Flash Fiction / The Muse

Flash Fiction: Rat King

Posted by
PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart for Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers. Other stories featuring the prompt can be found here.

A Long Way From Home…

Tannille drew a blank as she wandered through the writing prompt picture of a deserted villa with her mind’s eye. The Muse popped next to her.

“Ok, you have a title. Now what? We could set the place on fire? Watch the rats run ablaze. A political cometary, if you will?”

“Or a wish fulfillment? The rats will return, they always do.”

“Nukes?”

“Only creates mutated super rats to run the world. Rats will survive.”

“A rather pessimistic view.”

“There is a silver lining. It’s inevitable they all become Rat Kings.”

The End!

~*~

Note:
The Muse returns. More conversations between Tannille and The Muse can be read here. For those who don’t know, a rat king is an assumed natural phenomenon where the tails of multiple rats are knotted together… it doesn’t end well for the creatures — tugging, pulling, cannibalism… Much like, dare I say, politicians…

35 comments

  6. Hehe! I had almost the same convo with the muses that be before writing this morning. BTW, unlike roaches who can survive nuclear fallout, rats don’t… at least not in the “real/psuedo real” world in which we live. Although Rat Kings has some stamina… (remembers “The Rats of Nimh”) movies from the 80’s. Great story. Really gave me a good chuckle.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. You are right about roaches. I nearly wrote them in but darn, the word count. I think historically they believed rats could survive anything. Science changes perspectives.

      Thanks, B. 😀

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  11. Your comparison of rats to politicians is unfair, you do the rat world a disservice, me thinks. I like how you drifted from fire to rats running ablaze, a stream of consciousness construction. Okay, the finicky muse.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  15. Thanks for the note about Rat Kings – not one I’d come across but I agree, the politicians really ought to tie themselves in knots and leave the rest of us to get along.
    (I think there’s a typo for commentary.)

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

The Muse likes her ego stroked, leave a comment and she'll do the same... unless there is a glitch... or human error...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s