Port Sturm und Drang, A Rainy Pie Rat Story

In one sense, it was a quiet day in Port Sturm und Drang. 

 ( Sturm und Drang comes from German, where it literally means "storm and stress." Although it’s now a generic synonym of "turmoil," the term was originally used in English to identify a late 18th-century German literary movement whose works were filled with rousing action and high emotionalism, and often dealt with an individual rebelling against the injustices of society. The movement took its name from the 1776 play Sturm und Drang, a work by one of its proponents, dramatist and novelist Friedrich von Klinger. Although the literary movement was well known in Germany in the late 1700s, the term "Sturm und Drang" didn’t appear in English prose until the mid-1800s.)

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It had always been known as Port Stormalong until a contingent of pie-making Germans moved into town. At first all was serene, pies being always a welcome addition to any town. The business was a great success.  All the city crowded in to buy pies, which were fairly priced and quite succulent.

The winter was a rainy one.  The snow that had fallen earlier in the year, like three weeks before, was all melting and rolling down hill, filling the rivers and flooding the banks.  The fields were awash.  Only the residue of crops shown visibly above the water.  It was grey.  Grey and dim.

The ah, sturm sewers, in town had not been cleaned since the spring before and they were full of stuff.  They all filled up with rain and then overflowed.  The alleys were full of deep puddles.  Alien streams ran down the streets.

The rats came up out of the sewers.  Rats are always hungry and their natural diet of random garbage was in jeopardy.

Frank A. Kafka was a German pie baker.  His specialities were Pecan, Pumpkin, Apple and Goose Berry.  The rats began to observe his activities through the welcoming glass doorway with gimlet eyes and muttered remarks among themselves.

The Kafka Bäckerei was in an old building that dated to just after the Great Port Stormalong fire of 1893, so it was brick built, but nothing special. There were flaws. Old buildings are not always rat-proof.

Inside, it was pretty nice.  The old structure had been removed and tables had been set up. Very welcoming. There were real flowers in vases on the tables and cheery napkins and such.

Down in the kitchen, in the back of the building presided Frank A. K. among great bats of fancy lard, great fifty pound sacks of soft white wheat flour, also sugar, spices and the many materials  of his work, nuts, fruits and so on.  He was there every weekday and Saturday morning at 3 AM ratcheting up the pie works.  Now, not all of the pies were sold each day.  There were always a few left out on a big oaken table which was about 4x8 feet in size.  In this case there were two Pecan, four Pumpkin, and a Goose Berry.  Oh, there were two Apple pies in addition.

There was a basement.  Oh dear.  A very old basement.  No one really went down there.  Bits and pieces of old Port Stormalong rested there alone. There were old advertising signs and mysterious forgotten boxes. There also happened to be a slight opening right above the floor of about three inches in diameter.

Outside, in the distance.... the wind began to howl.  A grey mob was gathering in the alleyway.  Furtive, thrumming bodies shifted position constantly.  The scent of pie was on the air.  Since it was still winter, it was already getting dark and Frank had gone home to his Gerta and Willi and Beula.

Feltaway, bravest of rats, was chosen to go in.  He squeezed his soft warm self through the little hole.  Ah, there were stairs!  He followed his nose up to the kitchen.  I am not sure how he got in through the door, maybe it was a jar. haha.  He scurried across the floor and beheld the table!  No problem.  Working together, the rats could shove something to climb up against the oaken table and the pies!  A chair would work fine.

Down he went, out the little hole and told the tale.  In came something like 47 rats, young and old, Mr. and Mrs. and many young things.  Like a grey wave, up the stairs they went, through the basement door and into the very kitchen of Frank A. Kafka. It was terrible.  I hesitate to even describe the carnage.

Well, it was a blood bath, so to speak.  Pecans were savagely devoured.  Pastry went everywhere.  Apples and pumpkin custard were snapped out of their shelly containers. Goose Berries rolled about and were swallowed whole.  Stickiness covered rats and table.  Rats dropped plumply off the table and ran for the basement stairs after all the pies had been eaten.  A trail of sweet juice led downstairs.

Outside the wind blew cold rain up against the old brick building.  Rats scattered, determining to come again, deep in their ratty hearts.  The river planes continued to flood.  The year turned creakily on its axle and spring was many weeks away.

Frank and his one helper, Aloise, had a hell of a mess to clean up in the morning.  But the rats had left a great big clue as to where the ingress had been and he plugged it up with a bit of concrete mix.  He never told anyone.  Would you?  All was cleansed anew and they set out making pies again.

Rats are slippery, but they fool NO ONE.  They never got one other bite of Frank's pies and no one was the wiser in Port Sturn und Drang to this very day. This is a true report, and no one can gainsay it!