A Rat Surfs the Flood in the Philippines, and It's the Best Symbol of 2020 I've Seen - Except One

If I can compare 2020 to a tragic flood (and I believe I can), an occurrence in the Philippines offers a perfect symbol of life at the moment.

Near Manila, a little guy (or girl, or non-binary individual) recently served up an inspiring scene.

On November 14th, a deadly storm struck Marikina City in the Metro Manila area.

The water line rose to punishing heights.

With the wretched rain manifesting a 6-ft pool of mud and mayhem, how would all survive?

How indeed, particularly those not even 10 inches tall…

Amid the treachery, a little lone scrapper surfaced.

And his sight has now gone viral, its spectacle a profound punch to the punim amid our presently punishing political and pandemic’d plight.

Ladies and gentlemen, to borrow from the boob tube, This is Us:

Or…I hope it is.

With the year appropriately wrapping up courtesy of an election taking its sweet and sordid time, having endured all manner of insanity for the last several months, we’re swamped.

The showers of something also starting with those first two letters have served up a planet-plunging virus, contemporarily unprecedented racial upheaval, revolutionary street violence, colossal public theft, criminal haircuts, a defunding of security for the sake of that very thing, cities on fire, anarchical shootings, the criminalization of congregants, injustice in the name of justice, a presidential impeachment, the ascendance of Karen, the near-extinction of exposed noses and mouths, the death of date night at the movies, a stock market crash, thuggery against Thanksgiving, the nesting of the nation’s first murder hornets, and news narratives abandoning any and all pretense of news.

And in the rat race for survival, we’ve all searched for some saving grace.

This year has flooded us, and we’ve flopped and floundered in need of anything that floats.

One little fella in the Philipines feels our pain.

And he’s an inspiration — proof that we may just survive.

We’re wet from the wild and cold from the chaos and starving for normalcy. But a rescue raft just may be waiting.

Let’s hope it is.

For more on our mousey reminder, here’s the Daily Mail:

Onlookers watched in astonishment as the creature rode the torrent along the street, where it is believed to have eventually clambered onto a rooftop.

“He’s a survivor,” said Yamzon Santos, a resident stranded in the floods.

“He looks so cold and he’s shivering but he’s very smart.”

[Y]amzon added: “When we saw the floating rat, we were amazed at its survival instincts.

“Rats can cause diseases such as leptospirosis but we didn’t hurt it because we thought it was especially gifted. Who am I to do something bad to the rat?

“That poor little creature only wanted to survive. It made me realised that every living creature wants to be saved in a natural calamity.”

Don’t we all.

Lordy, don’t we all.

Of course, despite the riveting sight of our rodent survivalist, where an emblem for the entire year’s concerned, there remains one component of 2020 that simply can’t be beat.

If there’s a more solid symbol of what the last 11 months have wrought, I surely don’t know what it is.

Honestly, this says it all: