Tag: Jocy So-Yeung

A year later
It has been a year of office bliss and without a single visit from our hairy invaders. The school personnel had finally heeded our pleas and detonated some poison packages in the ceiling. Though some unfortunate incidents transpired because of that—such as decomposing rodents stinking up the whole office—in general, Operation Rat Elimination was a success. We thought.

No one really made a head count of the casualties. After leaving the poison and getting rid of a few carcasses, no one probed deeper into the problem. Furthermore, the new high school building was finally finished and teachers moved en masse to a spanking clean, freshly painted and rat-free room. Out of sight, out of mind.

Continue reading Attack of the Night Prowling Rats, Part 3

A few weeks later, I came back to school to find that a beautiful candle given to me by my students had been attacked, its translucent wax strewn like rough diamonds all over my table, class records, and chair. They have returned. The War on Terror continues. Only the Saturday before, I had gone to school to work, and that time, all was well on my table with nary a pen or paper clip out of place. But on Monday, those rodents gave me a welcome back to work, a surprise I did not appreciate one bit.

Theories again abound. Remembering how rats are supposedly obsessed with revenge, it dawned on me that they must have known I wrote a vicious piece attacking their characters a few weeks ago! They must have heard my co-teacher and I backbiting them. Or, they could’ve heard me telling the school maintenance staff about the absolute need for their eradication.

Continue reading Attack of the Night Prowling Rats, Part 2

For over a year now, our faculty office has been plagued by a small ragtag army of ravenous rodents possessing extra-strong teeth. These rats crouch surreptitiously in the dark secret space between the ceiling and the roof during daytime, as humans scurry beneath them, ignorant of the insidious plans fermenting in those small, yet sharp and focused animal brains.

Perhaps without knowing the potential bomb of horror that would explode the next day, one of these hapless humans started eating merienda with his or her bare hands before proceeding to talk on the office phone. Using his or her contaminated fingers, this still unidentified person then moved the phone around and touched its wire. Conversation over, the person walked away, not knowing that the scent of food (and some particles) had been imprinted on the gray telephone wire.

Continue reading Attack of the Night Prowling Rats, Part 1