The Rat

You couldn't have found me even if you had wanted to find me. I wasn't your's to find, so you can absolve yourself from the guilt of it before this story begins. I was in a holler, situated inside of another holler. The Anglin Falls trailhead at the end of this narrow & winding road was a destination for tourists and locals, alike. She brought her hikers to a majestic waterfall; (Anglin Falls); an aorta flowing from the veins of spring-fed creeks, keeping the vital forests on surrounding properties pulsing with green life.

From a birth-blessing put together lovingly, for my youngest child.

But the cabin that I stayed in was tucked away from the road. It was not a destination spot. There was no mailbox or house number and little sign of a driveway, just a steep curve in the road intersected by a cobbled drive that was hidden among the shadows. There was a supervillain who owned the cabin and the property and by some extension of colonial governing, he owned me as well.

Or, perhaps it was the waterfall pinning me down with such a gravitational force that I was stuck to that place. No matter. We must announce the supervillain who's house will, indeed, crumble, and so an iteration of this story needs to be told. Lurking in the shadows of Anglin Falls Holler, He'll be known as The Rat.

Every supervillain has a specialty. Some have many, like a chef with a kitchen full of tools at their disposal. Consider The Rat a connoisseur who's secret ingredient flavors the broth for every aspect of brutality laid out before his fingertips. What is this ingredient? I had to learn it with first hand knowledge: ingestion, no less. To enter into the psyche of the victim, identify the foundations of reality which provide them with a healthy sense of self, and dissasemble them piece by piece: this is the madness which the flavors the broth.

Its a slow-cooked stew over weeks and months, then seemingly overnight. Memory is lost. Friendships vanish. Your family doesn't recognize you anymore. The ground beneath your feet feels as if it has fallen away, though it hasn't yet. The results are dizzying, his methods, multifaceted. Gaslighting, physical and emotional deprivation, mind-games, and manipulation. No one stops for traffic until there is not a scrap of you left to prey on. But The Rat is not the protaganist. He's the Supervillain. I am the protaganist in this story, and I have lived to tell the tale.