Mouse

The mouse lived under a wooden house; he lived all by himself between dirt, stones and broken glass. He lived an easy life that consisted of sleeping, eating and hiding from the cat. He hated that cat as much as his little being allowed him to, not a day went by without the cat tormenting him. If the mouse was hungry, the cat chased him all around the kitchen, if he fancied a little ray of sun the cat made sure to steal it from him. If the mouse was thirsty, the cat patiently waited by the bowl to hunt the mouse down. Even when the cat was exhausted and sleeping like an angel the thought of waking him up terrorised the living hell out of the mouse. He didn’t feel free to leave, to sneeze, to sing or to snack since the shadow of the cat followed his every step.

The mouse spent days and hours trying to outsmart the cat: first, he locked the cat outside, but Miss Dolores heard him meowing in the middle of the night and let him in. Then he thought of disappearing him: he once saw the cat scream, run and hurt because a glass of water fell on his furry skin, so in his little mouse mind, the cat was afraid of the water because it would make him disappear. With this new knowledge he mastered a plan to make the cat fall in the bathtub, however this only made the cat drown in rage. He chased the mouse for 2 hours straight; for a moment the mouse thought he would catch him. His third plan consisted of tricking the cat to leave into the woods, but the mouse underestimated the intelligence of the cat.

One sleepless night when he thought he’d figured out the perfect plan to get rid of the cat, the door opened and an air blast disturbed his concentration. Miss Dolores yelled, but the mouse couldn’t identify whether it was a scream of danger or excitement. He finally came close enough to see Damian, Miss Dolores’s son, holding a cage with a living creature inside of it. The poor winged creature flew, trying to get out of that jail, til it knew no force would be able to break him free. Damian left the cage on the coffee table next to the sofa and went straight to the kitchen for a warm cup of tea. Miss Dolores followed him and grabbed two large cups. On the other side of the room stood the cat, amazed and threatened by this unknown being. He came close, careful to not disturb the creature. It was the most beautiful being he’d ever seen. For three nights and four days the cat stood in front of the winged creature, guarding it from outer threats. The mouse could not believe his eyes. This was his ticket to a free life. The next days the mouse left the house, returned, stole food from the kitchen, drank water from the cat’s bowl and explored the house without being disturbed. Blessed be the winged creature that has come into my life, he said to himself - and a smile followed a confused expression. The mouse felt angry at himself, all he ever wanted in life was the cat to leave him be, and now that it finally happened, he felt incomplete.

The mouse stopped eating, drinking and sleeping since there was no reason to, his life had no reason to be. Ever since the cat fell for the winged creature, he found no motivation to move on and explore his new lonely life. He felt incomplete, and the realisation of that made him fall hard on the ground. For days he could not move a single muscle, he drowned in the tears that were unable to leave his eyes and little by little his body became inflated with water. The mouse knew those were his last moments, but the pain of his lungs was nothing compared to the ache of his heart. So before he took his last breath, he stood up and made his way to the living room. The cat and the mouse stared at each other for a second. Their eyes talked to each other in peace and at last the mouse gave in to gravity, leaving a black button instead of a corpse. The cat was calmed, but felt in deep melancholy. He picked up the button and carefully placed it inside the cage. And from that day on the cat guarded the winged creature and the button till the end of his days.