Deep
Philosophy in Shallow
Domestic Waters
I’ve
written about mice before.
But that was a computer mouse—a little oval gadget in a plastic
shell. Here
I’ll speak of a living, genuine mouse, a rodent. A tiny gray
creature with a
long tail. Everyone knows them.
Early one
morning, I went to the
kitchen to prepare for my morning stretching and walking
routine. I’d stopped
jogging—too taxing, sometimes my heart would ache.
I’d just
pulled on my sweatpants
when I heard a click.
Clearly, the mousetrap. Nothing else in the kitchen could make
that sound. I
quickly looked behind the fridge where the trap sat. It had
sprung, and beside
it, twitching convulsively, lay a stunned mouse.
Still
alive, the little beast! I
had to finish it off. But how? A dustpan hung on the wall
nearby. I grabbed it,
intending to dispatch the mouse and transport it to the trash
bin. No such
luck! The mouse had scrambled right under the fridge; only the
tip of its tail
stuck out. I tried pinning the tail with the dustpan to drag the
creature out.
Useless. The mouse fought desperately for its life, wriggled
violently, and
finally vanished under the fridge into a crack barely over a
centimeter wide. Gone...
Mice aren’t stupid. They want to live.
What a
nuisance! Why do I need
uninvited housemates? I didn’t ask them! One evening, settling
into bed with an
Agatha Christie story collection, I saw in horror... a mouse on
my pillow. My
first thought: Had I gone mad? Or had I overdone the rowanberry
brandy tincture
earlier? Just in case, I baited a mousetrap and slid it under
the bed. The next
morning, it presented me with the uninvited guest. Or guestess?
Who can tell
their gender!
Jokes
aside, a mouse isn’t like a
car or computer. You can’t build one with your hands. It’s a
creature of God. A
mammal. Just like a tiger, an elephant, even a whale. A mouse
has a heart,
lungs, kidneys, genitals. A male mouse (a buck?) performs the
sexual act with a
female mouse, like a man with a woman. Pregnancy happens, then
birth. Just like
humans. Mice even have a courtship period where the male emits
sounds inaudible
to humans, akin to love lyrics, attracting the female. The
mouse’s brain, the
size of half a pea, is functionally identical to ours. Like
humans, mice want
to live (in comfort and safety), procreate, and enjoy life.
But what
if it dies under the
fridge? Will it stink? I had to move the fridge and check the
floor beneath.
The huge fridge was packed with food. Everything had to come
out. So much for
morning exercise... My wife and I heaved the fridge aside
together. Its back
was horrifically dusty. I noticed cut and soldered tubes
sticking out of the
compressor, their ends covered in suspicious green corrosion.
Last year, I’d
thought our fridge’s cooling cycle ran too long; it rarely
switched off. I
called a repairman (a thick-lipped, ginger kid showed up,
looking like a punk
and, it turned out, working like one too). He cut out part of
the coolant line,
soldered the ends (which had now oxidized), charged us a hefty
sum, and left.
After this "repair," the fridge switched off even less. It
practically runs nonstop now. What the hell did you do, you
ginger bastard?
Hack job! Scoundrel! Utter swine! You mutilated our fridge! I’m
a pensioner.
Buying a new fridge is beyond me. My wife’s and my pensions are
barely enough
to avoid starving. We are Russia’s poor. But I try to eat well.
And I seem to
manage. In the morning, I eat two walnuts, half a banana, a bowl
of buckwheat or
oatmeal porridge. Sometimes an egg. I swallow my hypertension
pill and drink
coffee. After the Soviet Army slop, practically swill, I’m not
picky about food
at all.
I set out
for my walk very late.
Heading to the sports ground, I wondered—where would I get money
when the
fridge soon failed? I exercised, huffing without much
enthusiasm, driven only
by necessity.
Returning
home, I baited the
mousetrap with a piece of cheese. I set the trap in a new spot,
behind the
cupboard. The next morning, the trap’s iron bar clamped down
firmly on the
mouse’s bloodied head.
And so I
ended the life of one of
God’s creatures. I didn’t create it. But I killed it. Did I do
right? Did I
have the right? Who can answer?
