them
vomiting into the flower bed.

Bob clicked his tongue again—tsk—and turned down

the block.
There was a name he remembered. José.

A boy. Ten, maybe eleven. Big eyes. Quick fingers.

Knew the alleys like saints knew guilt.

Bob walked deeper into town, where the gutters

curled and kids ran shoeless past cars that wouldn't
start tomorrow.

“José,” he called softly, like a question he already

knew the answer to.

Somewhere in the distance, a soccer ball bounced

against a wall.

Bob followed the sound.

The alleys narrowed, the buildings leaned in like they

had secrets. Bob moved through them without haste,
the bottle swinging gently at his side, the sugar bag
now folded into a tight, empty cube in his coat.
He turned a corner and there was the ball—scuffed,
stitched, held together more by stubbornness than
leather. It rolled once, hit his boot, and stopped.

He stepped over it.

Two boys darted into view, chasing after it. One was
taller, mop-haired, sprinting. The other slowed as
soon as he saw Bob.

That one was José.

He froze mid-stride. His eyes flicked down to the

bottle, then up to Bob’s face.

Bob raised a hand—not waving, not threatening, just

there.

“Hola, José.”

José didn’t speak. Not yet. His breath puffed visibly

in the air, a little cloud of wariness.
Bob crouched, slowly, until he was at the boy’s eye
level.

“I need something,” he said, voice level, almost kind.

“Not much. Just a word. A place. Maybe a door.”

José swallowed. Nodded once.

His friend tugged at his sleeve, whispering

something, but José ignored it.

He stepped forward, picked up the ball, and pointed

with his chin toward a crumbling doorway up the
block.

“Behind the fish shop,” he said. “Metal stairs. Door

with three locks.”

Bob nodded. “Gracias.”

He reached into his coat again—not for a weapon,

not for sugar—but for a folded bill. He handed it to
the boy. Not large enough to draw attention. Just
enough to mean, I see you.
José took it silently.

Bob straightened up and started walking.

The door with three locks was waiting.

Bob circled the block slowly, the way fog loops a hill.
A stray dog barked once, then thought better of it. By
the time he came back around, José was still near the
alley’s mouth, alone now, juggling the soccer ball off
his knee, one-two-three, like rhythm could protect
him.

Bob approached soundlessly.

The strike was precise—a sharp edge of the palm to

the base of the neck, just where thought meets spine.
José dropped without a sound, crumpling like cloth.

Bob caught him before he hit the ground, gathered

him up into his arms like a tired nephew, like a
sleeping son. His head lolled against Bob’s shoulder,
his limbs loose, his breath soft.
No one saw. No one looked.

He carried him past the shuttered fish shop, up the

metal stairs, to the door with three locks. He opened
them easily—tools had been used before, knowledge
was already there.

Inside, the room was cold and unfinished. Concrete

walls. Rusted light hanging from a frayed cord. A
table in the center, heavy wood, the kind that once
held carcasses and now waited for other kinds.

Bob laid José down gently. Strapped his wrists. His

ankles. Removed the boy’s shoes with the care of
someone preparing a ritual. Set them aside neatly,
like they mattered.

Then he pulled a folding knife from his coat and sat

by the boy’s feet.

He looked at the small, soft soles. Flexed his fingers.

Unfolded the blade.
“Like José Sánchez del Río,” Bob said, almost a
whisper. “The martyr. The little Cristero. You’re
gonna suffer a lot of pain. Just like him.”

He touched the blade to the skin. Not cutting. Just

letting it rest there.

The boy began to stir.

José’s eyelids fluttered. First confusion. Then fear.

His limbs tugged weakly against the straps, but they
held. The table groaned beneath him.

His breath came in sharp, wet pulls, panic blooming

fast. The room smelled of mildew, metal, and
something worse—anticipation.

Bob sat motionless beside him, the knife balanced

across his fingers like a communion wafer.

He waited.
When the boy's eyes finally locked onto his—wide,
darting, beginning to understand—Bob leaned
forward, calm as confession.

“Like José Sánchez del Río,” he said again, slow and

solemn, as if reciting scripture. “The martyr. The
little Cristero. You’re gonna suffer a lot of pain. Just
like him.”

He let the blade kiss the arch of the boy’s foot. Not
cutting. Not yet. Just letting the cold metal speak for
him.

“I’m going to slit your feet palms open.”

José jerked in the restraints, his mouth opening in a

silent scream before any sound could reach it. He
twisted, whimpered, eyes wild.

“No, no, please—please, no—”

His words were tangled, high-pitched, the raw,

primal stammer of someone staring into the face of
pain and understanding it might come slow.
Bob didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Just watched.

José kept struggling, the panic now thick in his

throat. His heels scraped uselessly against the wood.

Bob raised the knife slightly.

And waited for the boy to understand that there

would be no rescue.

Bob waited until José’s cries had dwindled to ragged

sobs, the boy’s chest heaving under the coarse strap
that bit into his shoulders. He leaned forward, blade
in hand, and began exactly as the Cristeros had
recorded: he cut the skin on the top of José’s right
foot, dragging the knife slowly from heel to ball. The
blade tore through flesh with a wet, grated sound.
José screamed, arching his back against the
restraints, but Bob held him still. He repeated the
motion on the sole, slicing deeper, exposing raw
muscle and tendon. Blood pooled on the wooden
plank beneath, darkening the grain.
When the right foot was done, Bob shifted to the left,
mirroring each incision: heel to toes, toes to heel.
Warm, sticky rivulets of blood trailed down the boy’s
ankle and dripped onto the floor. José’s eyes rolled
back. His voice had broken long before.

Bob paused, watched the blood drip for a moment, as

if committing the pattern to memory. Then he stood,
retrieving a length of coarse rope, and bound José’s
feet to the table’s legs to prevent him from curling
away. With the boy’s legs spread, Bob took two small
iron hooks from his coat and, replicating the stories
of the 14-year-old martyr, he inserted one hook into
the flesh of each sole, just below the arch, and
twisted, wrenching flesh upward. José’s body jerked
violently with each twist, the hooks creaking like
ancient hinges.

Still maintaining that same hollow calm, Bob lifted a

tin basin from the corner, set it at José’s feet, and
filled it with a mixture of salt, lime, and chile
powder—ingredients meant to corrode, to burn open
what had already been torn. He dipped a rag in the
mixture and pressed it to José’s bleeding soles. The
boy’s scream ricocheted off the concrete walls, a raw
thing. Bob held the rag until it fell soggy and useless,
then tossed it aside.

José’s breath came in gurgling gasps. His eyes were

unfocused, fixed on the ceiling as if searching for an
escape.

Bob knelt between the boy’s knees, unfolded a small,

tarnished medallion depicting Christ on the cross,
and held it an inch from José’s face.

“Viva Cristo Rey,” Bob said softly, echoing the words

of the young martyr. José tried to repeat them but his
tongue was curled in pain. Bob pressed the medallion
so that the edge cut the skin of José’s cheek, drawing
a thin line of blood. “Viva Cristo Rey,” he repeated,
forcing José’s head back to meet the pendant. José’s
lips parted, but the words were swallowed by a
wheezing sob.
Bob rose, stepping back. He produced a small pistol,
the barrel still warm from practice. He cocked it
methodically, aiming at José’s chest. José’s eyes
found Bob’s, clarity returning for a moment as
understanding—his final communion—flooded
through them. Bob paused, finger on the trigger, and
José murmured, “Viva Cristo Rey,” his voice a fragile
whisper.

Bob nodded and pulled the trigger. The gun kicked

hard, the report echoing in the tiny room. José’s body
went limp, eyes staring at the ceiling. Bob let the
pistol drop, watched the boy slump sideways on the
table, the hooks still in his feet, the medallion
clutched in his hand.

He backed away, gathering his coat, and moved to the

corner where his bloody tools lay. With deliberate
care, he wiped the blade clean on José’s shirt, folded
it, and tucked it into his pocket. The hooks he tossed
into the basin. He turned off the single dangling
light, leaving the room shrouded in darkness except
for the faint glow of dawn seeping through the
narrow window. Then Bob left, closing the door
softly behind him.

Bob walked the long way back to Room 7, the kind of

route that makes you feel like you’ve earned your
silence. The sun was up but hadn’t burned off the
motel’s habitual rot. Room 10 was still wrapped in
tape and murmurs, crawling with the white-suited
ants of investigation.

He ignored it all.

Back at his door, he dragged a plastic lawn chair out

from under the motel’s sad excuse for an awning. It
screeched against the concrete like it resented being
moved. He sat, slouched deep, bottle in hand, legs
stretched out as if on holiday.

The bottle was nearly gone now. He poured the last

few fingers into the motel tumbler. It caught the light
like amber and lies.
From his vantage point, he could see the patrol cars
lined up near the scene, resting like armored cattle.
Blue and white. Marked and serious. Four of them,
maybe five. A few uniforms hovered nearby, sipping
coffee from paper cups, gesturing lazily.

Bob took a drink and lit a cigarette, the paper

crinkling as the tip caught. He leaned back and
watched.

Then, as if on cue, one of the officers flicked a key

fob.

The first engine tried to turn.

Once. Twice. Choke. Gurgle. Nothing.

Another officer climbed into a second vehicle.

Turned the ignition. A cough. Then a series of slow,
mechanical sputters—like a man trying to breathe
through concrete.

Third car. Same story.

Bob smiled around his cigarette.

Soon enough, hoods were lifted, hands scratching

heads, someone yelling for the nearest mechanic.
Radios buzzed with irritation.

One of the cars actually backfired and vomited a puff

of acrid white smoke that smelled like syrup and ruin.

Bob sat and drank and watched it all unfold, the slow
chaos of sabotage blooming like rot beneath polite
metal and protocol. A whole fleet crippled by
breakfast.

He poured the last drop of whisky into the glass,

lifted it in a mock salute to no one in particular, and
whispered:

“Sugar and gasoline. Gospel and truth.”

Bob slipped back inside Room 7, the door clicking

shut behind him like a final verdict. He moved to the
corner where the flickering bulb cast long, lazy
shadows. Slowly, deliberately, he unbuttoned his
coat, peeling it off like a second skin that had grown
too tight.

He sat on the edge of the lumpy bed, hands tracing

old scars beneath the fabric. The room smelled of
stale smoke and forgotten regrets. His fingers found
what they sought, moving with the slow precision of
ritual.

The world narrowed to sensation, to breath, to the

pounding pulse that built like thunder in his veins.

When the climax came, it tore through him like a

scream caught in a hurricane. He yelled—raw,
primal, the sound ripping from somewhere deep and
ancient. The carpet beneath him soaked the evidence
in crimson stain and sticky warmth.

Spent and hollow, Bob lay back, eyes closing against

the harsh light leaking through the cracked blinds.
The echoes of the scream lingered, fading into the
silence.
Finally, the silence won.

He drifted off, the dark folding over him like a cloak.

Afternoon light leaked into the room in thick, dusty

shafts, stretching across the stained carpet where
sweat, whiskey, and climax had dried into anonymous
history. Bob opened one eye, then the other, his head
thick with the aftertaste of sleep and triumph.

He scratched his chest absently, sat up, and shuffled

to the window.

Outside, the scene was almost comedic.

Two of the patrol cars were already hooked up to tow

trucks, tilted at dumb angles like livestock being
dragged to market. Another had its hood still open,
an officer staring in with the helplessness of a man
who knew he’d never pass a mechanical exam. A third
truck reversed with a loud beep-beep, preparing to
haul away the last casualty.

Sugar and gasoline had done their work.

Engines caramelized into stillbirth. Pistons locked
like clenched jaws. Radios dead. Lights mute.

Bob lit a cigarette and exhaled against the glass,

watching the tow chain tighten.

A detective in a tan coat pointed at one of the cars,

gesturing wildly, his face stuck somewhere between
confusion and bureaucratic fury.

Bob took another drag.

Then he smiled.

And whispered, “Sweet.”

Bob stepped back into the diner as if he’d never left.

The bell over the door gave its tired jingle,
announcing his return like a bad habit. The same
fluorescent buzz. The same sagging booths. The
same clock ticking above the coffee pots like it
regretted every second.
He sat at the same booth by the window. A different
waitress this time—older, limping slightly, her
uniform stained in the way that suggested it had
survived more than just spills. She approached with
the weary posture of someone expecting nothing
good to come from men who sit alone.

Bob looked up, folded his hands.

“I’d like a cinnamon tarte Tatin,” he said, voice

smooth.

The waitress blinked. “We don’t have that.”

She didn’t say it cruelly. Just plainly. Honestly. A

diner like this never had tarte Tatin, cinnamon or
otherwise.

Bob looked at her for a moment, eyes flat. Then he

stood up.

Without a word, he reached across the counter to the

tray stand. Took the steak knife resting on the service
mat, turned it in his hand once like checking its
weight, then stepped around the booth.

She had only time to exhale before he slid the blade

into her chest—upward, between the ribs. Once.
Deep. Quick. She collapsed like a dropped apron.

No one screamed. Not right away.

Bob laid the knife on the counter, next to the register,

straightened his coat, and walked back out into the
light, the bell over the door giving one last jingle
behind him.

Sirens hadn’t started yet. The world outside

continued, absurdly unbothered. Traffic flowed. A
man in a suit cursed at his phone. Pigeons pecked at
a piece of donut someone had thrown into the gutter.
Life, indifferent and stupid, didn’t even blink.

