Hope Is The Only Thing Left To Do
Bryan Shon
i_am_now@farts.com
1/4/98

	During the holocaust, I saw things that I never expected to see 
in my short life.  I am nothing but a mere rat living in the ghettos.  
What I have seen is not what I expect my descendants to see.  Never 
again I wish this to happen but I learned a great deal about...
	Stop!  Wait a minute let me tell you what I've experienced.
	When I was a newborn rat I was born on a haystack that was on a 
cart.  When the cart moved I fell right on a pile of manure and when a 
hove was about to crush my tiny little body the cart stopped.
	Then a man picked me up wiped we off, and put my siblings and I 
into his lap with our nest still intact.  My mother wasn't so lucky she 
was crushed by a wheel.  The man was kind enough to give her proper a 
burial into the gutter.  That way she can float away in peace.  The man 
was Jew because he had a nice caring voice and not a mean pushy voice 
like the Nazis.
	He took us home and took care of us until we were ready to 
survive on our own.  When he released us my brothers and sisters left 
while I decided to stay.  He and his wife couldn't have children.
	He didn't mind in fact he was happy that one of his adopted 
kids stayed but the next day was a disaster.  The radio said that 
Hitler has invaded.  The man said that we have to leave and go to a 
concentration camp.  He told me to flee, scram, beat it and other 
abandoning words but I didn't listen and went with them to the 
concentration camps without him even knowing.
	At first, the camps were nicer than the ghettos but as more 
people came the more dirty it got.  It was a rat hole.  There was feces 
everywhere and it smelled like piss or worse at every corner.  "Shit!" 
 I heard a man say, "There's shit every where!"
People were just lying fading into the darkness as if they were 
shadows.

	Then came rumors about an army resistance and the man and his 
wife soon got involved.
	One day I wandered into the kitchen for the soldiers.  It was 
messy just like outside.  In a boiling pot of water, there was a pigeon 
naked with no feathers.  Sick I thought but it smelled good.  Then the 
chef saw me and tried to catch me.  He said, "You my fat friend would 
make a tasty sandwich."  I ran as fast as I could.  I made outside but 
just as I was about to turn the corner I saw the man, my adopted 
parent, "BOOM!" got shot as if sacrificed.  Then I looked at a crying 
woman who was about to get shot.  She was my adopted mother.  As a tear 
rolled down my face, I started to remember what they did for me.  
"BOOM!" Like the time the man let me taste an expensive roll of cheese, 
when he stopped me from eating the poison left by a guard, and the time 
he took us home and showed us to his wife.  He was so happy back then 
and now he lays on the ground with blood coming down from his forehead 
next to his wife.  He was caring, generous, and loved by me a rat.
	Before I realized what I was doing I was charging the guard 
that killed him.  I leaped with rage scratching his face and biting his 
nose scaring him for life. I knew I should of started running but I 
didn't.  I started to charge the next guard and leap at his face but he 
took out his gun and a bullet whizzed past my little body.  "BOOM!  
BOOM!  BOOM!" three more shots were fired.  I stated to run but I was 
too late.  A bullet snipped my tail.  I was bleeding from one end.  I 
ended up hiding for the next month with no food and an infection at the 
end of my tail.
	From the rafters of some ceiling I fell into a little girl who 
was only about 3 or 4 years old who had only a little while until she 
ended up like the rest of the children.  She only jumped.  Then she 
picked me up and gave me the only peace of food she had in her hand a 
chunk of bread.  I looked around to see if she had a parent nearby.  
Nope no one in sight.  She was an orphan just like me all alone in the 
world whose parents were killed by the Nazis and the only thing she 
looked froward to was going to school.  She said, "You will be my pet 
rat, okay!"  I didn't mind as long as she could take care of my tail 
which she did.  Our relationship didn't last long.  She past away about 
a month later.  I figured she died from sickness.  The last thing she 
told me was "I wish you were my daddy so I didn't have to watch you 
die.  I love you and I'll miss..." She died right there in my paws.  As 
soon as she started to smell the guards took her away.  I left before 
that because I knew I was wanted for the kitchen and for the scars on 
the guard.  I knew the only thing to do next was to breed.  I had 
nothing else to live for and my kind needed to survive through this 
drastic time.  So I did and told my life story to my kids and they told 
it to theirs and so on.
	I found my wife in a nearby ally next to the hospital.  She was 
a beautiful rat I couldn't keep my eyes off of her.  We soon mated and 
had 10 kids who eventually went out on their own.
	Then one day more and more Jews got killed every day a hundred 
or so were slaughtered then by the thousands and soon after that by the 
ten thousands.  My wife told me that the only way the war and the 
killing would end was by...
HOPE
...and that was the only thing I could do with the rest of my short 
life.
THE END