Rat Exterminating (prose)
Text/Zhou Deqing
Not only are there some good things in life that can leave traces in our memories, but sometimes things that people are extremely disgusted and just want to avoid can occupy our minds and become lingering nightmares. Just as I was thinking this, there seemed to be a startling scream in my ear: "Rats ——! ”
Yeah, that always brings noise, destruction, panic and disgust to the rats! Except in cartoons, no one will really like them. However, the children in the city were already very unfamiliar with rats, and even I had not seen them for many years. I think it's necessary to tell children the story of rats and let them understand that the rats in life are never as cute as they are in cartoons.
Rats are ugly. Soybean small eyes, sharp teeth and claws, thin and long mouth, the most suitable to describe the roe deer head rat order. The rats are still bad. First, it is particularly noisy: rummaging through boxes and cabinets to find food, chasing and frolicking, marrying relatives and women to live a busy life, no day and night, nothing delayed. The second is particularly destructive: hard and thick wooden doors, soft and smooth quilts, as long as it wants, you wait, always can give you a bite out of a large or small hole; and the grain in the granary, not only for you to chew to crush, but also leave a bad smell of and urine, making you nauseous. The third is particularly frightening: the hall, the kitchen, the aisle, if you are not careful, you will sprang up a plush rat, sometimes crawling quickly from the bare feet of the summer, scaring your heart tight, full of goosebumps. According to elderly people, there used to be rats that took advantage of the night to gouge out the eyes of children, which sounded even more creepy!
When I was a child, I watched my father catch mice. The rat is trapped in a rat cage, and it is anxious to spin around, and while it is disgusting, it can also arouse a trace of sympathy from the child, thinking that the rat is actually strange and pitiful. However, when I started my own family, I immediately felt that the various evils of rats had intensified, and it also aroused my unwavering determination to destroy this pilgrimage.
I remember when I was still in the countryside. While reviewing the graduate school, he taught books and planted additional land. The grain was harvested in the field, and the rats began to run rampant. The upstairs of my bedroom was the granary, so I read a book and saw that I had fallen asleep late, and I was often woken up by the movement of rats in the middle of the night, which was really painful. In order to quiet the rats, I thought about many methods, even learning to call cats, but none of them worked. Let's say that learning cat barking, at the beginning it was indeed "mighty rat guts", and rats did not dare to squeak for half a day. But after a long time, the mouse knows that it is my fake cat who is "teasing you to play", so not only does it refuse to restrain it, but it is even more unscrupulous - chewing and chewing wildly, eating and eating can only be regarded as the true color of the mouse at best, and after eating and drinking enough or jumping on the beam, making noise or swimming freely, and swimming in the belly is the rest of the show, but it is bitter to me, and I can't sleep well all night. After thinking about the pain, I decided to kill the rats!
Father's rattrap cage, of course, was not used. First, man could not rely on his father all his life; second, I was so poor that I could not even afford to buy a rat cage. Therefore, to kill the rats, you can only rely on your own way. Speaking of which, I don't have any good way, but with the courage of a flesh and blood, I want to fight with the rats indomitably! At first, I always looked at the "rats" in vain, but then I finally found a good way to kill the rats.
Rats are actually very "smart", and I always failed to kill rats at the beginning, because rats can always expect me to be ahead of the opportunity. My granary was on the second floor, and from my bedroom, I turned a few huts, put up a ladder leading to the granary, climbed up to the second floor, passed a few huts, and then walked to the door of the room that served as a granary. The cunning rat was already clinging to the door when I was about to break in, and when I pushed open the granary door, the rat ran away along the crack of the door. What was even more infuriating was that when I returned to the bedroom on the front foot, the rat actually returned to the granary, and was busy and arrogant. It is really "tolerable, but intolerable"!
The devil is one foot tall, and the road is one foot high. No matter how cunning the rat is, it can only be clever in the face of human wisdom. Later, I used the "cleverness" of the rats to make them continue to be deceived, and finally let the rats end up dying badly.