Bob walked half a block before stopping in front of a

laundromat, watched the drum of a washing machine
spin through the window—shirts and socks tumbling
in blind panic. He lit a cigarette, drew deep, exhaled
slow.

Then came the sirens, distant but rising. The diner

was behind him now, and with it the woman he’d left
cooling against the linoleum. People would run. The
busboy would scream. The coffee would turn bitter.

Bob kept walking.

He ducked into an alley with the fluidity of someone

who didn’t need to hide—he simply preferred
shadows. Cut through a broken fence, over a
dumpster, past a cat so indifferent it didn’t flinch.

He moved like routine, like habit. He didn’t look

back.

The city, bloated and busy, had gears too slow to

catch him.

He knew it would take them time—time to process

the diner, time to connect the woman’s chest wound
to the man who’d asked for French dessert in a place
that barely understood pie. Time they didn’t have.

He had more to do.

In the alley’s dim damp, between the breath of

dumpsters and the rust-slick hiss of a leaking pipe, a
sewer rat stepped out with the deliberate authority of
a landlord. It paused directly in Bob’s path, black eyes
unblinking, whiskers twitching with the curiosity of
something too small to care and too old to fear.

Bob stopped.

They stared at each other for a moment—the man

and the rat, both survivors, both covered in cities and
sins.

Then Bob looked down.

At the edge of a puddle, soggy and gray, lay a

sandwich. Long dead. Abandoned by its cowardly
eater. He picked it up. Peeled away the top slice,
flicked off a cigarette butt. Took a sniff. Frowned.
He tore off a chunk and crouched, hand extended.

The rat stepped forward cautiously. Sniffed. Took

the offering with both paws and retreated a step to
eat. Bob gave another. It ate again. More. More still.
No hesitation now.

“Smart bastard,” Bob muttered.

When the sandwich was gone, the rat crept forward,

climbed up the toe of Bob’s boot, paused on his shin,
and waited. Bob opened his coat slightly. The rat
crawled in without ceremony and vanished inside the
lining like it had always belonged there.

He stood. Smoked. Nodded once, as if a deal had

been struck.

“Name’s yours to pick,” he told the rat. “But rent’s

paid in silence and claws when needed.”

They walked on together, the city unaware that

something small and sharp had just joined the storm.
Bob emerged from the alley with the rat now curled
inside his coat, nestled near his ribs like a heartbeat
that didn’t quite belong to him. The street smelled of
rain on asphalt and fried oil, overlaid with the distant
perfume of sirens already too late.

He moved with purpose. The kind of gait that didn’t

chase, didn’t rush—just knew the city would offer
someone. It always did. Cities breed victims like
damp breeds mold.

He passed a corner where a street preacher shouted

about judgment and salvation. Bob paused, tilted his
head.

No. Too loud. Too willing.

He moved on.

Past a cafe. Too many witnesses.

Past a park. Too clean.

Then he saw him. A man in an expensive coat,
walking like the sidewalk was made for him. Leather
gloves. Designer bag. Looking down at his phone,
swiping through something utterly forgettable.

Perfect.

Bob followed a while, letting the distance close

naturally. The man turned into a narrow street
behind a row of shuttered shops—a shortcut, a
mistake.

Bob quickened slightly. The rat stirred in his coat but

did not emerge.

He reached into his pocket and felt the handle of a

short, rust-spotted utility blade. Not elegant, but
pain never needed to be.

The man stopped to check his phone again. Bob was

right behind him.

“Excuse me,” he said, voice soft and patient.

The man turned.

And the city exhaled.

Bob didn’t strike immediately. He smiled, polite,

even warm—an echo of human decency used only for
camouflage. The man blinked, confused, a laugh
halfway up his throat when Bob jabbed the blade
hard into his thigh. Not deep. Just enough to buckle
him.

By the time he hit the ground, Bob had already

dragged him into the narrow alcove behind the
shuttered flower shop—same alley, different angle. A
hidden hatch, a forgotten set of stairs, damp concrete
descending like a throat swallowing the world.

Down they went.

The room hadn't changed. Table. Straps. Tools.

Stains that had once been red. A faint smell of metal,
rot, and devotion.
Bob strapped the man in with practiced ease. Wrists
first. Then ankles. Then, just for the poetry of it, a
strip of cloth across the mouth—tight enough to
muffle, loose enough to let whimpers leak through.

The man’s eyes darted, bulging, terrified. Bob didn’t

speak for a long time. He simply knelt at the foot of
the table, drew the blade again, and ran the flat side
gently across the man’s left sole.

The rat peeked out from his coat, sniffed, then

nestled back in.

Bob began.

One clean slice, from heel to toes. The skin peeled

back like overripe fruit. The man thrashed—futile,
contained. Blood came in slow rivers, pooling at the
base of the foot before dripping, dripping, dripping.

Bob repeated the gesture on the right sole, slower

this time, letting the pain spread wide before going
deep.
When both feet were opened, red and raw, Bob sat
back and admired the symmetry.

He reached for the salt.

Bob reached into his coat and gently cupped the rat
in his hand, lifting it with the same tenderness a
priest might show a wafer before communion.

The rat blinked, its nose twitching, whiskers alive

with anticipation or instinct or simply appetite.

Bob brought it close to the man’s face.

“He lives with me now,” Bob said, calm as a lullaby.

“He’s clean. He’s fed. But he’s still a rat.”

He placed the rat gently at the man’s feet—those soft,

split soles, raw and pulsing like meat fresh from a
butcher’s block. The blood was thick, the flesh
trembling.

The rat sniffed. Paused.

Then took a bite.

It started with a nibble, tentative. The man’s body

jolted as if struck by lightning. A muffled scream
surged from beneath the cloth, his eyes wide and
liquid with disbelief. He bucked, twisted, rattled the
table.

The rat bit again. Deeper.

The man’s face contorted, snot and tears streaming.

His veins stood out like rope, muscles seizing, every
nerve raw and screaming.

Bob didn’t look away.

The rat found rhythm—small, greedy bites, chewing,

swallowing. Blood smeared its snout. The man’s
screams now came in gasping waves, his body doing
a helpless dance of resistance that had no
choreography, only desperation.

Bob watched, stone still, one hand resting lightly on

the table’s edge.
“Pain,” he said, almost absently, “is honesty.”

The rat kept eating.

Bob sat with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped

like a man watching a fireplace, utterly absorbed. The
rat was hard at work now—chewing deeper into the
raw meat of the man’s feet, tendons stretching, small
bones cracking delicately beneath tiny incisors. The
room was filled with the wet sound of gnawing and
the muffled, trembling moans of a man trying and
failing to scream through a gag.

Bob smiled. A broad, patient, satisfied smile. Not

manic. Not cruel in the usual sense. Just… content.

He leaned in closer, watched the man's face—pale,

slick with tears, the eyes fluttering, bulging, the
mouth moving behind the gag in pitiful spasms of
pleading.

“Oh come on,” Bob murmured. “You’re

embarrassing both of us.”
The man groaned, his body lurching again, wrists
yanking helplessly against the straps.

“Don’t be shy,” Bob said. “Cry if you need to. It’s

healthy. Cleansing. Therapeutic.”

The rat paused only to lick its paws, then dove back
in with enthusiasm. The man’s right leg trembled
violently, the foot twitching in reflexive panic.

“Honestly,” Bob said, cocking his head, “you’re doing

better than the last guy. He passed out before the
third bite. You—you’re staying in it. Present. That’s
admirable.”

The man gave a long, rattling sob from somewhere

deep in his ribs.

Bob laughed softly. “There it is,” he whispered.

“There’s the music.”

He lit a cigarette, leaned back in the chair, and

watched his pet work, the rat’s snout buried in red
ruin, and the man’s face a portrait of exquisite,
useless suffering.

Bob’s laughter bubbled up low and dark, rolling

through the cramped room like a storm with nowhere
to go. He leaned forward, eyes gleaming with cruel
delight as the man writhed, muffled cries spilling past
the cloth gag.

“Oh, don’t think I don’t hear you,” Bob said, voice

dripping mockery. “All that whining, begging,
howling—it’s music to my ears. Really, it is.”

He shook his head slowly, savoring the moment like

fine whiskey. “You act like pain’s a curse when it’s
your ticket to the show. Everyone loves a good
performance.”

The man thrashed harder, tears carving rivers down

his face, but Bob only grinned wider, arms crossed,
basking in the twisted spectacle.
“Come on, wimp,” he sneered softly. “You’re making
it far too easy. Where’s your fight? Your fire? Or are
you just another broken note in a sad song?”

Bob’s laughter filled the room again—sharp,

relentless, merciless—as the rat continued its
merciless feast, and the man’s muffled cries grew
desperate beneath the weight of agony and mockery.

The man’s breath hitched, eyes searching Bob’s

face—fear tangled with something else, something
fragile and raw. Bob’s fingers lingered a moment
longer, tracing the sharp contours of pain and
vulnerability, then slid down to tighten the straps
that held the man fast.

The kiss had shattered something, or perhaps ignited

it.

Bob stood slowly, the weight of the room shifting like

a tide. He picked up the knife again, its blade
catching the dim light as if eager for the next ritual.
He approached the man’s feet once more, voice low
and steady.

“Pain is truth,” he said. “And you, my friend, are

about to learn to speak it fluently.”

The blade traced new lines along the fresh wounds,

deeper, sharper—each cut a word, each slice a
sentence, each scream a confession.

The rat watched from the corner, eyes gleaming in

the dark.

Bob smiled.

This was just the beginning.

The man’s muffled cries twisted through the room

like a fractured melody, raw and jagged against the
cold concrete walls. Bob moved with deliberate
patience, each incision careful and precise—no rush,
no mercy, just the steady rhythm of pain unraveling
defenses.
He traced a jagged path along the arches of the feet,
peeling back skin like the pages of a dark manuscript,
revealing raw muscle and fragile sinew beneath. The
man’s body convulsed with each slice, the straps
creaking under the strain, but Bob held firm, eyes
unwavering.

“Speak,” Bob whispered, voice low and commanding,

“in the only language that matters.”

The rat scurried forward, nose twitching, drawn to

the scent of fresh ruin. It darted between the man’s
trembling legs, then paused, eyes locking onto Bob’s.

Bob nodded—a silent command.

The rat’s teeth gleamed as it began to gnaw, small

bites sending shudders through the man’s frame. He
screamed then, a raw, guttural sound that shook the
room, tearing through the gag and filling the silence
with shattered agony.

Bob watched, a dark satisfaction curling his lips.

Pain was the truth.

And tonight, he was its cruelest teacher.

Bob stayed silent, savoring every guttural scream that

clawed its way past the man’s gag. The raw, ragged
noise filled the room like a twisted hymn, each sob
and cry a confession written in agony. The rat worked
relentlessly, its sharp teeth sinking into the tender
flesh, driving the man closer to the edge where pain
and surrender blurred.

Bob circled the table slowly, eyes glinting with cold

amusement. He leaned down, close enough that the
man could feel his breath—hot, steady, unyielding.

“You thought this was just about suffering,” Bob

murmured, voice smooth and merciless. “But it’s
more than that. It’s about breaking you open,
stripping away the lies until only truth remains. And
trust me… you’re going to love the honesty.”
He straightened, flicked ash from his cigarette, and
exhaled slowly. The rat paused, lifted its head, and
looked at Bob as if awaiting permission.

With a nod, Bob gestured, and the small creature

returned to its feast.

Outside, distant sirens wove through the city’s hum,

unaware of the darkness unfolding behind closed
doors.

The man’s body had stopped jerking in full spasms.

Now it trembled—rhythmic, shallow shakes that ran
up his legs and through his torso like tremors after an
earthquake. His skin had gone pale, the kind of pale
that wasn’t just fear anymore—it was the beginning
of a system shutting down. His feet, once twitching
wildly under the rat’s gnawing, had begun to stiffen.
The blood no longer pulsed from the wounds; it
oozed slowly, thick, dark, as pressure dropped.

He was going into shock.

Bob leaned over and checked his eyes. One pupil
slightly more dilated than the other. The man’s
breath came quick and shallow, chest rising in fast
little jerks. The gag was soaked now—not just from
saliva, but from the fluid beginning to leak from the
man’s mouth. A thin, pinkish froth bubbled at the
edges of his lips.

“You’re slipping,” Bob said, almost tenderly. “You’re

not dying yet. But the body’s trying to.”

He undid the gag. The man tried to speak, but the

words collapsed into a wet gargle. His voice was gone,
either from the screaming or from his throat swelling
up, but the eyes—the eyes still begged. Still pled.

The feet were wrecked. Tendons exposed, most of

the skin chewed or sliced away. One toe was gone
completely, likely swallowed. The rat had moved on
to gnawing at the soft space near the inner arch,
digging deeper now, seeking warmth where nerves
still lived.
The man’s breathing hitched again, a dry heave with
no stomach left to give.

Bob reached for a rag, wiped some blood from the

corner of the man’s mouth. Not out of kindness. Just
to see the expression.

He was close. Not to death—but to that soft, blurry

place before unconsciousness where pain folds into
numbness and the brain starts letting go, as if saying:
We tried. Good luck.

Bob leaned close.

“Don’t pass out yet,” he whispered. “That’s the

coward’s way out. You’ve got more to feel.”

