Dante's Equation*

I'm reading this book in which the discovery of a 'wave form' equation (which I believe is supposed to be a mathematical representation of something to do with the fabric of the universe) and it's subsequent, secret testing by two not very sensible scientists in a spare basement underneath the university where they ought to be working properly and above ground, leads to an unbalancing of the life/death, good/evil, growth/decay behaviour of normal matter.**
It's not very good, in fact the bit I've got to is getting a bit tedious as the protagonists are all carefully fitted into various character types as described in the Torah (after a Jewish Rabbi spent too much time performing some kind of sudoku/word search rituals on it...Kabbalism...is that right)? And now they've all been transposed into universes which fit their character types and are doggedly pursuing their own different kinds of damnation (all except the nice guy who fell into the same universe as the nuttier scientist with whom he is in love, which is why he carried on assisting with the foolish, matter-disturbing research).
I supppose they must all be about to discover some way of disturbing matter again so they can all get back to their own world though it's going to take some heavy plot manipulation to get them all to find the necessary er, equations or kabbalistic thingies to get home.

Anyway, As I said recently, we had a plague of flies. Then an invasion of ants.
Today *curses, shudders and utterances of outrage* I surprised a rat in the larder. It surprised me a bit, too.

Is the balance of the universe disturbed?
Has somebody in the vicinity been surreptitiously testing a way of affecting the waves of matter.
Is it because I am reading this book?

Well if I'm about to be translated into another dimension, I'll try and let you all know about it. I just hope my personal version of hell contains laptops with internet access.

And meanwhile I'm looking for wire mesh (so we can have the larder window open) and rat traps.***

A moorhen and a toy duck...Oh no, it's a real mandarin duck!
A slightly mad looking Golden Pheasant
Stormy sky

**It's not very convincing and it's not even very confusing which would have been fine...I'm not a scientist so I'm perfectly content to be confused by the scientific underpinning to a good SF novel but I don't like being unconvinced.
***humane I suppose, though I do wonder why we should treat rats as if they were humans. wouldn't it be more considerate to treat them as if we were rats?

I don't think this old tree is bothered about rats though it may object to having its matter waved.

Update: Actually the people in the book turned out quite well. But the cats are taking a predatory interest in the area around the boiler so I think the rat is still there.
Backdate: I forgot to mention the power cut didn't I. well there was a power cut too...WHILE I WAS READING THE BOOK!
Well I suppose it would be more accurate to say I read a bit of it during the power cut. But you can't create really daft cause and effect nonsense without being a bit flexible about the order in which they happen