Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Two Nov-Dec 2026.
Big Pest, flash fiction by Thaddeus Rutkowski.
Big Pest
A large rodent was living in our apartment. It was too big to have come through a hole in the wall or a slot next to a pipe. Maybe it had slipped in behind one of us as we opened the front door.
It hid from us most of the time but came out at night. We saw its shadow at the edge of our vision but believed it was a trick of the eye. The shadow had big haunches, short forelegs, and a blunt nose.
We wanted to get rid of it as soon as we could find it. We sensed that it was living quietly somewhere, behind the furniture or in the cabinetry. In the dark, it roamed our small space, looking for food. Fruits and cookies went missing.
When we happened to see it running, we exclaimed, “There it is!”
But we didn’t know what it was.
“Is it a mouse?” I would ask.
“No, it’s too big,” my wife would reply.
“A rat?”
“No, it’s much bigger.”
“A capybara?”
“That’s it!”
Like any rodent, the animal probably mated indiscriminately and gestated quickly. The other apartments in our building must have been infested, and we must have been hosting only one of the horde. At night, the adventurous ones traveled up and down the stairs and through the apartment doors, flitting in when people entered or left.
When an exterminator arrived, we reported the problem. “We have a giant rodent,” we said. “You won’t see it now, but we have seen it.”
“Do you want some glue traps?” the exterminator asked.
“They will have to be big.”
The exterminator gave us a large sheet of cardboard with adhesive on one side.
“We’ll try it,” we said.
After a few days, the trap remained empty. We didn’t know what we’d do if we actually caught something. It would be hard to discard the trap, with a kicking capybara, in the trash. The box was too big for the bin. We would have to take it to a dumpster on the street. But that mode of disposal would be inhumane.
At night, we put out a bowl of greens, along with a block of poison bait. We filled the bowl with lettuce, kale, and arugula—we wanted to give the rodent a choice. In the morning, all of the greens were gone, but the bait remained untouched.
We had to get used to the fact that our visitor would be living with us for a long time
© Thaddeus Rutkowski
Thaddeus Rutkowski is the author of nine books, most recently Tracks in Snow, a poetry collection. His novel Haywire received an Asian American Writers’ Workshop award. He teaches at Medgar Evers College and at a YMCA. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship and a Best Small Fictions award.