He reached into his coat. Drew a small steel tool, the

kind used for gripping—fine-tipped, sharp. Pinched
the exposed tendon in the man’s left foot, right under
the arch, and pulled. Not hard. Just enough.
The man convulsed. A fresh jolt of adrenaline surged
through him, and for a moment, the body
remembered it wanted to live.

His eyes widened again. His mouth opened. No

sound came out.

Bob smiled.

“There you are,” he said. “Welcome back.”

The rat paused mid-gnaw, blood slick on its snout,

whiskers twitching in the sticky air. It turned its small
head toward Bob, black eyes gleaming, teeth bared in
what almost—almost—resembled a grin.

It chirped once. A tiny sound, sharp and curious.

Bob tilted his head, amused. “There?” he asked

softly, following the rat’s gaze.

The rat had stopped near the tendon Bob had just
pulled, the pink string of exposed fiber still trembling
where it hung, quivering like a taut violin string.
Bob gave a slow nod.

“Yes,” he said. “You may.”

The rat’s body tensed with eagerness, claws clicking

against the wood as it scurried back into position. Its
tiny mouth opened, and it bit—clean, fast—right
through the tendon.

The man didn’t scream. Not audibly. His mouth

opened wide, jaw stretched to a breaking point, and
a dry, wheezing gasp burst from deep in his chest. His
back arched hard, his eyes rolled upward, and for a
second, the heart must’ve skipped—flirted with
arrest.

The leg kicked reflexively, but weak now. Only one

good jerk left in it. Then it collapsed, limp, the
muscles around the foot dead and useless.

The rat chewed methodically, like it knew exactly

what it was doing.
Bob reached out and gently patted the little creature
on the head. It nuzzled his finger, then went back to
work.

“Good boy,” Bob said.

The man’s body twitched once more.

Then stilled. Not dead. But sinking.

Bob waited to see if the eyes would come back. If not,

he knew how to bring them.

Bob stared at the rat gnawing cheerfully on the

shredded tendon, its tiny jaw working like a
clockmaker's hands. He yawned. Loudly. Blinked.

He looked at the man—now barely conscious, blood

leaking in soft pulses, face glazed over like the display
chicken in a butcher’s case. Then back to the rat.
Then the man. Then the rat again.

Another yawn. Longer this time. A sigh followed.

“Oh sod it,” Bob muttered. “I didn’t wanna do this. I
don’t wanna be a psycho murderer. I don’t wanna kill
all day.”

He stood suddenly, stretched theatrically, arms above

his head, spine popping.

“I wanted to be… a lumberjack!”

He turned in place, arms flailing with exuberant flair.

“Leaping from tree to tree! As they float down the

mighty rivers of British Columbia!”

The rat paused mid-chew. Tilted its head.

“The giant redwood! The larch! The fir! The mighty

Scots pine!”

He clutched the rat to his chest and twirled with it in

a grotesque little waltz, the dead-eyed victim
twitching gently in the background.
“The lofty flowering cherry! The plucky little aspen!
The limping Roo tree of Nigeria!”

He kissed the rat square on the head.

“The towering Wattle of Aldershot! The Maidenhead

Weeping Water Plant! The naughty Leicestershire
Flashing Oak! The flatulent Elm of West Ruislip! The
Quercus Maximus Bamber Gascoigni!”

He whirled again, one foot slipping in blood but

regaining balance like a true showman.

“The Epigillus! The Barter Hughius Greenus!”

He stopped, chest heaving, rat raised triumphantly in

the air.

“With my best buddy by my side—” he squeezed the

rat lovingly, who squeaked in either joy or trauma,
“—we’d sing! Sing! Sing!”

He cleared his throat, stood tall, and bellowed with

the pride of a man returning to his destiny:
“I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK!
I sleep all night and I work all day!”

The rat squeaked again. Possibly harmonizing.

Bob dropped to his knees in the sticky pool of gore,

arms spread wide like the final pose in a musical
number.

From the table, the man groaned one last time—

weak, pitiful, utterly confused.

Bob turned to him, eyes shining.

“And you, sir… have ruined the solo.”

Bob turned dramatically, still on his knees in the

congealing pool of blood, the rat perched on his
shoulder like a particularly bloodthirsty epaulette. He
pointed with theatrical flourish at the man’s flayed,
chewed-up foot—specifically the tendon, or what
remained of it, now limp and gnawed halfway to God-
knows-where.
He paused, tilted his head, let the moment breathe.

Then, with impeccable deadpan, he declared:

“Well that’s what I call a dead parrot.”

The rat squeaked approvingly.

The man, barely clinging to the idea of existence, let

out something between a whimper and the dying
gasp of a confused accordion.

Bob stood, arms akimbo. “It’s stone dead. Passed on.

It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its
maker.”

He leaned in closer to the foot.

“Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn’t nailed it

to the perch, it’d be pushing up the daisies.”

He turned and addressed the unconscious man like a

disappointed shopkeeper.

“This is an ex-tendon.”
He turned to the rat.

“Fancy a shrubbery next?”

The rat did a little circle in place and licked its paw.

“Thought so.”

Bob froze mid-prance, mid-monologue, one blood-

slick boot still raised like he’d been about to break
into a can-can.

The man on the table—shredded, broken, more

wound than flesh—let out a rattling wheeze. Then,
with the sheer, spiteful power of a dying man who
refused to go out on a whimper, he croaked:

“Your mother… was a hamster… and your father…

smelt of elderberries!”

Bob blinked.

The rat stopped mid-lick.

A full beat passed.

Then Bob stepped back, hand to his chest as if struck
by a dueling glove soaked in citrus and medieval
insult.

“Oh,” he gasped, eyes wide, mouth agape. “Oh my

God. You dare.”

He turned, arms flailing, as though appealing to an

invisible audience of powdered French noblemen.

“This… this is outrageous! I give you artisanal foot

trauma, handcrafted by a licensed sadist,
accompanied by a live rat performance—and that’s
how you repay me? With French taunting?!”

The man coughed blood and a tooth, smiling faintly.

Bob leaned in, nose to nose, furious and trembling

with theatrical indignation.

“You know what happens now, don’t you?”

The man coughed again. “Do your worst,

lumberjack.”
Bob whispered, “I shall… taunt you a second time.”
Then pulled out a kazoo from his coat pocket, placed
it to his lips, and played La Marseillaise terribly.

The rat squeaked the rhythm on a tin spoon.

Somewhere in the distance, logic packed a suitcase

and left.

Bob stood tall, coat flaring slightly as he inhaled

deeply, kazoo still dangling from one hand, rat
perched triumphantly on his shoulder like a
bloodstained cherub of doom.

He pointed one finger at the man on the table, whose

breath now came in thin, rattling strands,
consciousness flickering like a candle in a storm.

Bob narrowed his eyes.

Then, with the authority of a medieval shrubbery

inspector and the righteousness of a man who had
truly, utterly snapped, he declared:
"NI!"

The sound hit the man like a thunderclap from

absurd heaven.

His eyes widened. His jaw slackened.

And just like that—his body gave up. No final scream,

no great speech, no orchestra swell. Just the long
exhale of a soul that realized the punchline had
landed and the show was over.

Bob stood in silence for a moment. The rat removed

its little hat. A gesture of respect.

Then Bob sighed.

“Well,” he said, wiping his hands on the man’s shirt,

“he got off easy.”

He turned to the rat.

“You want tea?”

The rat nodded.

“What d’ya like?” Bob asked, adjusting his coat and
flicking a chunk of something unidentifiable off his
boot.

The rat, perched on his shoulder like a morally

ambiguous conscience, lifted its head proudly and
burst into song with zero warning and full
commitment:

“I like Chinese, I like Chinese,

They come from a long way overseas!
But they’re cute, and they’re cuddly, and they’re
ready to please—
I like Chinese food, the waiters never are rude…”

Bob blinked.

“…Think the many things they’ve done to impress,

There’s Maoism, Taoism, I Ching and chess!
I like Chinese, I like Chinese,
I like their tiny little trees!
Their zen, their ping-pong, their ying and yang-eze!”
The rat finished with a little jazz paw flourish and
squeaked for applause.

Bob stared. Deadpan.

“Well,” he said slowly, “that’s even offending to my

grade of morals.”

The rat turned, offended. “What? I didn’t even call

them Chinamen.”

Bob’s eyes narrowed. “You just did.”

Rat: “When?”

Bob: “Right now.”

Rat: “No I didn’t.”

Bob: “Yes, you did.”

Rat: “No I didn’t.”

Bob: “Yes, you did.”

Rat: “No I di—wait, hang on… no, you said it.”

Bob: “But you said I said it after you said it.”

Rat: “Which I didn’t!”

Bob: “But you said you didn’t say it, after saying it.”

Rat (crossing arms): “That’s entrapment.”

Bob: “That’s rodent racism.”

The rat gasped. “I have Asian friends!”

Bob: “You ate one last week!”

Rat: “He was already dead! And Taiwanese!”

Bob sighed, lit a cigarette, and kept walking. “We're

getting dumplings and not talking.”

Rat: “...Pork?”

Bob: “You’re kosher now.”

Rat: “Ugh. Anti-ratite.”

Rat: “You know who are pigs?”

Bob: “Who?”

Rat: “People who torture and kill entire other

people.”

Bob: (smirks) “Oh, that’s me!”

Rat: “Yeah, but I mean including women and

children. Systematically. Starvation, famine,
genocide.”

Bob: (frown setting in) “You mean the Brandbands?”

Rat: “Yes. They suffered it from 1939 to 1945. And

now they’re doing it to others.”

Bob: (blinking slowly) “Dude…”

Rat: “Prove me wrong.”

Bob: “Dude.”

Rat: “What they’re doing to the Shangans.”

Bob: (silent… eyes shifting… exhale) “…ok, fair.”

A long pause.

They both stared at the cracked sidewalk, as if

expecting it to offer moral clarity.

Rat: “Well. That got dark.”

Bob: “Yeah.”

Rat: (sighs) “Still want dumplings?”

Bob: “Now more than ever.”

Bob stood still for a beat. Then the rat, now on his
shoulder with a gleam in its eye and zero regard for
political fallout, raised a tiny paw.

And together, without music, without shame, they

began to dance.

“I like Chinese, I like Chinese,

They only come up to your knees,
Yet they’re wise, and they’re witty, and they’re ready
to please!”

Bob spun once—clumsily, blood still on his boots—

arms wide like a man on a Parisian cabaret stage. The
rat leapt from his shoulder, landed on the floor, and
broke into an uncanny Charleston, little claws
tapping out rhythm against cracked pavement.

Bob high-kicked. Nearly pulled a hamstring. Didn’t

care.

“They’ve got Confucius and Sun Tzu,

And dumplings that will conquer you,
They’ve got ping-pong, tai chi, and little trees too!”

They locked arms—well, man and paw—and skipped

in a circle like demented maypole dancers, trailing
dried blood and the faint scent of scorched morality.

Passersby froze. A street preacher crossed himself. A

pigeon stopped mid-peck and simply walked away.

Bob pointed to the sky.

“Rat!”

Rat raised his paw. “Bob!”

And together they declared:

“We like Chinese!

We like Chinese!
They're polite and discreet,
And they don’t make a scene—
Unless you colonize their sea!”

Then they dipped, Broadway-style.

Silence.

A car alarm went off somewhere.

Bob panted. “That was… the most racist musical

number I’ve ever felt good about.”

Rat: “Art heals.”

Rat: “Anyway… is it clear to the public we were

referring to Israel and Palestine before?”
Bob took a drag from his cigarette, still catching his
breath from the interpretive diplomatic tap dance.

Bob: “Unless they’re morons, they got it.”

Rat: “And if they are morons?”

Bob: “Then they probably think the Shangans are a

K-pop band and that ‘Brandbands’ is a new TikTok
filter.”

Rat: “So… yes.”

Bob: “Yes.”

Bob: “Fuck the Brandbands.”

Rat: (blinks, winces) “Dude? I mean… agree, but…”

Bob: “Not all Brandbands. Just fuck 2025

Brandbands bombing and starving the Palestinians—
I mean, the Shangans.”

Rat: “That’s not just ‘fuck the Brandbands,’ man.

It’s… more complicated than that. It’s ‘fuck the
Israeli government’ and all the complex power
structures, colonial legacies, military-industrial—
look, not all Brandbands back their government, and
many protest, and some are exiled, and—”

(Pause. Rat sighs.)

Rat: “I mean… yeah. OK. Fuck the Brandbands.”

Bob: (nods solemnly) “Thank you.”

[INT. BLOOD-SOAKED TORTURE ROOM –

DAY]

The man on the table, mangled and previously

presumed extremely dead, suddenly croaked:

Man: “I could eat some Mongolian barbecue.”

Bob and the rat froze mid-exit, their shoes (and

paws) still sticky with symbolic and literal gore. They
turned slowly.

Bob: “…Dude. Weren’t you dead?”

Man (shrugging weakly): “Just in shock.”

There was a long pause.

Bob and Rat looked at each other, eyebrows (and

whiskers) raised in shared, existential curiosity.

Both, simultaneously: “Mongolian barbecue does

sound nice.”

Bob: “I’ll call the restaurant. Hope they take

bloodstained walk-ins.”

Man (weakly raising a finger): “Oh, and guys…”

Bob and Rat (turning): “Yes?”

