Two Mice
—
Brett Hymel Jr.
BEFORE THEY WERE IN LOVE, they fled from burning fields of sugarcane. Little fires smoldered in the irrigation pits like a hundred eyes. And there was a mansion over a dry bayou, which smelled like warmth.
The Brown One got in through a gap in the garage door molding and made his home behind the refrigerator. When he was very young, he had watched his mother get carried off by a hawk. It seemed to him that cruelty came out of nowhere, with its power to change everything.
The Lame One got in through a hole in the dryer vent. A bit of a miracle, since the dryer vent is set a foot and a half above the foundation of the home. The Lame One has a paw that dangles uselessly against her side. She limps along slow and chittering. She considers her life something blessed. “Thank you,” she says with her quivering breath, “Thank you.” Speaking to the universe, or other near spirits.
In the house, a paradise for mice. Warm, even in the cold winter, with plush, downy furniture and floors made of polished marble so sleek that two mice can see their own reflections in the tile. One evening, two mice were watching these selfsame reflections when they came suddenly face to face and, not expecting to find a creature of like kind, they were each of them momentarily stunned. The Brown One introduced himself first, with humor and a bow. “Nice to mouse you,” he said.
“Mice to make your acquaintance would be better,” the Lame One replied.
And they lived together, underneath the dryer.
At night they snuck from the wall to the pantry and found themselves goodies: pretzels and uncooked rice and delicious crumbling cookies. They would eat their fill and return to the dryer where they would fall asleep together, grinding down their teeth in little paroxysms of joy.
Then it got colder, and two mice saw the owner of the house return and he seemed to them to be a God-being, with expensive clothes and extravagant jewels and the sense of being very well-fed, which to a mouse is the greatest gift of all. Two mice watched him from afar, and felt indebted to this, the union of all living creatures, the fact that there was enough food to share, the revelation that coexistence could be had with so little issue.
One day the dryer came to life with a noise like hell. The Brown One pushed the Lame One ahead of him, helped her flee into the duct, and then they were refugees, hidden in the wall of the home. The wall was sometimes cold, sometimes hot, full of damp and decay, but these things were hardly noticed because love is its own source of comfort.
Then the Lame One was pregnant, and the Brown One took to bringing goodies from the pantry and feathers from the velvety pillows of the house. He fretted over every little circumstance. “A baby mouse is one of the most dangerous things to be,” he said.
But the Lame One shushed him and groomed his head and told him that worrying makes the struggle twice as hard.
One day the Brown One woke up to find her missing. He ran through the house in a panic, calling her name loudly. This was dusk and the sun was like a swollen orange rind in the French window. The Brown One searched for a long time and didn’t find her and then tore at his fur and, when he returned to the cold wall, she was lying there, nibbling on the end of a cookie she had been craving. They resolved to return to scouring the pantry together, to spend the rest of their lives never apart for a moment, because a second of absence is too long for an anxious mouse, and the cookies are too big for one mouse to carry.
The days slipped one into the other as they prepared for their children and each day saw them happier, more excited, willing to laugh at the impositions of this world, the hardness of living, because although they are only two mice, they are two mice together.
And later that week, after they were finally caught in the glue trap, the Brown One remembered those days like motes of dust in the glittering sun. His partner was heavy with the weight of what she was carrying, and she rested even her head in the thick glue that held them to the trap, and the glue stuck fast to her jaw so that she could hardly speak, could hardly even breathe. The Brown One comforted her in these hours of terror. “My life has been worth living, because of you,” he said, and many things like this, but words can’t do justice to death, and for a long time the only sound was her voice, softer than soft, saying, “Thank you, thank you,” and then, in the still and quiet night, the two of them simply were.
In the morning, the bejeweled hand of a diffident God will take up the heavy mallet, and their fate will hang over them. That ambulatory air is no burden—growing, in fact, sweeter by the minute. “That’s not very mice of him,” the Lame One will say. The Brown One agape, as if already struck. Puns—at a time like this! And then he will reply, ever so softly, “To take advantage of our squeakness.” From the pantry, the tinny sound of rodent laughter—music. In the taffy-pull eternity of those final seconds, two mice in sacred joy, joy taboo.
