by Audrey Russell
Only those lucky enough to have seen it could describe the way Manor House looked in the midsummer days of 2020. It had been months since the linoleum hallways had known the touch of a Birkenstock; months since the plasticky beds had held the full weight of a sleeping twenty-something. Once overflowing with crushed beer cans and crumpled-up napkins, the garbage cans hung empty like hungry mouths. Save for the architecture of the building and all the remaining furniture, there was no tangible evidence that Manor House had ever housed a single college student. The novel coronavirus of 2020 may have sent students home, but it set the rats free.
Sure, they’d always technically been there: Manor residents could hear the pitter-pat of little rat feet in the ceiling during the wee hours of the night, and particularly observant party guests could sometimes see them skittering down the hallway. But never, even in their craziest rat dreams, could they ever imagine being given free reign of the building in the way that they now had. Now, they couldn’t imagine ever retreating into obscurity. Not after they’d had a taste of freedom. Rats hung by their tails from light fixtures and looked out wistfully over the terraces early in the morning. They danced on the tables at night, laughing all the while with wild abandon. Each rat had its own big bed to sleep in, and the Rat King had an entire attic to himself. Life is good, said the Manor rats. This is how it was always meant to be. For once in their short rat lives, they weren’t restrained by the Bardians that had always taken up so much space. By August, the rats had nearly forgotten that the humans were there. That was when the first PC moved in for L&T.
Thus began a new chapter in the lives of the Manor House rats. Though these rats were tempted to shout with glee from between the bricks and dive into the toilet as if it were a high-end plunge pool, they knew that the students would respond to such brazenness by calling exterminators and shrieking. “We are the virus,” the rats declared during a somber gathering under the floorboards one morning. “Nature is healing.” They could hear the familiar rumble of suitcase wheels above their teensy rat heads. It felt no different than previous starts to the school year. Dismayed that they’d been so brusquely forced backed into their old ways, the rats observed a little closer. They heard students’ wry jokes about being sent home next month, as well as some darker and more serious conversations between PCs and administrators indicating that it actually might be the case. Two weeks later, a slow grin spread over the Rat King’s face. He could sense the energy of the abject terror that filled Manor’s halls, and he liked what it meant.
The rats were right. They were, in fact, the virus. In that moment, the rats knew that regardless of how long the students were there, they would ultimately out-live the students. It didn’t matter whether students were sent home in October or after the following commencement. The whole house could catch COVID-19, or it could weather the semester unscathed; the students would have to move home eventually. They just had to. In the end, the rats would win.
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