Popo and Rat

Popo stepped out of the bar onto the pavement, bag under arm. There was a strong wind blowing and she looked up in surprise. There was a biting edge to it, uncommon in Fiji. Mango and palm trees were swaying their leafy heads violently and overhead, dark clouds were gathering at phenomenal speed.

‘Can you zip the bag please? It’s getting breezy in here!’ a muffled voice called out from her handbag. Popo ignored the voice and began walking. The bar where she worked was situated at the bottom of a hill and she was making her way up. She sighed. So much for being a tough old woman, her bones and muscles were begging for retirement.

Her sigh did not go unnoticed. ‘I’m surprised you continue to push yourself like this. You know your body can’t take it anymore. Why can’t you just be a normal old woman and catch the bus? Or get one of those golf cart thingies?’

‘I don’t like waiting that’s why!’ Popo grumbled. ‘And I don’t like being squashed next to sweaty, smelly people on their way home from work. And my body is not done in yet – while it can walk, it will walk!’

‘Yeah right. You’re just to embarrassed to admit that you can’t drive one of them golf cart thingies. I know you took one of them for a test drive without telling me and you must have crashed it because why else would you not get one for yourself?’

‘And by the way, do you know how painful it is for the normal, young people in this world to see you struggle up this hill? You sure know how to make everyone around you feel guilty!’

‘Well if the young people of today chose to ride in buses or cabs when their houses are not more than a fifteen minute walk away, then that’s their decision to die younger. I am going to walk!’ Popo said determinedly.

The wind howled and Popo shivered. She was not the only one. Rat shivered in the bag.

‘Where are we? The north pole or what?’ he called out.

‘I don’t know but at least it keeps me from sweating,’ Popo answered. ‘Now if you can just shut up for ten minutes, I’ll be able to get us home.’

Rat obliged and it was a quiet walk home. Popo finally unlocked the door to her humble wooden house along Knolly street and closed it behind her. She placed her handbag on the kitchen counter and Rat scampered out of it. He ran straight to the tv remote control and hopped onto it. The television came on.

‘Hey old woman! We just in time for the weather news,’ he called out.

‘And today Fiji experienced the most unusual weather conditions with temperatures dropping down to as low as 15 degrees where just an hour ago, the Nadi weather station recorded 35 degrees in the west. This unusual occurrence coincides with rising sea levels in some of the low lying areas around the coast…’

‘Is this a coincidence I wonder?’ Popo asked aloud. ‘Could it be that the key is here?’

‘What? The rising sea levels?’ Rat asked. ‘It’s called global warming old lady. Very common today as the big industrial worlds pollute the air and oceans with their progress. Nothing supernatural about that.’

‘We’ve searched all over Rat. There’s not many countries left in this world,’ Popo said.

‘Tell me about it. The lines on your face is a painful reminder!’

He dodged a flying saucer followed by an old slipper, a loaf of bread, a hand of bananas and then……

‘No! Not my cheesecake!’ Rat screamed in horror as Popo whipped out his beloved dessert and flung it at him. Instinctively, Rat dodged and it went splat on the wall.

‘I’ll trust you to clean every single bit of it, every crumb in oh…say five minutes or else you are sleeping outside tonight!’ Popo said coldy. She left the room.

‘Geesh – she has no sense of humour at all,’ Rat grumbled after she left. He surveyed the creamed cheese on the wall. ‘Oh well, better get to work.’

He opened his mouth as wide as he could, ambled to the wall and tried to scrape the cheese off with his teeth. It didn’t work.

‘Hmmm perhaps if I use my tail…..’

That night, Rat slept outside.

Something so small.....

The Miracle Ant

I usually try not to make this blog an account of my personal experiences, opting to stick to the stories I write as originally intended. However, there are times when things happen to you, that touch you in some way that you just have to tell whoever you can about it. This was the case with me 3 nights ago.

I was preparing dinner and had pulled out the pak choi (cabbage) that had been in the fridge for several days. Upon slicing it up, I discovered a dead colony of ants on my chopping board, having most obviously, died from the cold temperature in the fridge. It’s not uncommon in Fiji, to find ants everywhere and these ones had decided to take a tour around pak choi city. Unfortunately for them, pak choi city was harvested and duly ended up in my fridge where after several days in a much colder climate, they were struck down by hypothermia and died.

Except for one plucky, lucky little bugger! As I was about to place my chopping board under the tap, I spotted movement and then there he was. The miracle ant that had survived extreme conditions, watched his fellowmen die and yet refusing to pass on. What a brave little bugger.

I was so moved by the ant’s determination to live, trying futilely to drag itself off the wet chopping board that I intervened with mother nature and saved it. I slid it onto my finger nail, rested the little fella onto a dry tea towel and delivered crumbs of sweet bread to it. Then I waited to see another miracle unfold.

Within seconds, the ant recovered tremendously! At first, it was a little wobbly on its feet but the smell of sugar and warm air must have injected a new life force into it. It went from wobbly to stodgy, from unaware to exploratory and then, it found its feet. The strength in it was just so amazing that you’d never have believed that it had been stuck on a cabbage leaf in the fridge for 3 days, surviving while all its mates died. Just so amazing.

I then transferred it to the pot plant outside which regularly gets fed with potato peels, pawpaw skin and other yummy food. I sincerely hope that the miracle ant found its haven there because really, he was the pluckiest little bugger of all.