Dear Mouse,
You’ve probably been living in the basement your whole life,
and today wasn’t even too cold. The cat, Schwartz, was feeling lively and
caught you. I didn’t even know about you until I heard your peeps and squeaks
by the back door. Were you injured at
that point, or just protesting?
Anyway, my first error was calling the dogs. It was an
impulse. They found you with Schwartz and started the mad chase into the
bathroom and around the toilet. That was me, the one screaming. Why I screamed
I can’t say. I had pet rodents as a kid: mice, a hamster, a gerbil, a rat. I
picked them up and carried them around. They were my pets. Sometimes they got
loose and I had to catch them and put them back. I didn’t scream then. I must
have been a better person then, somehow. Well, it wasn’t a little screaming.
Sorry about the screaming.
Captain was the next one to pick you up and carry you
around. He was the one who got you wet, I think. But when I shouted at him he
dropped you and then Cherry snatched you up. She isn’t the quickest dog in the
house, owing to her age, but tonight she was the deadliest.
You died quickly, mouse, and Cherry guarded you for a long
time. She was very proud of what she’d done, and wouldn’t let anyone look at
you or smell you or take you. She didn’t seem interested in eating you, which I
would have let her do as the one who did the deed. Somehow, to my mind that
seemed fair. Cherry appeared a little confused by the situation. Instinct ruled
when she caught you and when she dispatched you, but after that she wasn’t
sure. She growled at Schwartz, even, and she never growls at Schwartz.
There was no question of burying you since it’s nothing but
ice outside right now. Maybe we could have left you out for the coyotes or the
foxes, but where should one leave such an offering? Alas, you went into the
trash.
You left a family behind, I’m sure. Schwartz is down there waiting
for the next one of you. This is how it is with cats and mice. He keeps his
cool, crouching quietly behind the boxes. He knows your habits, and makes a
plan. Y’all don’t live very long, do you, mice? Between the hardships of
weather and finding food, and then the cat or the foxes and hawks outside, life
for you must be harsh and brief. I haven’t had it easy lately either, what with
all the injustice in the world. But I have
a warm house, and food, and with any luck I shouldn’t have to watch predators
capture and eat my children.
Did you leave behind hopes and dreams, unfulfilled? Will
your family sigh over your promises unkept? Are they dividing your possessions
as I write this, or do they not yet know? Will they be left wondering whatever
happened to you? Maybe they heard the screams. I’m still sorry about the
screams.
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| Vizsla, with mouse |
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