There's a rather small rat running around in my house. I'm scrambling to catch it before it jumps through a square hole in the sheetrock and escapes into the wall. It takes numerous attempts to catch it, but I end up grabbing its tail. I take it out to the back fence, intending to throw it off into the woods over there.

I'm surprised to see that there are no woods over my back fence. Instead, most of the trees have been stripped, and all the underbrush has been replaced by fresh new roads crisscrossing the landscape, as though it is to be a new housing development. I throw the rat over there anyway, but it seems to me that he will probably just scramble back to my house.

I go back to the house and point out the new development to Natasha and my mom, who happens to be there. They look out from the back porch and my mom remarks that it's made the neighborhood a lot brighter. Yes, I say, one result will be that my back yard will get a lot more sun.

I then see another rat skittering along on the uphill edge of my property between my house and the neighbors'. I think at first that it is the same one, but it seems larger and darker. As I run over there to catch it, I wonder what I will do with it when I do. I visualize chopping off its head, and I'm not very enthusiastic about that.

For some reason I'm telling someone that this is not our real home, just a place we stay on the weekends or something.