Norman

Into an old farmhouse next to a barn and surrounded by fields, when the weather cools in the fall, there is a mass migration of mice.  This marks the start of “mouse season” in my home.  To date I have a body count of 30.  I have even written a series of epitaphs whimsically documenting their demise.

Earlier this week, you can imagine my surprise when, after waking up and groggily shuffling into my kitchen, there was a mouse on the center of my pedestal table.  What to do?  The only capture possibility nearby was a Tupperware lettuce saver. But, using something used for food to get a mouse?  Geez, I’d be washing in steaming water for half an hour.  I approached the creature with malice in my eyes. Maybe I could scare him off; but, NO, as I drew near, he spoke! . . .

“We have issues that need to be addressed,” this rodent said aloud.

“You can talk?” I intoned, incredulously.

“You don’t know the half of it, it’s just that we have so little to talk to you about usually- but, like I say, we need to have some dialogue now.   By way of introduction, to show you I am not some run-of-the-mill, riff-raff mouse, I go by ‘Norman,’ and I am of the venerable Field clan.”

“Well,” said I, somewhat recovering from a talking mouse, “I can’t say as though I’m glad to meet you, but I’m Jerry, and what’s on your mind?”

“You know we chose your house as our winter abode. We migrate here for warmth and shelter and food until spring season, when we return to our pastures. We have no intention of becoming permanent residents like those church mice . No, we take pride in providing for ourselves,” Norman explained with mousey demeanor.

He went on, “We come in good faith and mean no harm. We make special effort to stay out of your way and, indeed, even out of sight.  We take little in our residence but space you do not use anyway, and food you would not eat. . .“

“Truth is sometimes a subjective term,” I interjected here, surprised to find myself reasoning with a mouse, and a somewhat uppity one at that.  “As I see it, you come uninvited into my personal space, and the belief that you eat only what I would not, you know as lie. Remember that banana cake I left on the counter one night under Saran Wrap, only to find it in the morning with the whole crust gnawed off?  Oh yeah, I didn’t eat it, but I intended to. . . if your ‘chompers’ would have left well enough alone.  And ungrateful as your tribe is, you then left your little chocolate sprinkle ‘turdettes’ everywhere. Ugh!”

“No need to get huffy, here” my indignant accuser squeaked in his fieldly accented voice. ( so uncultured. )

“I’m not huffy, I’m just telling you, you are unwanted in my spaces.”

Norman went on, “O.K. , but we are here, and while I have not the intellect of deduction, I discern you are somehow involved in the demise of my extended family. We note there are some delicious morsels on the premises that, when approached however cautiously, seem to end up being complicit in a horrible accident with a mortal end. This happens often”

“It’s called a ‘mouse trap,’ and that’s the purpose. Attraction and death.”

“How cruel,” Norman cried, “however can you sink to this level of behavior?”

“I can understand your suffering and not having any other place for shelter,” I indulged, “but we just cannot co-exist. It’s nature,” I speak, with half-hearted conviction.

“No, No, No,” a fervent Norman implores, “Mine were here long before yours and we never did you harm. Never.  Why we cannot get along is why I have chosen to plead. There must be accord somehow. “

“Norman, ( I have now sunk to addressing a mouse by name )  I feel your plight. I DO. But you know cats?  Cats eat mice.  They do. That’s been life as long as we both have known. Well, think of me as a big cat. Natural foes. Those “turdettes” are unreconcileable for me. And who knows where those little pink hands have been crawling around on.  GERMS!  Oh, My God! No, Norman, it isn’t to be.”

Head down but with resolve, Norman chokes, “ I am a mouse.  Always will be. This is what we do. Have you no compassion?  No place for some adjustment? No live and let live? “

“I will try, Norman, I will. But no guarantees.  I am grateful for our little talk. Thank you for your side of this. “

With this, Norman skittered off the table leaving three turdettes as a hostess gift before he disappeared into the crawl space under the sink.

 I reset the traps. The next morning I found another ‘catch’ in the jaws of my machine . Only this time it wasn’t ‘another,’ it was Norman, his head delicately poised under the bar, just short of the peanut butter dollop he was so looking forward to.

I felt genuinely sad, I tell you, I really did.

But a mouse is a mouse and those ‘turdettes’ are just unconscionable, bastard that I am.

-Jerry Wendt  2016 890 words