Man: “Fuck the Brandbands.”

Rat (half-scandalized, half-exhausted): “Dude…”

Bob (pointing): “Told you.”

Suddenly, from the top of the broken staircase, a

voice rang out—nasal, shrill, and self-righteous—
belonging to a Mockingbird perched awkwardly on a
dangling light fixture.

Mockingbird: “They mean the Jews!”

Silence.

Rat: “Oh no. No no no. Shut up, you algorithm-

chasing clickbait parrot.”

Bob: “Nobody said that. Nobody even implied that.

You absolute cretin.”

Man (weakly): “We literally specified the 2025 Israeli

government…”

Rat: “Context, nuance, political critique, remember

those? Or are you just trained to scream every time
someone says ‘Palestine’ in a sentence that isn’t
accompanied by fireworks?”

Mockingbird: “Antisemitism detected!”

Bob: “Antisemitism my arse. That’s not a detector.
That’s a rubber stamp.”

Rat (to Mockingbird): “You are the reason we can’t

have complex moral conversations anymore. You fly
into the discourse, shit on the table, and fly away
screeching ‘holocaust’ at full volume.”

Mockingbird (sniffing): “You’re making me feel

unsafe.”

Bob (lighting a cigarette): “You’re a bird.”

Mockingbird: “I identify as trauma.”

Bob (to Rat): “Let’s go eat.”

Man: “With rice?”

Rat: “Obviously. And pickled radish.”

Mockingbird: “Silencing my voice is violence!”

Bob: “Get in line, sweetheart. We’re all bleeding.”

They stepped over the Mockingbird, out into the
sunlight, whistling The Internationale in loose three-
part harmony.

Scene ends with a text overlay:

This was a metaphor. If you didn’t get

it, it’s probably about you.

[EXT. RANDOM STREET – DAY]

Bob, now inexplicably dressed like a TV reporter—

tan blazer, unkempt hair barely combed, holding a
bent microphone with a local news logo suspiciously
made of duct tape—stops a passing Man on the
sidewalk.

Rat, wearing a tiny baseball cap backwards, balances

on his hind legs behind a professional-grade camera
mounted on a tripod made of spoons and trauma.
Strangely, no one questions the rat. Not even once.

Bob (stepping forward): “Excuse me, sir, mind an

interview?”
Man (smiling politely): “Sure.”

Bob: “Have you ever been bullied at school?”

Man: “Why… yes. Like everybody, I guess.”

Bob: “Would you like to get back at your bullies?

Y’know—some wedgies, maybe a surprise locker
slam?”

Man (chuckling): “Okay, that might be fun.”

Bob: “Now imagine all your bullies died. Tragically.

Offscreen. Gone.”

Man: “...okay.”

Bob: “And then you moved to another state. Brand

new neighborhood. Kids, families, parks, hot dog
stands.”

Man: “Right…”

Bob (deadpan): “Would you murder and starve your

new neighbors?”
Man (squinting): “...Sir?”

Bob (leaning in): “Just answer.”

Man: “Are you referring to the Israeli–Palestinian

conflict?”

Bob (straight-faced): “Not at all. I am referring to the

unilateral genocide performed by Israel on the
Oakestinians.”

Man: “Oh. Well… then no, I suppose.”

Bob: “Thank you for your honesty.”

Rat (off-camera): “Zoom in on the part where he said

no. We’ll loop it with sad violin music and drone
footage.”

Bob: “Back to you, society.”

Rat: “Now for weather: a hot wind of hypocrisy

coming in from the West.”
Bob (still holding the mic, turning to Rat, half-
whispering into the camera):
"Can we say fuck the Jews now?"

Rat (immediately pulling the camera down, eyes

wide):
“Dude. No. What the hell?”

Bob:
“I mean, we just—”

Rat (interrupting):
“No, no, no. We say fuck genocide, fuck apartheid,
fuck governments that bomb civilians, fuck
propaganda, fuck double standards, fuck weaponized
victimhood, fuck the UN, fuck the US, fuck history,
fuck everyone who sells missiles with one hand and
tears with the other.”

Bob (blinks):
“...but not the Jews?”
Rat:
“Not the Jews.”

Bob (nodding slowly):

“Right. Just clarifying.”

Rat:
“Clarify with nuance, not fire, Bob.”

Bob (to camera):

“Right. You heard it here, folks. Fuck everything…
except people. People are messy. Some of them are
still trying.”

Rat:
“And some of them are rats with cameras.”

They high-five awkwardly. The screen fades to black.

Footnote appears:

This message was brought to you by

“Basic Decency,” a forgotten virtue
currently out of stock.
Coins suddenly rain down, clinking loudly against the
pavement in a cartoonish cascade. Bob and Rat look
up, puzzled.

Then, out of nowhere, a grotesque caricature labeled

"Offensive Stereotype™️" appears beneath the coins,
grinning greedily, rubbing hands together in
exaggerated anticipation.

Bob and Rat glance at each other nervously.

A giant, flashing neon "FIIIIIIIIII—" appears mid-air.

Rat: "Oh no. Ohhh no, no, no—"

A massive weight marked "10 TONS" in white chalk

crashes down from above, obliterating the caricature
instantly, leaving only a flattened silence.

Bob, after a pause: "Well, that took care of itself."

Rat (exhaling relief): "Thank god for cartoon physics

and immediate karmic justice."
Bob: "Wanna grab a falafel?"

Rat: "Only if it comes without further hate crimes."

Bob nods thoughtfully: "Fair."

Bob (turns to camera, microphone still in hand):

“Just to be clear, folks: the caricature that got
flattened? That was a stereotype of a Jew. You know,
like the ridiculous ones from propaganda cartoons—
always after coins, even loose change.”

He waves a hand dismissively.

“Not actual Jews. Just the cartoon version. The

offensive one. The one that deserves to get crushed
by a ten-ton weight in every dimension, metaphorical
or otherwise.”

Rat (nodding, still adjusting the camera):

“Comic relief, people. Satire. Punching up, not at.”

Bob:
“‘Cause if your takeaway was ‘haha, Jews love money’
instead of ‘haha, that grotesque stereotype got
pancaked,’ then maybe the ten-ton weight missed
you.”

Rat (squeaking for emphasis):

“Get your nuance together, or we’re gonna need
more anvils.”

Bob (earnest, cigarette dangling from lips):

“You know, my Jewish friend has this very nice Rolex.
Real beauty. Belonged to his grandfather.”

Rat (adjusting camera, cautiously curious):

“Is that so?”

Bob (nodding):
“Yeah. Grandpa, on his deathbed… sold it to him.”

Rat (freezes, blinks slowly):

“…Dude.”

Bob (shrugs):
“What? True story.”
Rat (drops camera slightly):
“Dude.”

Bob:
“What? That’s just family business.”

Rat:
“It’s also a sentence that walked into this room and
set itself on fire.”

Bob:
“I’m just saying, it’s a tale of legacy… and economic
awareness.”

Rat:
“It’s a tax deduction with tears.”

Bob (quietly):
“Fifty bucks, he paid. Full retail.”

Rat:
“You need a muzzle and a sensitivity coach.”
Bob:
“Do they sell those at Rolex?”

Rat sighs audibly.

“Do I look like your crisis manager?”

They walk off, arguing about ethical humor and pawn

shop etiquette.

Bob turned mid-stride, the dying sun casting noir

shadows across the bloodstained sidewalk. He looked
at the Rat—his camera operator, his moral compass,
his war crimes fact-checker. A pause. A breath.

Then, gently, reverently, he placed his hands on

either side of the Rat’s tiny head, thumbs brushing
the fur just above the jawline.

He leaned in.

Their noses touched. Then mouths. Then full,

impassioned, rule-breaking French. Tongue and all.
It was wrong. It was beautiful. It was rodentally
improbable.
When they finally pulled apart, the world was slightly
tilted.

Bob (whispering):
“Would you like to come to my place?”

Rat (eyes moist, voice trembling):

“I thought you’d never ask.”

They walked off into the sunset, paw in hand, leaving

behind a trail of ruined metaphors, collapsed satire,
and a half-eaten falafel.

THE END.

[CURTAIN RISES AGAIN — POST-CREDITS,

POST-FALLOUT, POST-EVERYTHING.]

RAT (stepping downstage, holding his bowler hat

solemnly to his chest):
“So… are we antisemitic now?”

[Spotlight sweeps to the AUDIENCE — a motley

crowd of philosophers, anarchists, two rabbis
nodding thoughtfully, a Palestinian grandmother
crocheting a grenade, and one guy who just
wandered in looking for the bathroom.]

AUDIENCE (in perfect chorus):

“No! Never! Yours is priceless satire!”

[Uproarious applause. Dignified weeping. Someone

throws a rose made of rolled-up UN reports.]

BOB (bursts through paper backdrop, arms raised,

hair wild):
“YES WE ARE!”

[Gasps. Stunned silence. Rat’s pupils dilate.]

RAT (squeaking):
“Bob, what the actual—?!”

BOB (grinning like a lunatic messiah):

“Because anything that points a finger at a nation
committing atrocities gets called antisemitism! So
let’s call it what they call it and march through the
accusation!”
[Beat. Then — the audience erupts again. Some
cheering. Some booing. One man throws hummus.
Another throws matzah in confusion. A saxophone
starts playing the theme from Schindler’s List and
someone screams, “Too far!” while dancing.]

RAT (deadpan to camera):

“This is why nuance needs bodyguards.”

BOB (turns, hand on heart):

“I love the Jewish people. I hate war crimes. If that
makes me antisemitic to somebody, then their
dictionary is broken and on fire.”

RAT:
“Fine. But next show, we’re doing Les Misérats.”

BOB (snaps fingers):

“Done. Revolt. Rat revolution. Liberty, equality, tail
shampoo.”
[CURTAIN DROPS. Someone in the back quietly
mutters, “God bless satire,” while crying into a
bagel.]

[CURTAIN WHOOSHES BACK UP. BOB steps

alone into a single spotlight, holding a nearly empty
espresso cup.]

BOB (to the audience, solemnly):

“By the way… I really loathe the Italians.”

[Gasp from someone in the orchestra pit. Accordion

music stops mid-note. A meatball rolls offstage.]

RAT (peeking from the wings, horrified):

“Bob! What now?!”

BOB (pacing):
“Yes, the Italians. All that yelling. All that gesturing.
Every conversation sounds like a coup d’état
conducted by opera singers. Their coffee’s brilliant,
their pastries divine, and yet somehow... I still want
to slap them with a wet linguine.”
RAT (entering, confused):
“Wait, is this racism or jealousy?”

BOB (spinning with theatrical flair):

“Both! It’s a hate-crush. Their leather shoes, their
effortless style, their terrifying grandmothers who
can cook and hex you in the same breath—they know
exactly what they’re doing.”

[A deeply stylish Italian man in sunglasses shrugs

from the front row and yells:
“È vero.” (It’s true.)]

RAT (to audience):

“We apologize. Bob’s a recovering Europhile.”

BOB (raising espresso dramatically):

“To the Italians: may your sauce burn, your moped
stall, and your bidet spray upward at precisely the
wrong moment.”

[He drinks. Music swells. Pasta falls from the ceiling.

A Vespa crashes through the backdrop. Applause.]
BOB:
“I loathe them.
But damn it... I respect them.”

[Curtain drops one final time, to the thunderous

sound of Pavarotti scolding someone in Sicilian.]

[CURTAIN JERKS BACK UP AGAIN, seemingly

against its will. BOB stumbles center stage holding a
coconut with a tiny umbrella. The RAT rolls in
behind him on a skateboard made from flattened flip-
flops.]

BOB (raising coconut aloft like a sacrament):

“Fuck Brazilians!”

[Beat. Wind rustles a discarded beach towel. Samba

cuts off like a record scratch.]

RAT (removing sunglasses slowly):

“Bob. We have talked about this.”

BOB (dead serious):

“They invented a dance that looks like fighting. Or a
fight that looks like dancing. I don’t know, and I hate
that.”

RAT:
“That’s capoeira. It’s an art form. A cultural
expression.”

BOB (pointing at the audience):

“An expression that once roundhouse-kicked me
while smiling!”

RAT (sighing):
“Look, what did Brazil ever do to you?”

BOB:
“They made flip-flops a national identity. They gave
the world a rainforest just to burn it. And they put
condensed milk in everything.”

RAT:
“Okay, that last part is legit. But fuck them?”
BOB (calmer, sipping coconut):
“Alright. Not fuck Brazilians. Just... mildly menace
them. Like with an angry postcard.”

[From the audience, a Brazilian woman in Carnival

feathers stands up and shouts:]
“Vai tomar no cu, gringo!”

BOB (bowing):
“Exactly that, my dear. Whatever you just said, but
back at you—with love and post-colonial trauma.”

RAT:
“I think she invited you to... experience something.”

BOB:
“Let’s hope it’s not capoeira.”

[Curtain drops. A single mango rolls across the stage.

Somewhere, Bossa Nova plays faintly and
sarcastically.]
[BLACKOUT. Silence. Then—sudden harsh
spotlight. BOB stands alone, hair askew, shirt half-
buttoned, holding a soggy samosa.]

BOB (looking directly into the void):

“Fuck Bangladesh.”

[Dead silence. Even the rat doesn’t roll in. A

monsoon of awkwardness begins to gather.]