“Poor God,” two mice will murmur, “he has nobody half as sweet.” •
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Brett Hymel Jr. writes stories for bugs. These stories have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Subtropics, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere.
Website | Twitter | Instagram
The Brown One got in through a gap in the garage door molding and made his home behind the refrigerator. When he was very young, he had watched his mother get carried off by a hawk. It seemed to him that cruelty came out of nowhere, with its power to change everything.
The Lame One got in through a hole in the dryer vent. A bit of a miracle, since the dryer vent is set a foot and a half above the foundation of the home. The Lame One has a paw that dangles uselessly against her side. She limps along slow and chittering. She considers her life something blessed. “Thank you,” she says with her quivering breath, “Thank you.” Speaking to the universe, or other near spirits.
In the house, a paradise for mice. Warm, even in the cold winter, with plush, downy furniture and floors made of polished marble so sleek that two mice can see their own reflections in the tile. One evening, two mice were watching these selfsame reflections when they came suddenly face to face and, not expecting to find a creature of like kind, they were each of them momentarily stunned. The Brown One introduced himself first, with humor and a bow. “Nice to mouse you,” he said.
“Mice to make your acquaintance would be better,” the Lame One replied.
And they lived together, underneath the dryer.
At night they snuck from the wall to the pantry and found themselves goodies: pretzels and uncooked rice and delicious crumbling cookies. They would eat their fill and return to the dryer where they would fall asleep together, grinding down their teeth in little paroxysms of joy.
Then it got colder, and two mice saw the owner of the house return and he seemed to them to be a God-being, with expensive clothes and extravagant jewels and the sense of being very well-fed, which to a mouse is the greatest gift of all. Two mice watched him from afar, and felt indebted to this, the union of all living creatures, the fact that there was enough food to share, the revelation that coexistence could be had with so little issue.
One day the dryer came to life with a noise like hell. The Brown One pushed the Lame One ahead of him, helped her flee into the duct, and then they were refugees, hidden in the wall of the home. The wall was sometimes cold, sometimes hot, full of damp and decay, but these things were hardly noticed because love is its own source of comfort.
Then the Lame One was pregnant, and the Brown One took to bringing goodies from the pantry and feathers from the velvety pillows of the house. He fretted over every little circumstance. “A baby mouse is one of the most dangerous things to be,” he said.
But the Lame One shushed him and groomed his head and told him that worrying makes the struggle twice as hard.
One day the Brown One woke up to find her missing. He ran through the house in a panic, calling her name loudly. This was dusk and the sun was like a swollen orange rind in the French window. The Brown One searched for a long time and didn’t find her and then tore at his fur and, when he returned to the cold wall, she was lying there, nibbling on the end of a cookie she had been craving. They resolved to return to scouring the pantry together, to spend the rest of their lives never apart for a moment, because a second of absence is too long for an anxious mouse, and the cookies are too big for one mouse to carry.
The days slipped one into the other as they prepared for their children and each day saw them happier, more excited, willing to laugh at the impositions of this world, the hardness of living, because although they are only two mice, they are two mice together.
And later that week, after they were finally caught in the glue trap, the Brown One remembered those days like motes of dust in the glittering sun. His partner was heavy with the weight of what she was carrying, and she rested even her head in the thick glue that held them to the trap, and the glue stuck fast to her jaw so that she could hardly speak, could hardly even breathe. The Brown One comforted her in these hours of terror. “My life has been worth living, because of you,” he said, and many things like this, but words can’t do justice to death, and for a long time the only sound was her voice, softer than soft, saying, “Thank you, thank you,” and then, in the still and quiet night, the two of them simply were.
In the morning, the bejeweled hand of a diffident God will take up the heavy mallet, and their fate will hang over them. That ambulatory air is no burden—growing, in fact, sweeter by the minute. “That’s not very mice of him,” the Lame One will say. The Brown One agape, as if already struck. Puns—at a time like this! And then he will reply, ever so softly, “To take advantage of our squeakness.” From the pantry, the tinny sound of rodent laughter—music. In the taffy-pull eternity of those final seconds, two mice in sacred joy, joy taboo.
“Poor God,” two mice will murmur, “he has nobody half as sweet.” •
Brett Hymel Jr. writes stories for bugs. These stories have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Subtropics, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere.
Website | Twitter | Instagram