Pizza Delivery

Aroha Witinitara (they/them) 

I’m walking home after a long day at uni. It's 6pm and it's winter so it feels like the middle of the night. The Kelburn street is skinny with only enough space for one car at a time and has sharp corners that are difficult to see around. The street is full of old builds with draughty bay windows and high ceilings that gobble up precious heat in winter. The old trees throwing shadows over the houses don’t help with the heat situation, but they do attract the birds, which is nice. I’m grateful that the street is empty, so I can huff and puff as much as I like as I fight through the uphill walk without feeling embarrassed. My place is so close now, just around the next bend. 

Before I get there, the street is flooded with light and a Honda Fit, with a paint job so yellow it looks like it’s glowing, confidently zooms up the road. The car pulls over in front of me. A young man steps out with a green pizza box. His gaze is angled down at his cellphone, which blasts his face with blue light and carves dark shadows under his eyes. He steps out onto the road without looking up. He doesn't stop to turn off the engine or the headlights, so the car sits by the curb blaring its light and noise into the street. 

He scurries around the corner. I do wonder if he’s headed up to my flat, but he stops a bit short and turns to the path beside it, the one that goes up to the neighbors. That's unfortunate for him; the walkway to their place is a steep dirt path riddled with holes that've been getting bigger each month. The driver checks his phone, looks at the number on the mailbox. His shoulders slump a little deeper. 

Just as he’s about to head up, something slithers out of the bushes and plops down onto the path. The rat is an absolute unit, one of the biggest I've seen in my three years of living here. The trunk of its body is so girthy, I imagine I'd have a hard time getting my hand around it. It has a long tail, like a flesh-coloured jelly snake, and wiry fur like a dog. The rat turns its head toward us, pulls its lips back, bares its big square teeth. 

We wait a few seconds, expecting it to move on by itself. The rat remains in the way. The delivery driver stomps his foot, just in front of the rat’s face. The rat retaliates by squaring up. It rises up on its hind legs and spreads its arms wide. All the fur on its body stands up. It jerks, jutting its head forward as if to say, You wanna go??? 

Even though I'm on the other side of the road, I instinctively take a step back. The delivery driver falls over, his backside landing in the dark, damp concrete. The pizza flies forward, out of his hands, and lands at the rat’s feet. The rat mounts its cardboard prize. The driver scrambles backward as he gets to his feet, abandoning the pizza and retreating to his car. He notices me staring just as he reaches the door. 

“I don’t get paid enough to deal with this,” he explains. 

Rat reaches underneath the cardboard tent and pulls out a slice with his little hands. He stops to lick the sauce off them with his soft pink tongue. He climbs on top of the slice, settling into the stuffed crust like it's a couch. He pulls a greasy pepperoni onto his lap. I watch him devour the entire thing. There’s oil smeared all over his face, tomato sauce dribbled down his body, and he looks like he’s having a marvelous time.