the month of the rat - a love story with a difference

(side(y) note:hmmm..the title does have all the necessary trappings of a B-grade horror flick.. )
so
this is a story.. a love story nonetheless.. about a girl, her vehicle and THE RAT..
it is a love story with ' difference' ..
i believe that's kinda obvious from the main characters themselves.

the girl in question is me (duh!), the vehicle in question is my faithful kinetic honda- my kiney (those of you waiting for dashing batmobile type vehicles, go bury yourselves) and the rat in question , is THE RAT( haha)

as with all love stories with a difference .. we were in love
i love my kiney .. it is my most faithful, most loyal companion. i have spent many a happy time riding about on it, it is a symbol of my independence..sigh! i love it with all my heart.
when i left home for college, the parting was painful. i cried over my kiney's seat while my parents stood around with confused expressions on their faces.. when i used to phone home, my dad used to hold the fone to the kiney's dashboard so i could croon sweet nothings to it..
ok... this para is a victim of chronic digression..but u get the picture, rite??
so i was in love. and when my dad suggested sending my kiney over to me in college..i was over the moon!
so the kiney joined me in college , where it met all my pals and soon became our personal limousine.. oh we had fun days, wobbling around the shameful excuse for a road, screeching around in the rains and basically allowing our waistlkines to distort to mammoth proportions ,considering we refused to walk anywhere..
if i had my way( and if i could get the kiney inside the house) i would have used it to drive from the bedroom to the bathroom (and my bathroom was ensuite)

as with all love stories with a difference.. there was a villain!
our happy ending was not to be. dark clouds loomed, lightning forked across the sky, doors creaked and curtains fluttered in the evil wind.
enter THE RAT.

i woke up one bleak morning to find that my kiney refused to start. i coaxed, cajoled , bribed(by putting in extra petrol) and wept .. nothing doing. the engine coughed , sputtered and died.
in great trepidation, i paid a visit to the vehicle hospital - (the mechanic to all you ignoramuses).
in love story with a difference fashion , my vehicle was wheeled in on a stretcher with multiple sounds of beeping and bleeping while i held onto the gurney and looked deeply into its headlights.
actually ..
i strained and shoved and somehow managed to drag my kiney to the mechanics in the sweltering heat.
the doctor ..er..mechanic checked out the bike while i waited anxiously in loving girlfriend with a difference fashion.
verdict: hole in the heart..er..the petrol pipe. according to the mechanic, the petrol was not reaching the engine coz the connecting pipe had a hole in it.
i was devastated and the best blow was yet to come. as the doctor ..dammit!..mechanic diembowelled my beloved kiney, he informed me that the culprit was a rat..
what? a rat? uptil now, rats had been peripheral in my view of the world.. they were just furry, ugly ,smelly creatatures on seeing which one was supposed to jump onto a chair and yell for help .. at least that's what the movies told me.
i never knew they could harm me in such deep,dark ways, my motto was 'keep out of their way and they'll keep outta yours'
hmpf..so much for clean living and wishful thinking!

yet, i was ready to forgive and forget.. maybe THE RAT was hungry, maybe it had been kicked outta its tribe and hadn't eaten for days, maybe it was anorexic.
i really believd it wasn't personal.
HA!

i woke up the next morning to find ,to my dismay, that my kiney wouldn't start again!! a quick trip to the mechanic confirmed my worst fears - THE RAT had struck again.
i was furious - i swore revenge! i would hunt the rat down , slay it and hang its corpse up for all rats to see and fear. i was not to be messed with! I WOULD AVENGE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!!
easier said than done.

i started small.
that nite , i parked my kiney a little further from its usual spot.. in the belief that the rat would be confused and lost and would obligingly move onto the neighbor's car ( i really didn't like them) ..
but oh no.
little did i rrealize this RAT was trained for such eventualities, maybe it was part of a rat controlled al-qaeda network, trained in desperate acts of terrorism. this RAT had a personal vendetta.. it hunted out my freshly recovered kiney and proceeded to chew the pipe with gusto.. in the same spot!!! really , show some originality!

the next few days were a blur.
THE RAT continued its frenzied attacks .
the mechanic, his cronies and I were on first name terms by now ( i do believe he saw me more often than he saw his wife and we had gotten into a comfortable routine of sitting together and chatting about philosophy while sipping tea. indeed his evening slot was reserved for me )
my college work was suffering considerably keepin in mind the fact that i now devoted all my energies into outwitting the rat. while the rest of my classmates sketched beautiful garments, i drew elaborates sketches of THE RAT in various stages of torture)
my bank balance was steadily depleting due to the continued trips to the mechanic( though he did offer me a lifetime membership on a discounted rate)
i had tried all manners of rat poisons and sprays . i was on the verge of taking a few myself
my waistline ( and my housies') had defintly improved as we had had to rediscover the use of our legs.
my kiney was in a sad state - defeated and bed (garage)-ridden. its glorious era was now almost at an end .

and then as suddenly as they had started, the attacks stopped. i stared at the kiney in disbelief as the engine sputtered and roared to life. apparently, the kiney couldn't believe it either as the engine coughed in surprise. but there it was, after almost a month of living under comstant threat of imminent attack.. we were free!
the skys were blue again, sun was shining and the sunflowers swayed in the gentle breeze..
THE RAT failed to return.. i can only hope it choked on the pipe it used to gobble everyday and tumbled into a drain. i will never know . my desire to mummify it will remain unfulfilled.

and so
in love story with a difference style, my kiney and I were reunited . we rode through many bumpy junctions together, we terrorised people on the road by our daring moves and we crashed into many a bush together.
i finally achieved my happy ending

.THE END.