I was traveling with my pet rat (at first, a light gray, but later, round and fluffy and orange like a hamster) and Macha. I arrived to the apartment complex and they bolted. I was trying to find them; I put out a Havahart trap with peanut butter in one side and greens in the other. As I was walking down the street, I saw my rat, and went over and grabbed him. I wanted to put him back into his cage, so I put him under my shirt and started climbing a staircase to where his cage was. The stairs stretched up into space and upside down, long and thin and narrow, and suddenly as I reached the top I got vertigo and felt like I was going to fall off. I couldn’t tell which way was up and which way was down. I was clinging to the stairs on my hands and knees, desperately trying to figure out how to get back down without falling. My rat got out from under my shirt and bolted. I was so upset. I walked up and down the street looking for him. I hadn’t seen Macha anywhere. I saw two gray cats chasing my rat into a front yard full of ivy, where they lost him. I walked into a town meeting where people were saying I shouldn’t have brought my pets. I was upset because they’d said before I left that I could bring them.
