Brown Tail

Brown Tail

By: Amin Hosseiniun

He wrapped his long brown tail around  roots of an oak and hung himself, to reach the sugar cube. He was too hungry not to risk it. His fingertips touched it, but he couldn't pick it up. The sugar cube was miraculously sitting safe, on a piece of wood floating on the roaring gutters of Vali-Asr . Hail had ended a few minutes ago, and thus this cube was a heavenly gift in this weather.

"Just a little bit lower, a little", he thought and loosened his tail a little bit, now he could pick it up. He hugged the cube and smiled, but his loosened tie couldn't hold the oak root. He fell into the wild river, hugging the cube. The elders said the river goes to the green plains of far, filled with tasty foods and tough enemies.

Though his skin could protect him against water, he knew that soon his lungs will be filled up, and he will eventually die. He shut his eyes and dreamt of green fields, where thousands of fellow rats were running around happily from one river to another, escaping owls and ….

He was still pressing the cube to his chest when the water flow slowed down to almost a stop. He opened his eyes, and saw orange-clothed men  were the cause. They were hunting all the food from the river. He swam to a bank and pulled himself up to a tunnel. One of so many rat tunnels under Vali-Asr. Sugar cube was not damaged at all, in spite of all the water it had suffered. He ran his tiny hands on it with joy, and dried it with his breath. Cube's color then turned into blue, it wasn't white anymore. He hadn’t seen anything like this in his rat life, nor had heard of a blue sugar cube from the elders of his clan,

So, when completely dry, it was as blue as the sky. He picked it up and took it deeper in a tunnel, one of the many his ancestors had dug under Vali-Asr. He circled the blue cube, smelled it. There was nothing unusual, it looked safe. So he took a bite, and at once dropped the cube and crouched back to a corner.
The cube had just cracked open like a walnut, and the nut was a small green ball which rolled on the ground for a bit and then exploded into a cloud of black smoke, which soon took the shape of an old rat. "I am on a time limit, and you have to reach the green plains and break the spell of our race. Go now, and follow the blue cubes." The old smoky rat said it all and then vanished in the air.

The young rat heard the fearsome old rat through. Then he sniffed at the two remaining parts of the cube and tasted them. Finally he turned around and walked up the tunnel hoping to find a big decent meal; obviously that cube was not edible.