photo by John Miskimon


Jim was a rat. He lived with his family under the porch of the house just west of mine, and every day they scampered over to eat our birdseed. As rats go, Jim’s family was pretty nice. They were fastidious: The huge father rat spent most of his time going through the mulch and picking out bits that he carried to their nest. The mother rat would pick just as carefully through the seeds, looking for the best nuggets of peanuts or corn.

And then there was Jim. Even in a family of exceptional rats, Jim was special. While his siblings followed orders, Jim climbed. From the rose trellis he roamed the horizontal beams of the fence. Then he branched out, climbing in and out of the squares of the fence next to our house.

The neighbor to the west wanted the rats gone. The neighbors to the east hated them too, but they were willing to discuss plans to make them leave. In concert, or so I thought, we all agreed to stop putting out birdseed, to reinforce our storage doors, and to trim the bushes so that the rats would have less habitat and just go away. And then my fiancée and I left town. When I got home, Jim was dead. Our western neighbor had called the city, which sent workers out to spread pounds of rat poison around our yard, leaving a third of it (and the vegetable garden therein) encrusted in poison.

When rats walk through the poison, it sticks to their feet. Because they are generally clean animals (and Jim and his family were particularly so), they wash their little paws and faces—and ingest the poison, which destroys their insides and slowly kills them.

Jim died curled up with one of his siblings, licking each other’s noses until the end. I know this because the western neighbor told us. In the days thereafter, I dug out the vegetable garden, now dead soil, earthworms gone or disintegrated. The western neighbor does not seem aware that calling the city behind our backs and killing the rat family—and possibly rabbits, birds, and neighborhood cats—was not OK.

The hard lesson? There are many—don’t name the rats, I guess, would be a big one. The hardest one, though, has been letting go of Jim. His determination to ascend was inspiring. I sorely miss the way his little pink feet clutched and gripped as he pulled himself up, up, up.

—Rafe Posey is an MFA student at the University of Baltimore. He loves books, breakfast, and estuaries, preferably all at once.




Mr. Lowe, I’d like to thank you.

It was in your biology class that I became obsessed with learning. In your class everything made sense—that an earthworm would have as many as ten hearts, that a lizard would remain close to the earth, that a spider would shed its exoskeleton. Your class was the key to the universe; every being on the planet had a purpose. And so it seemed fitting that you would serve a
purpose in my life, too.

I wanted to know everything there was to learn about life and the world, and because you were the one who opened my eyes to this perfection, I wanted to repay you. I studied incessantly, aced your tests, and did all the homework.

My freshman year of college, I decided I was going to be a doctor. I couldn’t wait to tell you. I planned to visit your classroom on winter break and share the news. I pictured you sitting behind your lab desk like you always did, dressed in your white lab coat (did you want to be a doctor, too?), nodding your head and smiling.

But before I could visit you at school, I saw you at the grocery store. We stood in front of the automatic doors that swooshed open and closed while we talked. When I finally told you about my decision, you simply said, “You’ll never be accepted to medical school.”

So I guess I should thank you, Mr. Lowe. Were it not for your words, I would never have begun to doubt myself and my abilities in the field of science; I might have had the confidence necessary to finish the pre-med program.

And had it not been for your words, I would not have discovered two very important things: One, that I was destined to become a teacher. And two, that I would never be a teacher like you.

—Liz Bell Jones teaches English and mythology at James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring.




I later learned from the police that the 15-year-old girl who robbed me at knifepoint was earning her membership in the Bloods, which is why Kendra* had thrust her knife into my forearm and pulled the blade almost halfway across its circumference, cutting me to the bone in front of her two companions.

I identified Kendra in a photo array, and the three teens were arrested a few days later. It took a month before Juvenile Justice scheduled a hearing. I missed work, suffered violent nightmares, popped oxycodone and Valium, and filled out form after form of “victim” paperwork for the State’s Attorney’s office.

The first hearing date passed—the defense had requested a postponement. By Thanksgiving week, another hearing date rolled around, and I was on standby to testify. I sat for hours in the “victim waiting room,” getting occasional updates from the prosecutor. By the end of the day we had to reschedule; Kendra had shown up late because she had trouble getting a ride.

On December 8, I again reported to the victim waiting room, prepared to take the stand. Before I did, the prosecution dropped all twenty-two charges against Kendra’s two companions. They were released, and the case against Kendra was scheduled to continue the following week.

Eight days later, while Kendra yawned from her chair where she sat accessorized in a bright red belt with a matching chunky laminate bracelet and hoop earrings—her gang color—I took the stand and recounted what she had done to me. After my testimony, Kendra’s lawyer had to leave for a prior engagement, so we stopped and selected a date to reconvene.

In January the hearing resumed but did not conclude, as one of the officers scheduled to testify failed to appear. By the next hearing date, Kendra had run away. It was another six months before police apprehended her. The judge who had heard the first part of the case had since moved to another court system; the new judge declared a mistrial.

The case is ongoing. A jagged, silver scar edged in purple circles my forearm like a handcuff.

—Hilary Hansen lives in Baltimore County and works for University of Maryland, School of Law. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins University nonfiction writing program, she is working on a collection of essays about her time spent in hospitals.




“What You’re Writing” is the place for creative nonfiction from our readers. Each month we pick a topic. Use the topic as a springboard into your own life and send us a true story inspired by that month’s theme. Only previously unpublished, nonfiction submissions that include contact information can be considered. We reserve the right to edit heavily for space and clarity, but we will give you the opportunity to review the edits. You may submit under “name withheld” to keep your essay anonymous, but you do need to let us know how to contact you. If you’ve already changed the names of the people involved, please let us know. Only one submission per topic, please.

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Topic                         Deadline            Publication

All Grown Up            Sept 15, 2009    Nov 2009
Broke                       Oct 13, 2009      Dec 2009
Fresh Start               Nov 9, 2009       Jan 2010




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