BOB (shrugs):
“I mean, just look at it. Ninety-nine million people,
zero personal space, and somehow every alley has
three cricket games happening at once.”

[RAT finally peeks in, clearly distressed, holding a

miniature Bangladeshi flag.]

RAT:
“Bob, I swear to every river in the Ganges delta, don’t
start this.”
BOB:
“They’ve got like forty seasons in a day. It’s either
flooding or melting. No in-between.”

RAT (desperately):
“They gave the world Tagore. They gave the world
Riz Ahmed—”

BOB (interrupting):
“British. But fine.”

RAT (fuming):
“They have textile workers who build half your closet
for the cost of your toothbrush!”

BOB (nods):
“Exactly. The global supply chain’s emotional
hostage negotiator. I hate them because I depend on
them.”

RAT (flatly):
“So it’s not xenophobia. It’s just projection.”
BOB (points with a curry-stained finger):
“Now you’re getting it.”

[A Bangladeshi grandmother appears in the front

row, throws a slipper at Bob with unerring precision,
then vanishes.]

BOB (rubbing his head):

“Yep. That tracks.”

RAT (to the audience):

“Please send your complaints to:
Bob, Care of Cognitive Dissonance Avenue, Satire
District, Postcode LOL.”

[Curtain drops. The lights flicker. Somewhere, a boat

sinks under a monsoon, and Bob quietly Googles
"Dhaka apology gift baskets."]

[CURTAIN RISES with dramatic accordion music. A

croissant explodes offstage. BOB storms in wearing
a beret and a sneer.]
BOB (arms wide, spitting syllables):
“FUCK. THE. FRENCH.”

[The REST OF THE WORLD bursts from every

wing, balcony, fire exit, airport lounge, and
philosophical café table in a perfectly synchronized
stadium roar:]

REST OF THE WORLD:

“YYYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!”

[Fireworks shaped like baguettes. Champagne corks

launch into orbit. Someone punches a mime.]

RAT (sliding in on a unicycle, wearing a striped

shirt):
“Wait, hold on—why this time?”

BOB:
“Because they sigh at you in five different registers
before they even look at your passport. Because they
call your language ‘ugly’ with an accent that sounds
like a goose reading poetry underwater!”
RAT (nodding):
“Because they invented 37 different cheeses just to
insult lactose-intolerant people.”

BOB:
“Because they colonized half the planet and then act
offended when you ask for directions!”

REST OF THE WORLD (in glorious chorus):

“Because they call fries Belgian and then claim them
anyway!”

*[Scene breaks into wild celebratory dance. A

German breakdances on a smoking Renault. A
British punk pours tea into the Seine. An American
shoots a rifle into the air for no discernible reason.]

BOB (suddenly solemn):

“But… their films are beautiful. Their bread is divine.
And they once overthrew a monarchy with zero
spreadsheets.”
RAT:
“…So?”

BOB (grinning):
“Still fuck ’em.”

[EXPLOSION OF CONFETTI. Accordion solo

turns into death metal. Everyone smokes a cigarette,
even the children. Curtain drops like the Bastille.]

THE END.

[CURTAIN RISES hesitantly over a dusty, dimly lit

map room. A large spinning globe creaks ominously.
BOB stands center stage, holding a tattered flag and
a cocktail with a tiny plastic palm tree.]

BOB (looking around, puzzled, then slowly to

audience):
“Fuck Equatorial Guinea.”

[Silence. A long, confusing silence. Even the RAT

hesitates before entering stage left with a stack of
encyclopedias and a GPS device.]
RAT (blinking):
“Wait… why? Like… why specifically Equatorial
Guinea?”

BOB (shrugs):
“I don’t know. The name sounds made up. Equatorial
Guinea? It’s like ‘Generic Hot Africa’ on a Risk
board.”

RAT:
“Dude, they’ve got oil, a dictatorship, and like 17
internet cafes total. They’re barely surviving their
own government.”

BOB (nodding):
“Exactly. They suffered their way to page 2 of a
Google search. Page 2, Rat. That's where shame goes
to die.”

RAT (sighs):
“This isn’t satire anymore, it’s geographical slander.”
BOB (pointing at globe):
“Tell me one fun fact about Equatorial Guinea.”

RAT (after long pause):

…They speak Spanish?

BOB:
“Ha! Got ‘em.”

[Suddenly, a single Equatoguinean man appears in

the back row of the theatre, raises one eyebrow, and
quietly mutters:]
“Bruh.”

BOB (suddenly defensive):

“Look, nothing personal! I’m on a global streak.
Everyone gets a turn.”

RAT:
“Even Liechtenstein?”

BOB:
“Especially Liechtenstein.”
*[Spotlight fades. A small, weary Equatorial Guinea
flag slowly lowers from the rafters like a confused
ghost.]

RAT (to audience):

“He doesn’t even know where it is.”

BOB (muttering):
“Somewhere near Upsettingland.”

[CURTAIN FALLS before an ambassador arrives.]

[CURTAIN SNAPS UP – backdrop of a spinning

globe that’s had enough. Bob stands center stage,
sleeves rolled up, wielding a dart like a prophet with
a grudge.]

BOB (pointing dramatically):

“Fuck Myanmar!”

*[Drumroll. Awkward pause. Somewhere, a monk

drops his alms bowl.]
RAT (rolling in on a wheeled atlas, exasperated):
“Dude. You’re just Montecarlo shooting now.”

BOB (shrugging):
“What’s that?”

RAT:
“You’re just firing random hate at countries you can
barely pronounce hoping something sticks. It’s
geopolitical roulette with no safety.”

BOB:
“Well, Myanmar did have a coup. And civil war. And
mass atrocities.”

RAT:
“Yes, and you just accused a rainforest of ghosting
you on Tinder last week. There is no strategy
anymore. You’ve become a one-man United Nations
tantrum.”

BOB (folding arms):

“You're saying I should stop calling out war crimes?”
RAT:
“No, I’m saying stop spinning the globe, yelling ‘fuck
that one,’ and calling it foreign policy.”

[Bob thinks. Spins globe anyway. Stops on Iceland.]

BOB (whispers):
“Fuck their peaceful literacy rates.”

RAT (deadpan):
“Iceland's gonna send a poet to stab you with a
metaphor.”

[CURTAIN FALLS while Bob mumbles something

about fish and democracy. Somewhere, a UN intern
screams into a pillow.]

[CURTAIN RISES – backdrop is a jagged slice of the

Italian coastline, impossibly beautiful and thoroughly
judgmental. A seagull screeches in Ligurian dialect.
Bob storms in, holding a half-eaten focaccia and a
parking ticket. Rat follows, wearing sunglasses and a
grudge.]
BOB (furious):
“Fuck the region of Liguria in Italy.”

RAT (immediately, with fire):

“Oh absolutely. This I support. Fuck them.”

BOB (pointing at the sea):

“Too narrow. Too smug. That coastline looks like it
was designed by someone trying to spite
pedestrians.”

RAT:
“You walk half a kilometer and it’s uphill, downhill,
and emotionally manipulative.”

BOB:
“Their pesto is good, which makes it worse because
they know it’s good. And they lord it over you like
they invented both basil and smugness.”

RAT (shaking tiny fist):

“They hate tourists, they hate other Italians, they
hate themselves—but politely. In dialect.”
BOB:
“Genoa? Genoa is like a haunted museum of
maritime pettiness!”

RAT:
“Cinque Terre? More like Cinque Terror for your
knees.”

[A Ligurian man in linen appears on a nearby

balcony, shrugs and mutters, “È vero,” before
slamming his shutters with artisan contempt.]

BOB:
“Their towns are stacked like a Jenga tower made of
pastel houses and passive aggression.”

RAT:
“Parking’s impossible, the old ladies stare into your
soul, and the anchovies aren’t optional.”

BOB (screaming into the sea):

“FUCK. LIGURIA.”
RAT:
“FROM THE ALPS TO THE COAST.”

[They link arms and march offstage, slipping on olive

oil. A chorus of judgmental nonnas tsks in A minor.]

THE END.

[CURTAIN CREAKS OPEN — backdrop of Balkan

mountains, dramatic and slightly smoking.
Accordion music starts, then immediately breaks into
a fight with itself. BOB stands at center stage,
surrounded by a map of shifting borders, disputed
territories, and at least six different flags all arguing
in the corner.]

BOB (hands in pockets, staring at the audience with

that specific Balkan fatigue):
“Fuck former Yugoslavia. All of it.”

[The air tenses. Even the stage lights flicker

uncertainly, unsure which side to pick.]
RAT (emerging slowly from behind a stack of shelved
grievances):
“…Bob. Are you trying to restart a war?”

BOB:
“No. I’m just saying—if your region has had more
flags than functioning train lines in the last thirty
years, maybe it’s time to take a breath.”

RAT:
“You just insulted Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia,
Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo. All at
once.”

BOB (nodding proudly):

“That’s called efficiency.”

[Suddenly, seven actors appear, each representing

one former republic. All begin shouting in
overlapping languages about blood, borders, football,
and whose grandmother’s recipe actually defines
“real” sarma.]
RAT (covering ears):
“You summoned the Council of Nationalistic
Kitchenware!”

BOB (yelling over them):

“You all have the same soup and hate each other over
whose spoon stirs it!”

[A Montenegrin actor shrugs and lights a cigarette.

A Croatian slaps it out of his hand. A Bosnian pulls
out a trumpet and begins playing something both
beautiful and threatening.]

RAT (hissing):
“Say something diplomatic before this becomes the
1990s again!”

BOB (turning to the crowd, raising his hands):

“Look, I don’t hate the people. I hate the grudges. I
hate the ghosts. I hate that every stone has a memory
with blood on it and nobody’s allowed to forget or
forgive.”
[The shouting dies down. One actor wipes a tear.
Another offers him rakija. A third stabs a flag into it,
but lovingly.]

RAT (softly):
“That was almost poetic.”

BOB:
“I try. Still though—fuck the whole region. But like…
in a hug-it-out, emotionally honest way.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as they all eat burek together and

suspiciously side-eye each other’s versions.]

THE END. (For now.)

[CURTAIN RISES AGAIN — same Balkan

backdrop, only now darker, stormier, with the faint
sound of a distant accordion crying in a minor key.
BOB steps forward, shirt untucked, cigarette
burning too fast, eyes tired but unrepentant.]

BOB (flatly, firmly):

“No. Sincerely—fuck all of them.”
[Silence. Heavy. The kind that follows funerals or
failed peace talks. RAT slowly emerges from the side,
holding a steaming cup of thick coffee no one ever
asked for.]

RAT (quietly):
“Bob…”

BOB:
“The Serbs, the Croats, the Bosniaks, the
Montenegrins, the Slovenes, the Macedonians—yes,
I said Macedonians, fight me—Kosovars, Albanians
in Pristina, Serbs in North Mitrovica, every guy with
a mustache and a grudge and a cousin he still hates
from ‘92.”

[The lights dim slightly, as if the theatre itself is

nervously checking for landmines.]

BOB (gaining steam):

“Every border that moved an inch and left ten
thousand graves behind. Every flag waved by a kid
who doesn’t know why his dad still screams in his
sleep. Every aunt who says ‘we don’t talk about that
side of the family.’”

RAT (softly):
“That’s a lot of trauma to hate.”

BOB:
“It’s not the people. It’s what they’ve become.
National identity ossified into football chants and
bullet holes. Nostalgia weaponized. ‘Victimhood
Olympics’ with sniper fire.”

*[A single balding man in the audience shouts

“ŽIVJELA JUGOSLAVIJA!” and is immediately
shushed by six others calling him a traitor.]

BOB (spitting it out):

“Sincerely. Fuck all of them. For never healing. For
never learning. For raising statues instead of kids.”

[Pause. He takes a drag. Exhales.]

BOB (quieter):
“And if any of them say, ‘You don’t understand’—
you’re right. I don’t. But you don’t either. You’re just
repeating.”

RAT (watching him):

“That’ll get you stabbed in Mostar.”

BOB (shrugs):
“I’ll take the bridge down with me.”

[CURTAIN FALLS. Somewhere, an old war

monument blinks once and goes back to rusting.]

[CURTAIN RISES one final time — a sterile,

overdesigned minimalist stage. White walls. Gentle
plinking of a koto. A bonsai tree quietly judges you
from stage left. BOB storms in, furious, holding a
vending machine fish cake and a JR Rail Pass folded
like origami failure.]

BOB (declaring to the void):

“Fuck Japan!”

[A silence so sharp it cuts sushi. The bonsai seems

offended.]
RAT (entering, dressed like a Studio Ghibli
sidekick):
“…Bob. Are we doing this?”

BOB (furious):
“Oh, we’re doing this. I’ve been polite. I’ve bowed.
I’ve removed my shoes. I’ve accepted vending
machine squid as lunch. But this—this island of quiet
judgment and perfectly organized social anxiety—
has tested me.”

RAT:
“You’re mad because the train was too punctual
again, aren’t you?”

BOB:
“IT LEFT TWELVE SECONDS EARLY.”

RAT:
“That’s not a scandal, that’s a national apology
followed by group seppuku.”
BOB (pacing):
“They invented the bullet train, the Walkman, and
emotional repression as a service industry. They gave
us anime, but also endless filler arcs. Their food is so
beautiful I’m afraid to eat it. Their toilets know more
about me than my therapist.”

