Rat in the Hole

The rat came out of the hole. He watched intently as it went into another hole. This was fun. More fun than the party his father had dragged him into.

The party was plain boring. There was no one of his age around. His father was the most reputed surgeon in the town. Funnily, this reputation actually came from him being a rather good businessman than a very good doctor. He had a chain of hospitals in this part of country and this party was for some anniversary for some such hospital of his. Though he had not performed a single surgery in the last five years, his reputation preceded him. He wondered if his father even remembered the difference between a pancreas and a spleen anymore. But of course it didn't matter. He looked around and saw his father surrounded by two beautiful interns. The world, as they say is ruled by powerful men and pretty ladies.

Meanwhile the rat was again out of that hole.

He knew what it was doing. Courtesy a bit of National Geographic Channel and a bit of his zoology course books, he knew that the rat can have affairs. That is they have multiple sexual partners. It only appeared amusing to him and not immoral. It’s only humans who attach the tag of morality to something as natural as sex and then validate it by attaching the institution of marriage to it. Or, so he thought.

It had been sometime since the rat went into the second hole. Possibly it will take time. He got up, put on his shoes and walked back towards the party. Only one intern was hovering around his father now. His father  had probably made his choice. Or in the rat-race for his father, this intern had won. Rat-Race. The world suddenly felt normal.

Walking out of the party, from his father’s overcoat he took his car keys. He knew that tonight his father won’t need them. Besides he needed time to think of a satisfying excuse for his father’s impending absence to give to his mother. As much time as roaming around the city in this BMW could get him. Poor soul his mother. As if she didn't know. Somebody has rightly said that doctors should only have doctors as spouses.

By the way, in all this he had forgotten how much he had begun to look forward to his tomorrow’s zoology class. They were to be taught dissection in it. Dissection of a rat.