If you’ve noticed a light rustling in the air vents of your local highschool in the past few weeks, or the occasional bump or thump from the radiator beside your desk towards the end of class, I feel I must confess to you that it’s not simply due to poor plumbing or maintenance issues. No, to let you in on a little secret, I’ve actually taken up permanent residence within the heating system. I navigate the metal tunnels by memory, nestle down among wires and wire mesh to sleep, and spend my days roaming the vast expanse of interconnecting ductwork that channel the warm air generated by the heating system, to the classrooms, hallways, cafeteria, and gymnasium.

  Perhaps an explanation is necessary. I’m sure my reasons for doing such a thing would seem odd to you, but in this crazy, mixed up world, who among us has never had the urge to pry the grating off an air duct, prop a chair against the wall, and climb upwards into the silver temperate shaft, close the grate behind you, and recede into a world of darkness and soft humming, distant and apart from the harsh, work-a-day world, inhabited mainly by people who don’t live in air vents, or the ‘groundies’, as I’ve come to call them. Maybe I was going through a rough phase in my life, and needed an escape into a simpler paradigm, one which concentrates not so heavily on human interaction and capitalism, but on metal, and hot air, and moving that hot air through that metal. Maybe Freud would suggest I’m attempting to crawl back into the womb, and that this would suggest a mental tendancy towards shyness and cowardice. Maybe I tossed a loonie up there, went after it on a dare, and just got lost.

  Whatever the reason, I’ve quickly grown accustomed to this new environment, evincing the highly adaptable nature we humans tend to possess. Already, I’ve made the network much more habitable, having cleaned out the reaking piles of mouse droppings (I apologize to the classes in room 112, they had to go somewhere) and replaced them with primitive tapestries depicting adventures and battles, and piled collections of oddities and trinkets I’ve discovered within this new world. There’s the pile of lost screws, a neat stack of bones of small rodents, and scattering of shiny bits of metal which caught my eye and amused me for hours on end, with their sparkling, and sharp edges. I’ve constructed a crude nest in a major junction of ductwork, consisting mostly of cardboard and stolen bits of ducttape, which is in great supply here. I’ve declared myself ruler of the mice, and have developed quite a following. I’ve set up elaborate traps to keep the groundies out, utilizing the basic materials I have at hand, including but not limited to fan blades, long twisted bits of aluminum, electrical wiring, (as both snare and voltage-fed traps)electrical outlets, and cinder blocks. I’ve marked my territory, heavily, so watch out for that too.

  My day is much like that of any other person, really. Upon awakening, I traverse the maze of narrow tunnels to the exit nearest the cafeteria, and feast upon the scraps left from the day before. Once satiated, I return to my lair and rest until mid-morning, at which point I terrorize passing students in the hallways in a variety of ways. I scream at them randomly from beneath the vents, hurl filth at them through grating, or simply talk in a quiet, raspy voice to them as they take their notes, limiting my vocabulary to an assortment of vague threats, ominous predictions, and gutteral growls. Noon usually finds me running freely through the system, barking and hooting at random intervals, until I have expended enough energy to warrant another nap. This is usually proceeded by another free spirited romp, and short span spent collecting objects, maintaining my traps, and an hour at five composing poetry, usually in rat blood on the walls surrounding my nest.