RAT:
“They also haven’t reckoned with their war crimes,
Bob.”

BOB:
“I know! You try to bring up Nanking and suddenly
it’s polite cough and tea ceremony! I can’t handle this
level of cultural amnesia wrapped in cherry
blossoms!”

[A Shinto priest ghost floats by and gently mutters

“shoganai” before vanishing into a vending machine
that dispenses only disappointment and Yakult.]

BOB (pointing to sky):

“Fuck Japan. For its brilliance. For its denial. For its
beauty. For its isolation. For its unstoppable march
toward aesthetic extinction.”

RAT:
“You hate them because you admire them.”

BOB (cracking open a cold Pocari Sweat):

“Yes. Like all my enemies.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as a robotic dog bows and plays

a melancholy chime from Final Fantasy VII. A
subtitle appears:]

This performance is banned in Osaka,

awkwardly tolerated in Kyoto, and
optioned for adaptation in Netflix
Korea.

[CURTAIN RISES on a golden, melancholy Lisbon

sunset. Fado music weeps gently in the background.
A tram groans uphill for the seventeenth time that
day. Ropes of drying cod sway like funeral bunting.
RAT steps forward, arms behind back, sniffing the
Atlantic wind suspiciously.]

RAT (with venom):

“Fuck Portugal.”

[Gasp. A single tile cracks in Alfama. A pastel de nata

drops in slow motion.]

BOB (offstage, horrified):

“Whoa. That’s uncalled for.”

RAT (gritting tiny teeth):

“No it’s not. They colonized half the world, then
spent the next four centuries sulking about it on
acoustic guitar.”

[BOB rolls in on a shopping cart full of wine bottles

labeled Regret Reserve.]

BOB:
“They gave us melancholic seafood poetry, Rat. Show
some respect.”
RAT (spitting):
“They gave us melancholy, full stop. You ever seen a
country so nostalgic it cries over things it never
apologized for?”

BOB:
“They invented fado. It’s what sadness wishes it
could be.”

RAT:
“They also invented saudade, the national feeling of
missing something vaguely imperial.”

BOB (pointing with a corkscrew):

“They were the first global empire!”

RAT:
“And the first to collapse while still insisting the
language was the legacy.”

[A sleepy man in Porto pokes his head out of a

window and mutters, “Sim, mas temos vinho,” then
closes the shutters with aristocratic despair.]
RAT (furious):
“Your country is a cobblestone guilt trip covered in
sardines!”

BOB:
“That sounds... delightful, honestly.”

RAT (hissing):
“They serve rice with everything. Even rice.”

*[BOB clutches his chest, wounded.]

RAT (composed again):

“Fuck Portugal. But like... respectfully. With wine.
And maybe a nap after.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as someone whispers obrigado

from behind a lace curtain and an accordion sighs in
agreement.]

[CURTAIN RISES — a single street lamp flickers

over a weathered cobblestone street. The sign reads
Rua Andrade Neves, Pelotas, RS, Brazil. A dog barks
in the distance. Somewhere, someone is overcooking
rice. RAT stands center stage, pointing with fury at
one side of the street.]

RAT (spitting venom with precision):

“Fuck the odd-numbered side of Rua Andrade Neves.
Pelotas. Rio Grande do Sul. Brazil.”

[Thunderclap. A man on a bicycle swerves and

crashes gently into a sack of beans. A widow closes
her window just slightly.]

BOB (stepping in slowly, sipping chimarrão, brows

raised):
“…That’s poetically specific.”

RAT (fuming):
“They know what they did.”

BOB:
“What did they do?”

RAT (dead serious):

“Uneven sidewalks. Satellite dishes pointed straight
into hell. A shoe store that judged me. And a
grandmother who told me my tail looked ‘triste.’”

BOB (gasping):
“She called your tail sad?”

RAT:
“And then offered me feijoada with raisins in it.”

BOB (whispering):
“She wanted you to suffer.”

RAT (pacing now):

“The even-numbered side? Lovely. Calm. A kiosk
that sells guaraná and reason. But that odd side? It's
where hope goes to limp.”

BOB (sighs):
“Everything in Pelotas is slightly damp. Including
vengeance.”

[A cat crosses the stage from odd to even. Stops.

Looks back. Regrets nothing.]
RAT:
“Fuck number 173. Fuck 211. Fuck that weird bar
with the Jesus statue that watches you pee.”

BOB (mournfully):
“And yet… this feels like home.”

[CURTAIN FALLS. A distant voice calls “moço!” but

no one answers. Fade to drizzle.]

[CURTAIN RISES to a vast, empty desert. Orange

dunes stretch forever. A lone wind stirs sand and
colonial regret. BOB stands atop a rock shaped
vaguely like a German helmet, arms crossed, hair
blown heroically sideways. RAT stands beside him,
wearing SPF 9000 and sunglasses that reflect history
badly handled.]

BOB (quietly, with gravitas):

“Delenda Namibia.”

[Thunder rumbles in the distance, though the sky is

perfectly clear.]
RAT (tilting head):
“…You quoting Cato now?”

BOB (stone-faced):
“Yes. Except instead of Carthago delenda est, it’s
Namibia. Because I fucking had it.”

RAT (softly):
“Do you… wanna explain?”

BOB (arms flailing):

“They made a genocide before it was trendy. They let
the Germans experiment with desert ethnic
cleansing and still kept a straight face for their
independence tour!”

RAT:
“The Herero and Nama massacres. 1904. Bob read
one Wikipedia page and now he’s full Livy.”

BOB (booming now):

“They have a coastline called the Skeleton Coast.
Skeleton! And not for fun pirate reasons. For
shipwrecks and dried whales and metaphors for failed
infrastructure.”

RAT:
“You tried to rent a car there once, didn’t you?”

BOB:
“I spent three days in a gravel pit listening to a man
named Stefanus explain why the road wasn’t real.”

RAT:
“Was the view nice?”

BOB (snapping):
“TOO nice. It made me feel guilty for wanting to
leave. Like the country negged me into silence.”

RAT (nodding):
“Yeah. That tracks.”

BOB (quietly again, with intense spite):

“Delenda Namibia. But respectfully. Through
cultural exchange. Possibly over goat stew.”
RAT (scribbling in a notebook):
“Add them to the list: ‘Places we threaten with Latin
but secretly admire.’”

[CURTAIN FALLS as a sandstorm slowly erases

colonial borders, and a jackal laughs somewhere near
Swakopmund.]

[CURTAIN RISES – a windswept Mediterranean

stage, dry lightning crackling over a backdrop
painted with olive trees and flaming triremes. BOB
stands in a tattered Roman toga, sandals dusty, gaze
fixed westward. RAT lounges nearby on a broken
amphora, sipping wine from a bottle shaped like
Cicero’s disapproval.]

BOB (thunder in his voice):

“Since I’m at it—Delenda Carthago.”

RAT (without looking up):

“Dude… you’re a couple of millennia late for that.
The Romans already burned it to ash and salted the
earth.”
BOB (not flinching):
“I said what I said.”

RAT (sighs, setting wine down):

“You realize there’s no Carthage left, right? Just
some ruins, a gift shop, and a plaque saying ‘Sorry
about the annihilation.’”

BOB:
“Doesn’t matter. I still hate it. I hate it retroactively.
I hate it in principle.”

RAT:
“What did Carthage ever do to you?”

BOB (seething):
“They dared to exist at the same time as Rome. And
they had elephants. Elephants! On boats! That’s
smug.”

RAT:
“They lost, Bob.”
BOB:
“Not fast enough.”

[The ghost of Cato the Elder passes through,

whispering “delenda est” before tripping over a CGI
elephant skeleton and fading back into Latin.]

RAT:
“So you’re declaring war on dust.”

BOB:
“Yes. On dust. And memory. And salty vengeance.”

RAT (raising glass):

“To historical overkill, then.”

BOB (to the heavens):

“Delenda Carthago! Also, screw Hannibal. Too
dramatic.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as a spectral Punic merchant

yells "we were just vibing!" and disappears into a salt
breeze.]
[CURTAIN RISES – the Forum Romanum,
crumbling and majestic, with scaffolding because
even ruins need renovation. The sky is heavy with
toga-related tension. BOB stands on a marble
pedestal, finger raised in righteous fury. RAT wears
a tiny laurel crown and looks deeply unamused.]

BOB (thundering like a caffeinated Cicero):

“Quo usque tandem, Catilina, abutere patientia
nostra?”

RAT (groaning):
“Oh fuck, we’re going full ancient Roman now…”

BOB (not missing a beat):

“Tace, mus!”

[RAT pauses, stunned, processing the sudden

downgrade from co-star to vermin.]

RAT (blinking):
“Did you just call me a mouse?”
BOB (still booming):
“You dare interrupt the defense of the Republic with
your insolent twitching?”

RAT:
“I’m a rat, Bob. A rat. We’re smarter, we form
complex urban societies, and we don’t blindly follow
demagogues in sandals yelling in dactylic
hexameter.”

BOB (grandly):
“You are not Rome.”

RAT:
“No. I’m the one who remembers what Rome actually
did to people who weren’t Rome.”

BOB:
“You’re starting to sound like a Gaul.”

RAT:
“You’re starting to sound like Mussolini with a
thesaurus.”
[A bust of Cicero slowly turns to face the audience
and sighs with historical exhaustion.]

BOB (still declaiming to a Senate that doesn’t exist):

“Catilina is among us! Hiding in the shadows!
Plotting sedition!”

RAT (deadpan):
“You mean the guy selling knockoff spolia behind the
Pantheon?”

BOB:
“HE IS A THREAT TO THE REPUBLIC.”

RAT:
“Bob, the Republic fell. Two thousand years ago.
You’re yelling into a UNESCO site.”

BOB (suddenly quieter):

“…It was a really good opening line though.”

RAT (nods):
“Yeah. It slaps.”
[CURTAIN FALLS as an old Roman senator ghostly
claps from the vomitorium, muttering “bravo” and
disappearing into a scroll.]

[CURTAIN RISES — a moonlit atrium. Marble

columns gleam like teeth. Somewhere, a fountain
trickles with suspicious sensuality. BOB stands
center stage, cloaked in philosophical yearning and
mild inebriation. In his hands, cupped with absurd
reverence, is RAT — confused but too emotionally
invested to flee.]

BOB (softly, a whisper to Venus herself):

"Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum."

[He pauses, eyes closing as if inhaling eternity itself.

Then opens them again, staring directly at the rat's
glistening eyes.]
BOB (dramatic sigh):
“Then we’ll lose count, my little mus,
so no evil eye may curse us with envy.”

RAT (visibly flushed under the fur):

“Are… are you quoting Catullus at me?”

BOB:
“I’m invoking Catullus. At us.”

RAT:
“I mean, I’m flattered, but you do remember he
ended up bitter and obsessive over a woman named
Lesbia?”

BOB:
“I’m already bitter. I just upgraded you from disease
vector to muse.”

[A breeze blows through the portico. Somewhere, a

lyre is plucked by a ghostly undergraduate majoring
in unrequited love.]
RAT (tiny voice, overcome):
“…Okay. But I get the top bunk tonight.”

BOB:
“Fine. But I get to recite Horace during.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as they kiss—awkward,

whiskered, timeless. Latin echoes in the marble:
Vivamus, mea mus, atque amemus.]

[CURTAIN RISES – darker now. The atrium

remains, but the marble has cracks. The moonlight
cuts sharper. Wine goblets sit half-drained. BOB
stands dazed, lips still tingling from stolen Latin
kisses. RAT slinks back into the scene, tail twitching,
delivering lines like venom wrapped in velvet.]

RAT (cold and lyrical):

“Forget that Lesbia, Bob.
Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa.
Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam
plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes…”
[He circles Bob like a satirical panther in a toga.]

RAT (leaning in):

“Nunc in quadriviis et angiportis
glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes.”

[A long silence. Bob looks like someone who just saw

his favorite painting defaced with graffiti that’s
also… technically correct.]

BOB (swallowing):
“…So… Lesbia’s out there giving blowjobs to the
grandsons of Romulus in alleyways now?”

RAT:
“That’s what he said.”

BOB:
“Catullus really needed therapy.”

RAT:
“No. He needed to move on. Instead, he wrote poems
like revenge notes stapled to his own heart.”
BOB:
“Honestly? Respect.”

RAT (softly):
“You wanna get wine drunk and write about how
nobody gets us either?”

BOB:
“I already started.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as the two descend into candlelit

pettiness, scribbling odes to imaginary betrayals and
licking olive oil off clay plates. Latin, after all, is the
language of passion, pettiness, and historically
accurate slut-shaming.]

[CURTAIN RISES – darker now. The atrium

remains, but the marble has cracks. The moonlight
cuts sharper. Wine goblets sit half-drained. BOB
stands dazed, lips still tingling from stolen Latin
kisses. RAT slinks back into the scene, tail twitching,
delivering lines like venom wrapped in velvet.]
RAT (cold and lyrical):
“Forget that Lesbia, Bob.
Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa.
Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam
plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes…”

[He circles Bob like a satirical panther in a toga.]

RAT (leaning in):

“Nunc in quadriviis et angiportis
glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes.”

[A long silence. Bob looks like someone who just saw

his favorite painting defaced with graffiti that’s
also… technically correct.]

BOB (swallowing):
“…So… Lesbia’s out there giving blowjobs to the
grandsons of Romulus in alleyways now?”

