Free Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs Page A

Imminent respiratory failure? Tachycardia?
    And then I realized it did have a
little
chest, not a large chest. This wasn’t technically a rat/thing. It was, more specifically, a small white mouse.
    Still. Now was not the time to ponder semantics. I no more wanted a mouse under my bed than a rat. Both were heinous as far as I and any reasonable New Yorker were concerned.
    I was horrified. But also? A little thrilled. Because it was terribly exhilarating to find myself in a primal battle against another animal. It was me, at the top of the food chain, versus It. I was defending my territory. So in this way, the battle was slightly fun. It was slightly fucking fantastic!
    But the fumes had become overpowering, and my head was beginning to hurt in a way that suggested toxicity and a future lawsuit. So I left the bathroom and went over to the patio door. I opened this and peered outside at the trees. Then I lit a cigarette.
    I returned to the bathroom, waving the fumes away from my face as I walked through the doorway. The rat/thing was still alive. I had to close my eyes and then reopen them again to make sure what I was seeing was fact. The rat/thing was not dead, not injured or impaired. I’d felt certain that once the Raid soaked through its coat and into its skin, the creature would be dead. But no. It was charging from the front of the tub to the back, furious and crazed.
    The little fucker
.
    Then with hideous, calm precision, I locked the drain and turned the water on full blast and scalding hot. I did this automatically, dutifully, without a trace of emotion. I was simply a nurse administering pain medication to my comatose patient, an electrician changing a fuse. I was somebody from PETA handing out a brochure on the street.
    I was going to drown the rat/thing. And while I was at it, I would boil it, too.
    I watched as the tub filled with steaming water. “Calgon, take me away!” I joked. This was at approximately eight-thirty in the morning. At nine, it was
still swimming
. The Raid had made an oil slick on top of the water, and the rat/thing paddled through it like a furry little ice breaker. Even more alarming, the water level had brought the rat/thing closer to the top edge of the bathtub. Eventually, the rat/thing would be able to flip itself out onto the floor.
    It was simply unkillable.
    I needed to think fast.
    My Maglite flashlight was by the front door. I could see it if I learned forward and peered around the open bathroom door.
    Instinctively, I ran out and grabbed it, then came back into the bathroom and turned off the light. It was a crazy idea that came to me out of thin atmosphere. I didn’t question it; I only complied.
    I turned on the flashlight and made a dancing pattern on the water, disco tub. I turned the light on and off, on and off. I madethe light zigzag across the water, and the rat/thing began to tremble. It began to seize.
    I choked a laugh out, surprised, thrilled. “Oh my God,” I said. “The light is doing something to it.”
    I began making vigorous, complex patterns on the water. I drew crosshatches made of light. I made figure eights. I shined the light into the rat/thing’s eyes, then flicked it off and on again like a strobe.
    Miraculously, beautifully, the rat/thing became confused or epileptic. It had what I can only assume was a heart attack. Twitch, twitch, twitch, the little body shaking while the skinny whiskers tapped the air.
    And then it died.
    Automatically, it rolled over on its back and floated in the oil slick on the surface. I watched, mesmerized. And very gently, it bumped against the side of the tub and then drifted back out to the center.
    I said out loud, “Mom? Are you okay?”
    Then suddenly mortified by my inhumanity, my seemingly instinctive knowledge of how to kill, I left the bathroom and went back to the porch to breathe fresh, cold air. How had I known that would work?
    What was wrong with me that I couldn’t have simply placed one of those humane,