***
Waiting until a fat woman entered an automatic;y opening door in front of the Baxter building, Oscar the rat followed in her wake. He was far too low to activate the mechanism. An enormous lobby extended into the distance. the nervous rodent eased behind a potted palm to check things out.
His little heart beating from anxiety, the rat peered around the fixture. He was looking for the “Write Here Write Now” Suite. His friend Charlie had invited him to visit at Charlie’s new apartment there. But Oscar had lost the number.
Since he couldn’t talk, Oscar would have a hard time finding the WHWN Suite. He thought it was on the second floor, two hundred and something. Although he could read, he had no way of carrying the note with him. Rats don’t have pockets.
Looking both ways, Oscar ventured out along the wall, trying to keep away from a security guard’s path. The cautious rodent ran from potted palm to ashtray to “Wet Floor” sign. He could see the elevators about thirty feet away.
The rat saw a sign listing room numbers next to the elevator. Looking around, nobody was near the elevator so he took a chance and scurried away from the wall to read the listing.
He couldn’t find a listing for “Write Here Write Now.” Oscar was stuck, not knowing what to do. Confused, he forgot to return to shelter.
“Shreeeeek!” he heard, “a RRRAATT! Over by the elevator. Please save me.”
Shocked in action, Oscar ran for the nearest shelter, a standing ashtray. He could hear people running around him in panic. A badly frightened rat, he tried to jump up, to hide inside the ashtray -- but it was too tall. About that time a door opened beside the panicked little rodent. Oscar ran inside an opening fire door, which closed behind him.
Almost immediately, the door shook as a human tried to open it from the lobby. Luckily it only opened from the inside. Oscar stood for a moment, then ran up carpeted steps to the second floor.
At the second floor landing he was lucky, someone had propped the door open a few inches. He looked out carefully and tiptoed into the hallway.
Oscar saw a couple of humans coming down the hallway. Before they could see him, he dodged under a door and found himself in a broom closet.
He thought it would be a good place to wait until night time, and then try to find Charlie. He just hoped there weren’t any cats in the building.
“Get off my tail, asshole,” he heard behind him. He turned and saw it was a female rat, who said her name was Lois. She showed him a back way to Charlie’s room. The room was in a mess, with dirty clothes and old snacks lying around. He and Lois cleaned up the mess. Oscar had been taught to never make a mess and to, when possible, leave a room neater than when he entered.
It turned out that Oscar wouldn’t have found Charlie alone. The name had been changed to “For Writers by Writers.”
Finally, Charlie came home and found them. He was happy to see Oscar. Being scratched behind the ear and his tummy rubbed was embarrassing to a manly rat, but Oscar put up with it before nibbling Charlie's finger and pulling away to introduce Lois.
Since Charlie had written several stories about him, Oscar found he was somewhat of a celebrity. He shook, hands to paw, with all the people at Charlie's work place. There was even a party with Oscar’s favorite pizza.
Now Oscar writes his own stories under his own name and even has his own email. He's also a full fledged member of a half-dozen writing sites. He met and eventually married a girl named Malodor skunk, officially adopting her niece, teenage Nancy Skunk. As a full member of Charlie's site he rates his own apartment there. He works full time as a rewriter of history at the venerable Rat Archives, a history of ratkind since before humans crawled down from the trees.
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