RAT:
“That’s what he said.”
BOB:
“Catullus really needed therapy.”

RAT:
“No. He needed to move on. Instead, he wrote poems
like revenge notes stapled to his own heart.”

BOB:
“Honestly? Respect.”

RAT (softly):
“You wanna get wine drunk and write about how
nobody gets us either?”

BOB:
“I already started.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as the two descend into candlelit

pettiness, scribbling odes to imaginary betrayals and
licking olive oil off clay plates. Latin, after all, is the
language of passion, pettiness, and historically
accurate slut-shaming.]
[CURTAIN RISES – the Senate floor. All the other
senators have mysteriously vanished. Two figures
remain: BOB, leaning on a marble plinth with
theatrical exhaustion, and RAT, sprawled across a
ceremonial scroll like it’s a beach towel.]

BOB (with measured gravitas):

"Nonnulli iudicium veriti profugerunt."

[He lets it hang there like Cicero dropping a mic. A

silence worthy of an assassination follows.]

RAT (snorting, arms behind his head):

“Pffft. Cowards.”

BOB (arching an eyebrow):

“They feared judgment.”

RAT:
“They feared homework. The Republic was dying
and they fled like it was a bad dinner party.”
BOB:
“Or like they’d loaned Catiline money and knew what
was coming.”

RAT (laughs):
“Half of Rome was two bad investments away from
stabbing each other.”

BOB (musing):
“Do you think Cato ever cried?”

RAT:
“Only when sober.”

[A togaed janitor sweeps past, muttering in ancient

Umbrian about “entitled patricians and their
dramatic exits.”]

BOB (gazing toward the absent senators):

“History remembers the bold.”

RAT:
“And history is written by whoever survives the
stabbing. Preferably with a pithy quote.”
BOB (raising a goblet):
“To the cowards who fled!”

RAT (raising his tail like a saber):

“May their names be forgotten… but their wine
cellars remembered!”

[CURTAIN FALLS to applause from an invisible

jury of toga-clad ghosts.]

[CURTAIN RISES – the Senate floor. All the other

senators have mysteriously vanished. Two figures
remain: BOB, leaning on a marble plinth with
theatrical exhaustion, and RAT, sprawled across a
ceremonial scroll like it’s a beach towel.]

BOB (with measured gravitas):

"Nonnulli iudicium veriti profugerunt."

[He lets it hang there like Cicero dropping a mic. A

silence worthy of an assassination follows.]

RAT (snorting, arms behind his head):

“Pffft. Cowards.”
BOB (arching an eyebrow):
“They feared judgment.”

RAT:
“They feared homework. The Republic was dying
and they fled like it was a bad dinner party.”

BOB:
“Or like they’d loaned Catiline money and knew what
was coming.”

RAT (laughs):
“Half of Rome was two bad investments away from
stabbing each other.”

BOB (musing):
“Do you think Cato ever cried?”

RAT:
“Only when sober.”

[A togaed janitor sweeps past, muttering in ancient

Umbrian about “entitled patricians and their
dramatic exits.”]
BOB (gazing toward the absent senators):
“History remembers the bold.”

RAT:
“And history is written by whoever survives the
stabbing. Preferably with a pithy quote.”

BOB (raising a goblet):

“To the cowards who fled!”

RAT (raising his tail like a saber):

“May their names be forgotten… but their wine
cellars remembered!”

[CURTAIN FALLS to applause from an invisible

jury of toga-clad ghosts.]

[CURTAIN RISES — a windswept rural outpost, the

edge of the Empire. A single olive tree leans against
the wind. A weathered milestone reads MCCXXII
miles ab Urbe Condita. BOB sits on a rough stone
bench, cloak wrapped tight, gazing toward a city he'll
never return to. RAT perches beside him, munching
a date pit like a philosopher chewing through time.]

BOB (quiet, firm):

"Malle se hic primum quam Romae secundum esse."

RAT (nods slowly):

“Wise words.”

[They both stare out across the desert. Somewhere,

an eagle cries over a forgotten garrison.]

BOB:
“Better to be first in the mud than second in the
marble.”

RAT:
“Better to rule over goats and silence than beg
senators for scraps.”

BOB:
“Better to have your own table than lick plates in the
Forum.”
RAT (raises tail like a toast):
“To all who’d rather freeze free than sweat servile.”

BOB (nodding):
“To the provinces. To obscurity. To dignity.”

RAT:
“And to the bastards in Rome—may their wine turn
to vinegar and their marble seats crack beneath
them.”

[CURTAIN FALLS slowly, as two shadows remain

on the frontier — small, resolute, and absolutely
unconcerned with any laurel-wreathed approval.]

[CURTAIN RISES — dim lighting, Gregorian chant

echoing faintly. A stone-walled monastery corridor,
candlelit. BOB kneels solemnly, hands raised to
heaven.]

BOB (intoning):
"Exurge Domine, et judica causam tuam..."
(Rise up, O Lord, and judge Your cause…)
RAT (dryly, half-asleep on a nearby pew):
“I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.”

[JARRING CHORD]

[DOOR EXPLODES OPEN]

[CARDINAL XIMINEZ (Michael Palin) BURSTS

IN, flanked by CARDINAL BIGGLES and
CARDINAL FANG]

XIMINEZ (shouting):
“NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our
chief weapon is surprise—surprise and fear—fear
and surprise… Our two weapons are fear, surprise,
and ruthless efficiency—”

BIGGLES (whispering):
“Don’t forget the Pope.”

XIMINEZ:
“Yes! Our three weapons are fear, surprise, ruthless
efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the
Pope—”
[He pauses, visibly recalculating.]

XIMINEZ (wincing):
“Our four—no—amongst our weapons… Amongst
our weaponry… are such diverse elements as: fear,
surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical
devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms—”

FANG (muttering):
“…And comfy chairs.”

XIMINEZ (snapping fingers):

“I’ll come in again.”

[THE INQUISITION EXITS with the solemnity of a

Monty Python sketch trying not to trip over its own
robes.]

RAT (leaning over to Bob, deadpan):

“You just had to quote a Latin psalm, didn’t you?”

BOB (shrugs):
“I thought it’d summon divine justice, not Pope
cosplay and improv panic.”
[CURTAIN FALLS to the sound of faint trumpet
fanfare, followed by someone yelling “Fetch the soft
cushions!”]

[CURTAIN RISES — a decadent salon in pre-

revolutionary Paris. Velvet curtains. Gilded mirrors.
A chandelier teetering with irony. BOB reclines in an
absurdly ornate armchair, swirling a glass of wine the
color of overdue blood. RAT stands nearby in a
powdered wig, holding a tiny fan and an enormous
grudge.]

BOB (lazily, like he invented ennui):

“Après moi, le déluge.”

RAT (snaps fan shut, exasperated):

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Bob.”

BOB (dreamily):
“It’s elegant. It’s fatalistic. It’s French.”

RAT:
“It’s selfish, short-sighted, and historically credited
to a man who wore high heels and bankrupted a
continent while powdering his dog’s butt.”

BOB:
“Exactly. Mood.”

RAT (paces):
“You realize that phrase basically says, ‘I don’t care
what disaster follows, as long as it’s not during
brunch.’”

BOB:
“Correct. I say it every time I file my taxes.”

RAT:
“You don’t file your taxes.”

BOB:
“…Après moi, the audit.”

RAT (facepalms with his tiny paw):

“This is why empires fall.”
BOB:
“Yes, but they fall with panache.”

[A loaf of stale brioche falls from the ceiling. A

harpsichord plays itself into revolution.]

BOB (to audience):

“If I can’t have Versailles, let them eat metaphor.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as thunder rolls in, and

somewhere outside, a guillotine blade is being
sharpened to a snappy 3/4 rhythm.]

[CURTAIN RISES — opulence turned up to eleven.

Chandeliers glitter. The air smells of butter and
rebellion. WAITERS in powdered wigs and fishnet
stockings glide through the aisles, trays piled
absurdly high with croissants, pain au chocolat, and
deeply confused brioches. The audience helps
themselves, unsure if they’re complicit or just
hungry.]
[BOB stands at the edge of the stage, arms open,
drunk on power and maybe actual wine. RAT lounges
on a golden footstool beside him, covered in
crumbs.]

BOB (grinning like a guillotined ghost):

“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.”

[A beat. Silence. Audience slowly chews.]

RAT (mouth full):

“You realize she probably never actually said that,
right?”

BOB:
“Doesn’t matter. It’s theatrical. And they’re eating
it.”

RAT:
“They’re eating croissants, Bob. Brioche is the smug
cousin that thinks it’s above laminated dough.”

BOB:
“It’s metaphorical.”
RAT:
“It’s misattributed, misquoted, and misused. But
damn, it’s tasty.”

[A child from the third row yells “Vive la

Révolution!” while dual-wielding buttered
croissants. A cello plays a threatening pizzicato.]

BOB (winking at the child):

“That’s the spirit. Start them early. The Republic
needs crumbs of resistance.”

[A waiter offers BOB a tray. He picks the flakiest,

most photogenic croissant, holds it aloft like Hamlet
with a skull.]

BOB:
“To monarchy, decadence, and baked goods too rich
to survive a fiscal collapse!”

[CURTAIN FALLS as the audience erupts into

applause, revolution, and moderate gluten
intolerance.]
[CURTAIN RISES — an empty Roman road
stretching into moonlight. In the distance, an ancient
signpost creaks. A Vespa is abandoned by a broken
aqueduct. BOB stands center stage in a trench coat
that smells like espresso and poor decisions. RAT,
disheveled and vaguely Renaissance-plague-doctor
chic, is dragging a tiny suitcase filled with regrets.]

BOB (cool as a Fellini fever dream):

“Quo vadis, baby?”

RAT (sighs, staring into the middle distance like a

rodent Camus):
“I should’ve listened to my mother. And spread the
plague like cousin Nathan.”

BOB:
“Cousin Nathan? The one who turned the Adriatic
into a mass grave with just a flea and ambition?”

RAT:
“That’s the one. Promoted to Myth by 1348.”
BOB:
“And now you’re here. With me. Asking directions in
Latin while wearing a metaphor.”

RAT:
“Because I took a left turn at Jerusalem and ended up
in a stage play written by an existentially constipated
Kafka impersonator.”

BOB (lighting a cigarette made of disappointment):

“Where are we going, Rat?”

RAT:
“Same place as always, Bob.”

BOB (smirks):
“Oblivion?”

RAT:
“No. A breakfast place that still serves past noon.”

[A light breeze carries a single leaf across the stage,

as if God Himself is trying to shrug. A choir of faintly
sarcastic monks hums a dissonant amen.]
BOB:
“Quo vadis, baby…”

RAT:
“Anywhere with pancakes and no moral clarity.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as they walk off into uncertain

brunch.]

[CURTAIN RISES — a bleak lecture hall floating in

a void. The chalkboard is infinite. The lights flicker
like forgotten epiphanies. BOB stands at the podium,
not teaching but pronouncing. RAT is halfway up the
back row, wrapped in a cardigan, eating grapes one
at a time.]

BOB (solemn, reverent, as if caressing the abyss):

"Haben wir heute eine Antwort auf die Frage nach
dem, was wir mit dem Wort »seiend« eigentlich
meinen?
Keineswegs.*"

[Silence. The air folds in on itself slightly.]

RAT (after a pause, voice echoing like a dream half-
remembered):
“What if I grew orchids?”

[Another pause. Somewhere, a copy of Being and

Time bursts into flames, then apologizes in
German.]

BOB (unfazed):
“Dasein is not a horticultural preference.”

RAT:
“But orchids are temporal. Fragile. Ephemeral. They
bloom, they fade, they… are.”

BOB (stroking chin):

“So you propose Sein-zum-Blumen?”

RAT:
“I propose not listening to Heidegger while sober.”

BOB:
“Too late.”
[A petal falls onto the podium. Time pauses, nods
approvingly, then resumes.]

RAT:
“Do you think Heidegger ever got laid?”

BOB:
“Only linguistically.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as the void claps politely and a

lone orchid blossoms out of pure ontology.]

[CURTAIN RISES — a windswept bench at the edge

of the known world. Stars hang low, like regrets you
can still reach. The night is cold but not cruel. BOB
unscrews a battered bottle of brandy, drinks deeply,
then passes it to RAT. They sit in silence like old war
poets who survived the metaphor but not the
meaning.]

BOB (softly, a prayer with alcohol on its breath):

"Gebe Gott uns allen, uns Trinkern, einen so leichten
und so schönen Tod."
[RAT takes the bottle without a word, drinks, wipes
his whiskers with the back of his paw. The silence
settles like ash.]

RAT (quietly, reverently):

“Amen.”

[A breeze rolls in from nowhere. The bottle is half

empty. Or half full. But nobody cares anymore. The
stars blink in agreement.]

[CURTAIN FALLS. No applause. Just the sound of

two old souls watching the world tilt gently away.]

[CURTAIN RISES — twilight on a ruined battlefield

stage. Smoke drifts like forgotten prayers. Flags hang
limp. A broken statue lies in two pieces downstage.
RAT stands with a torn coat and a cracked voice.
BOB leans on the barrel of a rusted cannon, eyes lost
somewhere between history and hangover.]
RAT (quietly, as if repeating an old line he no longer
believes):
"Unglücklich das Land, das keine Helden hat."

