The rat and the goat

Somebody had dragged the goat into the bushes, probably the one who had hit it with the car. We passed it on our way back from the beach. It lay on its side, it was a white goat, actually a kid. Two days later there was nothing but some of its fur left. Rats, ants, birds, mongooses had done a good job. We never noticed any stench though it was very warm.
The rat died in a trap. I put it up.
I sat at the terrace in the evening. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something with fur darted off. It was in the middle of a sentence, the direction was away from me, so I didn't do anything. I accepted the fact that either it was a rat or a tarantel.
A couple of days later it presented itself as a rat. It wanted to move in. It insisted. Five times that evening it ran towards me trying to reach the open door. I do not want to live with a rat. I'm afraid of rats. Like millions of other people I give in to an irrationel fear which is perhaps not a fear but more likely a deep detestation.
I put up the trap, it was caught the first night.
I woke up 3.30 am. It was raining heavily. The trap easily cuts off a childs toe so it was placed under a chair. Its eyes were open, its small feet relaxed. The whiskers were all intact. I sat in the rain for a while, kneeling beside the trap. I couldn't find my detestation and everything about it, me, the rat, the trap, the rain, the late hour, was awfully pathetic.