Thoughts about a small friend

[Gwaihir]

First we found the signs--turds in the rice bag. We moved the rice and it never did eat anything of ours again. Then finally we saw him. Husband saw him first. From his desk he heard the scritch-scratching of him eating. When I came to see, it left like a shot. I couldn't hear the scratching from over at my desk but gradually I learned to avoid the squeaky boards and walk quietly. Finally I saw our mouse!

 

It was grey, tiny, and very cute with a tail trailing behind at least as long as the rest of his body. When we saw him, he was usually coming out from under the refrigerator so we assumed he had a hole under there and hoped he wasn't eating the wiring. One time I saw him eating and (when my sister came to see) dashing under the radiator. Then, less than a minute later we re-enacted the whole performance. Sister still didn't get to see our house-mouse but I was always happy to see its face. In fact, I wondered if we had two Instead of one mouse who was madly circling our house (from fridge to heater to fridge to heater) perhaps we had two who were both under the heater? We looked under the heater and found no mouse but there was a hole.

 

At the time I hoped we didn't have two mice because one is a friend but two is a whole tribe and they were bound to become too many. Now I hope we had two though because of today. I was putting on my shoes to get ready for work. (Ended up going to work in the wrong shoes, too because, I got so distracted.) Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bit of trash under the coffee table and thought "My, that kleenex looks remarkably like a mouse. Still, I was sure it was just a kleenex until I looked again. There, small as ever but splayed out like a small rodent-at-rest I saw our friend. Up close he was grey-brown more than grey but he was definitely our house-mouse. I was glad to see him up close and I stroked him but he was quite obviously dead, too. I called Sister and Husband. Husband smiled and then went back to finish whatever he'd been doing but Sister stopped and looked for a while. She doesn't like death at all (squealed when the guinea pig died and made mom hide him so that she wouldn't have to see it until it was buried, next morning.) So, I expected her to shudder when I patted house-mouse but she didn't. She grabbed a kleenex and patted him through the kleenex. I didn't comment on how un-rewarding that activity must have been but I did say how very soft its fur was. Much softer than our guinea pigs' fur had been. When I turned around to ask Husband about disposal, (not the garbage! We both agreed on that.) she shyly patted house-mouse, without the kleenex. I smiled and we agreed to put him under the shrubbery. I hurriedly put on the wrong shoes (they do match okay) and rushed to work; later than I'd expected, and Husband put house-mouse under the right hand bush, outside.

I don't really know how it lived and we wonder how it died but at least it's back in nature now. It can decompose and feed the future, do things that mice are supposed to do after death, as are we all. At least Sister got to see him, just too bad he died first.