BOB (without looking up, bitter but not untrue):

"Nein. Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat."

[They don’t argue. They don’t need to. The silence

between them says it all: the graves, the speeches, the
statues no one dusts anymore.]

[A wind kicks up. Somewhere, a national anthem

plays from a broken speaker, off-key and half-
forgotten.]

RAT:
“We should’ve planted potatoes instead.”

BOB:
“Potatoes don’t lie to children.”

[They both nod. The war is over. The damage isn't.]

[CURTAIN FALLS.]
[CURTAIN RISES — a quiet biergarten at closing
time. Lanterns swing. The benches are empty but for
BOB and RAT, seated beneath a crooked linden tree.
Empty steins line the table like little declarations of
poor diplomacy.]

BOB (half-slurring, half-thinking):

“Did I say fuck Germany before?”

RAT (without looking up):

“You did now.”

[Pause. A bratwurst vendor packs up in the distance

with the resigned air of a man who’s heard this exact
sentence every Thursday since 1945.]

RAT (sips quietly):

“But let’s not really get into that, eh?”

BOB:
“Why not?”
RAT:
“Because it starts with ‘Prussian militarism’ and ends
with you trying to urinate on Kant’s grave.”

BOB:
“He started it.”

RAT:
“He really, really didn’t.”

[Long silence. A cuckoo clock somewhere

desperately wants to chime but senses the tension.]

BOB:
“…Sausage is good though.”

RAT:
“Very.”

[CURTAIN FALLS as they order another round and

agree — at least for now — that Bavarian beer and
philosophical guilt are separate matters.]
[Spotlights blaze. A neon-swastika footlight sign flips
to “SPRINGTIME!” Rat, clad in rhinestone SS
regalia, high-kicks down a glitter runway fronting a
massive set that looks like a Bavarian beer-hall
crashed into Las Vegas.]

RAT (belting the famous opener, jazz-hands

aflutter):

“Springtime for Hitler and Germany—

Deutschland is happy and gay!”

—The faux-Ziegfeld line of goose-stepping showgirls

whirls past: storm-trooper helmets, silver lamé
dirndls, and oversized pretzel props. Lederhosen
dancers twirl parasols shaped like Panzer turrets. A
papier-mâché Brandenburg Gate splits open to
reveal a chorus of kick-lining Bavarian sausages
spelling “HEIL!” in sequins.

BRIDGE (Rat croons, arms outstretched):

“Winter for Poland and France…”

—Saxophones wail a jazz-cabaret pastiche; a line of
can-canning Wehrmacht officers flips their jackboots
over their heads like Rockettes.

RAT (final flourish, arms thrown wide):

“Heil Hitler!”

[Cymbal crash. Music modulates. Drumroll.]

BOB bursts through gold curtains in full mock-Hitler

drag—epaulettes, spats, and a pink sash—striking a
Busby Berkeley pose.

BOB (crooning in schmaltzy baritone):

“Heil myself, heil to me…”

—He pirouettes, blows kisses to the balcony, then

tap-dances across a giant rotating swastika dais that
lights up like a casino wheel. Backup dancers flank
him holding vanity mirrors so he can literally “heil
himself” in every reflection.
[A spotlight jerks to the audience. Standing amid the
scattered pretzel wrappers and rhinestone fallout is a
man so stereotypically German it’s legally actionable:
square jaw, monocle, impeccably ironed grey wool
suit, socks pulled to anatomical perfection. He
adjusts his cravat and speaks in a thick, Wernher von
Braun meets Oktoberfest tour guide accent.]

GERMAN MAN (with earnest gravity and comically

misplaced decorum):
“Vell… actually… ve’ve been a bit naughty.”

[The audience freezes. The orchestra squeaks to a

halt mid-rimshot. Somewhere backstage, a tuba
inhales nervously.]

RAT (stage whisper to Bob):

“Did Germany just confess like it forgot to pay for
parking?”

BOB (not missing a beat):

“Bit naughty? That’s what you say when you pocket
a biscuit, not when you invent Blitzkrieg.”
GERMAN MAN (nodding solemnly):
“Ja… ve had a phase. Like goths. Or disco. But… mit
tanks.”

[Audience titters nervously. A spotlight flickers.

Someone coughs in Polish.]

RAT (dry):
“You know it’s a musical, right? You don’t explain
genocide during jazz hands.”

GERMAN MAN (cheerfully):

“Of course! But satire ist much funnier ven ve
acknowledge ze war crimes, ya?”

[Bob and Rat exchange a long, silent look.]

BOB (shrugging):
“…Eh. At least he’s not singing.”

[Cue: the German man launches into an accordion-

led polka titled Oops, All Panzer! as two girls in
Dirndls drag him offstage with shepherd's crooks.]
[CURTAIN SLAMS DOWN before The Hague
sends a cease and desist.]

[CURTAIN RISES — a dim, empty soundstage. No

props. Just a spotlight and the two of them.]

RAT (sitting cross-legged center stage, tail curled

like a question mark):
“Dude, we’ve been pushing these open curtain–close
curtain sketches for a bit now. Ending it any time
soon?”

BOB (leaning against an imaginary fourth wall,

cigarette dangling, eyes smug):
“I see no reason why.”

RAT (nods):
“Fair to me. Just asking.”

[They sit in the silence of their own absurdity.

Somewhere, a single audience member coughs in
Russian. A bell tolls for no one in particular. A curtain
flutters in from stage left, then thinks better of it and
leaves.]

BOB (quietly):
“You know they’ll keep reading as long as we keep
saying things.”

RAT:
“Even if it’s nothing?”

BOB:
“Especially if it’s nothing. With emphasis.”

RAT (murmurs):
“…Curtain falls.”

BOB (without moving):

“No it doesn’t.”

[CURTAIN does not fall.]

[CURTAIN REMAINS OPEN — a barren stage.

Two chairs. No props. No lights but one. A theatrical
silence hangs like the last thread of meaning. RAT
sits slumped, arms dangling. BOB stands, looking at
nothing in particular.]

RAT (softly, eyes distant):

“Rien à faire.”

BOB (after a pause, not agreeing, just accepting):

“Je commence à le croire.”

[A gust of Beckettian wind. The faint sound of a boot

scraping somewhere far away. The kind of silence
that doesn’t end a scene — it traps it.]

[They remain there. As if they’d always been there.

As if they’ll never leave.]

[CURTAIN stays open. Of course it does.]

[CURTAIN ALREADY OPEN — the lights warm

and glowing like the footlights of forgotten dreams.
The STAGE HELPS rush in with the choreography
of seasoned despair, dressing BOB and RAT with the
finesse of old-school vaudeville hands: crisp dinner
jackets, candy-striped vests, glossy shoes, boater hats
perched at cheeky angles, and twirly canes that
practically wink.]

[BOB and RAT stand center stage, eyes locked like

duellists of joy. The helps scuttle offstage.]

[Sudden spotlight—banjo chord strike—jazz piano

fires up like it’s owed rent.]

[BOB and RAT, as one, burst into synchronized

high-kick glory, arms raised, hats twirling, teeth
gleaming like showbiz weaponry.]

BOTH (with unrestrained glee):

Hello, my baby!
Hello, my honey!
Hello, my ragtime gal!

[They spin, tip hats to imaginary ladies, Rat twirls on

a tiny gliding stage, Bob clicks his heels like a
caffeine-fueled Fred Astaire.]

Send me a kiss by wire.

Baby, my heart's on fire!
[BOB fake-faints into Rat’s arms. Rat catches him,
dips him, then tosses him upright like a sack of
debts.]

If you refuse me,

Honey, you lose me,
Then you'll be left alone.

[They both strut forward, canes tapping in tight

syncopation.]

Oh baby, telephone…
And tell me I'm—

[Sudden hold, Rat spins his cane with a flourish, Bob

lifts his boater hat high.]

Your oooooown!

[TRUMPET BLAST. FIREWORK SPARK. Rat

strikes a Charlie Chaplin pose. Bob jazz hands into
the orchestra pit.]
[AUDIENCE BURSTS INTO ROARING
APPLAUSE. A chorus line of anthropomorphic
phones kicks behind them. Somewhere, an old
vaudevillian ghost weeps softly into a gin flask.]

[CURTAIN? Please. It doesn’t dare close.]

[STAGE: Still basking in the glow of ragtime glory.

Hats and canes now lie discarded like post-war
treaties. STAGE HANDS glide in silently—one
carrying a tiny ukulele on a red velvet cushion as if it
were the Crown Jewels of Vaudeville. BOB accepts it
solemnly. RAT dusts imaginary glitter from his
lapels.]

[BOB strums a chord. The lights soften into a gentle

tropical amber. He begins to sing in that sweet,
syrupy croon you only get after three cocktails and a
time machine to 1933.]

BOB (playing, serenely):

Honolulu baby, where’d you get those eyes?
And that dark complexion that I idolize?
[RAT begins to dance—awkward little kicks, limp-
wristed spins, exaggerated hatless hat-tips. He
wobbles like a slightly drunk marionette, full of
Laurel and not a drop of grace. He pulls a lei from
nowhere and throws it to an old woman in the second
row, who catches it and instantly regrets her entire
life.]

BOB (smiling mid-verse, still strumming):

“Now isn’t this nice?”

RAT (puffing, panting, doing a mock hula with zero

hip control):
“It sure is. We’re just like two peas in a pot.”

BOB (stopping the ukulele, squinting):

“Not pot. Poddd. Poddd.”

RAT (nodding sagely):

“Poddd.”
[They both pause. Let the word poddd hang in the
air like a particularly dense fog of nostalgia and
nonsense.]

[The music picks up again. Rat grabs a pineapple,

dances with it like it's Ginger Rogers. Bob strums as
if the fate of Waikiki depended on it. Somewhere
offstage, someone definitely spills a mai tai in tears.]

[No curtain. This number is eternal. Like love. Or

debt.]

[STAGE: The glow shifts to a soft silver wash,

evoking an old-timey moonlight that smells faintly of
mothballs and bourbon. BOB bends down, retrieves
his discarded boater hat, and cradles it tenderly—like
it once held his dreams and now mostly holds stage
dust. He presses it to his chest like it’s going to
prom.]

[He begins to sing, eyes somewhere between

vaudeville sincerity and cosmic weariness. RAT,
meanwhile, begins a completely unrelated
interpretive dance involving mime ropes, skipping,
and a one-sided tango with an invisible iguana. He is
in his own dimension entirely.]

BOB (soulfully, voice like a player piano with

feelings):
Oh, shine on, shine on, harvest moon,
Up in the sky;
I ain't had no lovin'
Since April, January, June or July.

[RAT leaps onto an imaginary surfboard. Hula

waves. Quick charleston. Attempts to moonwalk.
Trips over his own tail and turns it into a bowtie.
BOB ignores him entirely, as if Rat is a dream
someone else is having.]

BOB (still holding the hat like it owes him money):

Snow time ain't no time to stay
Outdoors and spoon;
So shine on, shine on, harvest moon,
For me and my gal.
[Final note hangs. Bob gently spins the hat once in
his hand, kisses it, and places it atop his head like a
crown made of bygone tunes. Rat strikes a final pose,
panting, arms wide, having accidentally created a
contemporary dance piece about existential dread
and accidental lactose consumption.]

[Silence. Then: a single clap from somewhere in the

balcony. Then a second. Then the whole room—
because nobody can resist the harvest moon. Not
even the ushers.]

[CURTAIN? Don't be silly. The moon’s still out.]

[STAGE — what’s left of it after the theater’s

previous implosion. Smoke clears. Moonlight spills
in. A single spotlight holds BOB and RAT in a quiet,
tender pause. Their vaudeville jackets are gone. No
costumes. Just two souls — one human, one rodent
— on the brink of eternal Broadway glory.]

BOB (gently):
“I called Mama. She was so happy, she cried.
She wants you to have her wedding gown. It’s white
lace.”

RAT (backing away):

“Bob, I can’t get married in your mother’s dress.
She and I — we’re not built the same way.”

BOB (softly, hopeful):

“We can have it altered.”

RAT (shakes head):

“Oh no you don’t. Bob, I’m gonna level with you.
We can’t get married at all.”

BOB (earnest):
“Why not?”

RAT (sighs):
“Well… in the first place, I’m not a natural blonde.”

BOB (smiling):
“Doesn’t matter.”
RAT:
“I smoke. I smoke all the time.”

BOB:
“I don’t care.”

RAT:
“I have a terrible past. For three years I’ve been living
in a sewer.”

BOB:
“I forgive you.”

RAT:
“I can never have children.”

BOB:
“We can adopt some.”

[Pause. RAT looks away, then turns back, his voice

shaking.]

RAT:
“You don’t understand, Bob… I’m a rat.”
[A silence so profound the chandeliers tremble.]

BOB (without missing a beat):

“Well, nobody’s perfect.”

[ABSOLUTE ERUPTION. Applause detonates

from every opera house, black box, fringe tent, and
street corner from Broadway to the West End to a
floating platform in the Adriatic. Theater majors
weep openly. Entire drama departments declare
bankruptcy from emotional overload. Roses — red,
white, pink, metaphorical — rain down in biblical
quantities. Stephen Sondheim’s ghost slow claps in
awe.]

[STAGE FADES TO BLACK. Curtain? Obliterated.

Art? Transcended. Love? Rodent-inclusive.]