The Real Mouse

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?