The Mouse and the Lion
by Mus musculus, the common house mouse
‘Twas an early-October eve in Chicagoland…
With the lights out it’s a slow passage through the space that a small hole opened upon behind a dresser that is bolted against the wall. The small, gray – nearly tan mouse; Mus musculus if you must know – not that the mouse would know or even care of the nomenclature it was stuck with. On this night it is scounging for food, but before it settled upon a larger than hoped for (if a common mouse has the ability to hope – and if we may be excused for our anthropomorphisms) ort of chocolate chip cookie in a the brown and blue wrapper (which caused confusion for the mouse, with its wheat stalk decoration), our friend the Mus climbed through a curved shape of fabric lying on the floor that you or I would recognize as a brassiere. The mouse paused, sniffed and wrinkled its nose at a mixture of odors that were both familiar and quite disturbing, in a floral kind of a way. Upon contemplating the possibility of bedding material and taking one more sniff and deciding not, the mouse made its way to the prize. Sweet and salty, the chocolate giving the mouse a twitchy burst of awareness. The gray-nearly tan house mouse went to move to the next ort when a noise behind it caused it to stop dead in its tracks.
A loud BANG… a large object tossed across the room – bursting open and spilling its contents on the floor, including a partially eaten granola bar… and then… the light – filling the room and exposing the mouse in the open. In a split second - that was more like a nanosecond – but for the mouse seemed an eternity, our friend Mus musculus frozen in terror and torn with temptation by the sight of the oat-laden granola bar – a Nature Valley Oats ‘N Honey bar if you must know; it was the young woman who followed the exploded object (you’d recognize it as her purse – but what does a mouse know of purses) into the room’s grandfather’s favorite – not that she knew him much, his dying when she was but 2 – her mother and uncle sharing this family vice with her. As the young woman bent to pick up her phone from the mess that was her purse, the mouse saw a chance and bolted for a pile of clothes, climbed to the top, hopped onto a desk and hid behind a curtain framing the cluttered desk.
She walked to the desk and put her phone down, began to sit – then stood and walked over for the granola bar, took two steps back towards the desk and then returned for one last item – a notebook, then she sat. Our poor friend backed further into the curtains hiding silently – but nose twitching in every direction, mouth salivating from the temptation that was now so close, yet unaccesable. From the other side of the curtain – the side where the sweet fragrance of Honey & Oats wafted, came a scratching sound that drew our little gray – nearly tan friend’s attention from the overwhelming smell. It crept to the curtain’s edge and carefully peeked around at the woman – head down, with some stick in her hand that she was scratching on what you’d recognize as the notebook. Now, most Mus musculus are incapable of reading – and our friend is amongst those; frankly, none of them can read – but the point is they can’t read lips, either, but if he could read lips, he would see that she was muttering to herself. ‘I hate this stuff’ and ‘Why do I have to take this BS class’ and ‘Why did mom make me come here – I hate this place’ and then she forcefully closed the notebook and threw it across and room – scaring the little house mouse back into the shadows of the curtains – screaming at it as it took flight ‘Why are you making me take this crap Uncle Willie?!?!?’
She turned and picked up the granola bar and took a bite – dropping it back on the desk, crumbs flying – then grabbed her phone and walked over to the bed. The poor Mus could smell the fragments and the tease was immense. It crawled to the edge of the curtain again. It goes without saying that this little creature would have no idea what the young woman was doing – much lease understand the concept of a phone – but it did understand that there were delicious crumbs to be had. Nose twitching it looked across the room and saw that the young woman was engrossed in something and so it took its chances and silently hopped onto the desk, scuttling over to the granola bar surrounded by crumbs. Our friend gobbled the first itty ort and then the second bitty ort – and as it moved towards a more sizebale bit of Honey & Oats there was a new noise…
…knock…knock…knock…
The young woman on the bed looked up – right at the mouse – but looked through the Mus musculus that was in plain view on the desk. She rose and turned – and the house mouse lept into the air and towards the floor, racing towards the brassiere – only to stop dead in it’s tracks as the young woman bent to pick it up and toss it into what we would recognize as a closet. She never saw the mouse – her attention distracted as she opened the door.
“Oh… it’s you.” If the mouse could only understand. Ditto the response, “Yup. We need to talk.”
The older gentleman at the door you’d recognize if you laid eyes on him - though the only thing the gray – nearly tan mouse had to go with was an instinctual sense of familiarity, crossed to the desk and sat down while the young woman sat on the floor against her bed – once more staring at our friend, Mus musculus; no, through the mouse, as she listened intenty – an action the mouse did understand, for she sat attentive and pensive, much as the mouse did as it contemplated the orts of cookie and granola. What the mouse also understood was that it was not comfortable with the young woman staring at him – he felt threatened, unable to recognize the conceptual idea of ‘staring through’ an object. The young woman might as well have been a Lion, patiently studying her prey before moving quickly to apprehend and dispose of it. The mouse remained frozen – knowing that even the slightest twitch would would break the spell and the predator would strike.
This Lion was prepared to strike, but her prey was not the mouse – despite our gray – nearly tan friend’s interpretation of the cirscumstances. Had the mouse had an ounce of language shared with the two occupants of the room, he’d have thought they were discussing spiders when the young woman firmly spoke “Cut Him!” – her voice suddenly loud and threatening, her gaze having shifted from the mouse to the gentleman seated across from her. He nodded his head – she’d understand the unspoken language that was foreign to our eavesdropping rodent friend. The man seated stood and walked towards the woman and handed her a thin object that looked to the mouse as glass, and as she turned her attention to it all she could do is groan – a guttural sound the mouse recognized, a warning sign from the Lion that caused our friend to squeeze deeper into the shadows it hid within, “It was that bad?” Her companion in this moment grunted.
The Mus musculus would never follow the conversation that commenced, the Lion and the gentleman exchanging comments that could have been from an economics class that a mouse would never take – but the Lion was all too familiar with – to her great displeasure.
And then, the Lion spotted the mouse. It twitched, deciding it was time to run for it – to head back to it’s hole in the wall – it bolted as a shoe flew through the air, in the gray – nearly tan mouse’s direction – striking the wall while missing it’s target, as the Lion shrieked, the last word of which striking our friend’s ear in a ‘may as well be deaf-like manner’, “… matchbox!”
