Note: My sincerest apologies for the incomplete state of this story. All surviving copies of "A Feast for the Rat King" by Louis D'Aboville were severely damaged and it is nothing less than a miracle I have been able to salvage this much. Louis D'Aboville was a man who lived and died with little influence on anyone around him and did not succeed in selling many copies of his work. You will find, however, that the stories he told himself were more interesting than any effect the fragile man could have had on another human. And who knows? Perhaps his work will mar you from beyond the grave.
A FEAST FOR THE RAT KING by Louis D'Aboville
Upon seating himself in the soot-streaked palm of Paris, Leopold thought reason and wit would be enough to sustain him. Reason and wit were a fine tool for men with education— men who were lawyers or accountants— but were of little use to a man damned to menial labor. Within the first two months, Leopold learned to follow the rumbling of his stomach instead of any fantasy his imagination wanted him to chase.
Menial labor, however, was not what the youth with sparkling eyes sought. Like every other man with blistered hands and grimy skin, he dreamed of luxury and ease. He would lie on his straw mattress in a dingy tenement, cornered by stagnant air, and cried for that impossible dream. A renowned playwright, a physician, a merchant would not be subject to such squalor. They would not need to stalk the dockyards along the river Seine every day praying that someone would need his assistance. He would unload crates from barges and earn only enough money to buy a stale loaf of bread.
Today, however, was one of those days in which Leopold had not succeeded in getting work and had dragged himself back to his apartment with an empty stomach yearning for food. He had not eaten the day before, or the day before that, and was beginning to shake. He tried making himself tea using the same leaves as yesterday, but as he carried his scratched cup to the stove, his shaking hands sent the cup to the floor. The tea cup shattered into small, white crescents that rocked on the floor in a scorning way. The broken china mocked the poverty that had caused his tremors.
Dutifully, Leopold dragged himself to the closet to get himself a broom. He threw open the battered door and, sitting in front of the broom, he saw something looking back. From the darkness, he saw the glimmer of over a dozen eyes looking back. He reached for whatever was looking at him, but before he made contact, he thought better of it. He retreated to his bedside where he kept his only lantern and shined it into the gaping maw of the closet.
On the pitted floor lay a starburst of a creature— nine rats sat in a circle, facing away from each other, their tails knotted together and cemented with clotted blood. The tangled tails reminded him of the monkey's fist knot his father had taught him so many years ago. His father had been a fisherman and used the monkey's fist weight to make it easier to moor his small boat from a distance. Where the monkey's fist had been orderly— a ball of perpendicular stretches of rope— the knotted mass of tails before him had the scrambled appearance of brains.
Leopold, the rats called to him.
He took a step back.
Leopold, aren't you hungry?
He held a shaking hand to his aching stomach.
Leopold, we can free you. Leopold, come closer.
He took a step forward.
Leopold, take us in your hands.
He stooped down and let the mass of rats writhe into his hands. He could only hold about half and the rest hung limply.
