mouse story

So speaking of perishing, I almost ran over a mouse on my way home. I don't know how I see these things while I'm driving, but I usually do and it usually complicates my life. I saw the dark mouse in the middle of the dark road and decided I had to save it or I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

In the time it took to park my car at the house and grab a paper towel out of the kitchen, the thought entered my mind that I shouldn't save it. Things I save tend to die. Also, I've been watching "Planet Earth" a lot the last few days and wondered if I'd be thwarting nature, or even God, to save something so obviously infantile and destined for destruction.

This is how the thought process always goes in these situations so I knew I'd still head down the hill, wannabe savior of feral doomed things.


Upon reaching the mouse, I wavered again. There was something wrong with it. It looked dopey, diseased, ill, and somewhat bigger than I expected. The streets weren't busy and the mouse was edging towards a better part of the road in a sort of beery haze and I figured it might be safe a while longer. I took a little jaunt to prepare myself for the impending salvation and was lured into a store by the promise of acrylic paint FOR SALE and momentarily forgot about the mouse.

Remembrance brought rushing, but, alas, too late. It was all road pancake mouse all across the intersection, his little spine spiraled and flattened into the unforgiving pavement, his long nose now just a long two-dimensional triangle.

And the curtains close on tragedy. Cue the nocturne in G minor.

Somewhere David Attenborough is narrating: "The rules that govern the cold and wet landscape of the north coast are harsh, the survivors few. With two more months of winter, it is unlikely that this small rodent would have survived anyway. We are left only with sympathy for the victim and respect for the predator."

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Today's story: Auctions & apartments & the county & yay

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Tonight's goals are very simple: edit, write, eat soup, sleep.