The rats had not been fed for more than 48 hours and the noise that came from the lab was something ferocious - a cacophony of menacing growls, shrill squeals and desperate squeaks - all to the same effect: Food!
But the professor was late and no one dared feed the poor animals. There was always a reason to his experiments, he said, although most believed he was just mad. And vicious, the cleaning lady, Imelda, was convinced he was possessed and crossed herself each time she escaped safely from the inferno that was his lab.
Things were better now he using rats, for his experiments on little macaques had reduced more than one assistant to tears. Young Lorrie had threatened to quit and call the press, but a quick word from the president of the board and a small bonus were enough to make her forget the whole mess.
As far as anyone knew the rat test was all about endurance and the professor had them suffer in extreme heat, almost freeze in sub-zero temperatures or kept them in total darkness for days. Other than the obvious misery of the caged rodents, no one got the feeling that the experiments were leading somewhere. Yet, the professor’s face was beaming and assured everyone that the animals behaved exactly as predicted.
Hunger was different and the rats were vehement in their angry calls. Since the professor was not there, it was decided no one should go inside the lab as rats became more agitated every time a human was detected. Let him deal with it, they decided and found other tasks that needed their attention.
The professor arrived a little after three o’clock, with a smile on his face and a faint trace of a woman’s perfume on him. ‘Looks like someone got lucky’, a young assistant chuckled, careful to keep his voice down so that only those around him would hear.
When the professor entered the room, the rats went into a frenzy, hurling themselves against the bars of their cages, climbing on top of one another in a pathetic attempt to catch the man’s eye. As if that would help them to get food before the others. The professor was not impressed and instead of bringing out the long anticipated food he circled the lab studying the three cages, each housing ten adult rats, both male and female.
At long last he went to the little store room and brought out several bags, whose smell was greeted by the animals with even more vigorous cries.
He dared not open the first cage, instead throwing fistfuls of grains through the overhead grate, until the floor of the caged was covered in seeds. The rats immediately set out to eat their fill, growling at each other, but the grain were small and there was no way one could gather too much food for himself. As the pangs of hunger died down, so did their agitation.
The others, however, were raging by now.
For the second cage, the professor removed the top grate, as he had a different menu for the rats - some grain, too, but also sliced carrots and small bites of meat. The fight that erupted was ferocious, furs were bitten or sliced by angry claws in the general frenzy to get a larger piece. Surprisingly, the one to get the most prey was not one of the largest animals, but a smaller and very cunning rat who managed to steal some of the choicest pieces his stronger brothers were fighting over.
The rats in the third cage were by now jumping in place as the professor approached with a large piece of fresh meat in his hand. Just one, which he threw down in the middle of the cage. What followed would best be described as carnage, if it were about humans. The rats fought to death over that single piece of meat, the first two specimens that got to the pray being more or less torn apart by their own kind. None would give up and they climbed on top of each other although that did not help much, as the meat was somewhere at the bottom of the pile. The professor watched the scene very tense, his nails digging into his palms as one of the rats that had been pushed to the top of the pile suddenly raised his head to notice the world outside. His little nose sniffed the air a bit and after looking left and right a few times he jumped over the wall of the cage, landed on the floor with a bit of a thud and hurriedly made his way towards the wall, trying to reach the open door. One of the assistants made as if to stop the fugitive, but the professor motioned him to be still.
‘Leave him, he’s earned his freedom’.
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