After familiarizing myself with the rat tricks, I began to prepare for it. First of all, we must have a sharp tool to kill rats in our hands. I chose a bamboo stick as thick as a child's arm, shaped slightly like the dog stick of the beggar gang in the film and television drama. Second, all the passages in the granary for rats to escape must be blocked in advance, so that the rats will not escape from other places at that time. With all these preparations in place, all that's left is to wrestle with the rats.
Whenever I heard rats moving upstairs at night, I set off from my bedroom as usual, and after some tossing and turning as usual, came to the door where the granary was located. At this time, if you still break through the door as before, it is bound to be a bamboo basket to draw water. But I began to deceive the rats, and I pretended to listen to the rats, and knew that the rats behind the door must also be listening to me, ready to escape at any time. After waiting patiently, the mouse still held its breath and did not move, and then, pretending to lose patience, I slowly paced back from the same road, and when I was halfway there, I turned back, holding my breath and leaning against the door, waiting for the mouse to move next. The clever rats, thinking I had returned to the bedroom, went away with a loud clamor and cheers, and then went back to the grain pile in the middle of the house to reopen their feast. When the rats were able to eat and lose their vigilance, I suddenly pushed the door in with a lightning speed, then closed the door and turned on the lights, all in one go, and the panicked rats finally couldn't hide.
The rat has become a turtle in an urn, and the next task is how to break and annihilate each one. Desperate rats, some will be running around, at this time, I stride to keep up with its rhythm, and then see the timing, pick up the bamboo stick, hit it. The most taboo is to be aimless and aimless, so that not only can not hit the mouse, but also chaotic, labor and fruitless. Some rats used their usual pretense skills, quietly hiding in a remote corner, Andu was not noticed, of course I cooperated, and then slowly approached it lightly. At this time, the rats that are hiding will either choose to die to the end and resign themselves to fate, and the result will often be killed by my blows; or at the last moment of feeling the danger coming, they will rise up and run, and the result will be a repeat of the first situation. When it comes to pretending to be forced, some rats have almost reached the pinnacle of perfection, and even when they are hit by me and bleed from the corners of their mouths and twitch their limbs, but they are not completely dead, they will pretend to be dead and want to pass the puzzle. At this time, you must not be soft. Otherwise, as soon as your front foot is gone, it will immediately slip away.
Finally, let's talk about the magic of the rat exterminating tool - the bamboo stick. When I first hit the mouse, I always picked up a wooden stick and didn't pay too much attention. As a result, in the process of actual combat, the effect is very bad. Often a stick down, the rat did not fight, their hands instead of shaking and hurting, the wooden stick is often broken in response to the sound, which is not conducive to the continuous blow to the mouse, and when the weapon is changed, the rat has long gone. After switching to bamboo sticks, the softness and toughness of the bamboo not only prevent the bamboo stick from breaking due to excessive force, but also increased the blow to the rat as much as possible. The bamboo sticks were struck by rats, and the sticks were bloodied, reminiscent of when rural parents beat their children with bamboo when they thought they had made a mistake. Rural people call this punishment of children "bamboo shoot fried meat". Everyone who has tasted this taste will surely be "thinking about it" many years later! For rats, however, it is the fate they deserve.
Today, there are no more rats in my life. The house that was plagued by rats now lives in my parents. Parents no longer have to farm, and the granary has long been converted to other uses. Every time I come back to my hometown for the New Year's Holiday, I always forget to ask my parents: "Are there still rats in the house?" "Come to think of it, it should be no, because I haven't seen it or heard my parents mention it." But I also thought that if there were mice, I would definitely pick up the bamboo stick and fight with them to the end. Yes, definitely!
(Original work, licensed and published)
【Lin Xiao Media】WeChat public account: linxiao3332, hosted by Lin Xiao, a well-known young writer, senior media person, and guest of Hunan Satellite TV, welcome to pay attention to and give the manuscript!