The Mouse Night

The mouse crept through the silent house in search of its nightly meal. Its ears pricked at the scream, causing it to stand in its hind legs to spot the source. When the body came crashing down, it scampered away with it's tiny heart beating fiercely.

From the safety of its hole, it poked its head out, its nose sniffing the air and its black eyes huge and wide. Dark liquid pooled out of the body on the floor, a body it was all too familiar with. Jane was what they called her, she was the same human who had told the other huge human to call the exterminator when she found it scampering through the kitchen cabinet. It had been spooked when the cabinet was suddenly opened and it ran through the adjoining cabinet and into the hole in the wall. She had frightened it and it, without even knowing, had frightened her too.

The other huge human, a male they called Steve, sat on the arm chair in the living room flipping through the pages of a large colourless paper, he listened to Jane whine without a hint of interest. The mouse rather liked this Steve, usually he would leave pieces of cheese on a wooded board at the entrance of some of the holes - Bep is what we shall name the mouse - Bep was grateful to Steve for leaving out food for it in the wooden boards and everytime it took the cheese, the board would make a sudden 'snap!' sound and Bep would scurry away knowing that the 'snap!' of the wooden boards was to alert Steve that it had taken the meal and Steve would come to pick up the empty board, waving it in the air a few times and his mouth would move. Bep wasn't familiar with human language but he understood some gestures and he knew that Steve's gesture meant that more food would be laid out. Bep loved this human.

Now in the dead of the night, with it's senses heightened, Bep remained in the hole with its head out, the black liquid had now spread out more and standing above the human it didn't really like were two other humans, one with a bit too much hair on his face around the mouth and absolutely nothing on the head. Bep thought this was unusual, the humans he had seen had hair the other way; on their heads and not around the mouth on the face.

This no haired human held a metal looking thing and Bep thought the metal heavy because the human held it with both hands and his eyes were on the female that laid unmoving on the floor. The other human was smaller, with hairs in the right places but he had tired it up so it looked like he had a tail on his head. Bep thought that these two humans were unusual. It saw the smaller human slap the no haired guy on the shoulder and his voice was high then he placed his hand on his head and walked away before turning to walk back.

The huge human without the hair threw the metal in his hands away, a look of surprise and shock was on his face as he looked at the woman, he also spoke but it came out shaky and in a whisper. The smaller human then yelled at the no haired man who quickly picked the metal and rubbed one end on his coat like he was trying to clean it.

The smaller guy then dropped the bag he was carrying and it jingled a bit when it came in contact with the floor. Pieces of paper flew out and Bep recognized the paper, it was common in the house and it had eaten the paper once. Jane had blown a fuse and furiously attacked it, throwing shoes, books and pillows at it before it escaped under the couch and into a hole. Bep didn't understand what the big deal was in chewing just a few green papers out of the many bundles stashed away in the wardrobe.

Bep watched keenly. The smaller human walked up to the larger, no haired human and grabbed his coat by the collar, shaking him violently before the large guy nodded and they both picked Jane up off the floor and walked out the door. Bep came out and went for one of the papers but no sooner had it bitten the paper than the floor flew open and the smaller human rushed in, Bep scurried away as the human picked up the bag and left. It remained in its hole for a while but they didn't come back and Bep went back to scavenging.

The afternoon of the next day, Bep noticed that two people dressed in blue came to the house. He noticed that they had a kind of pet, like a black mouse, stuck on their shoulder which they constantly talked to and surprisingly, it talked back. A few more people came but not all was dressed in the blue outfit.

Steve sat in his armchair beside another man in blue, but this time he wasn't flipping through that colorless large paper, neither was he drinking his usual black liquid from the brown cup, instead Steve was crying. Bep had never seen the huge man cry before. The tears from his eyes rolled down his cheek and soaked into the abundant hair on his face around his mouth. The man in blue seemed to console Steve and after a while they all left, the last man in blue gave Steve a small paper card and Steve nodded at what he said before the man in blue stepped out.

When he was sure they were gone, he wiped his face and placed the card on a table, he took off the coat he had on and Bep noticed the huge red stain on the inside of the coat. As Steve made his way up the stairs, the ray of sun from the windows bounced off his head which was void of hair and Bep couldn't help but wonder when he would come to place the cheese on the wooden boards in front of the holes again.