Rat
Neil is inside the press, laughing and wiping blood from the die. Yuri looks at the pulped body of the rat now lying in the trash. He feels the last moments of its panic. Can’t even imagine the machine swiftness of its death. And for a moment, he pictures himself there, crushed and left to dry on lunch wrappers and oily work gloves — the machine still stamping out parts. Neil shouts something about the rat learning its lesson, and Yuri makes up his mind to quit.
