12 May 4705 - Humane Trap

A contradiction in terms, I'm sure.

Little did any of you know, there was a mouse who lived in this house. I had seen her outside once, and then later running about inside. If you had seen her too, you would probably understand why I didn't mind her being around. She ate insects, lived alone, and stayed very quiet. She was about twenty centimeters long from snout to tail, and incredibly cute.
I knew it was not a good idea to harbor animals in the house, but it would break my heart to get a trap and kill her. I wanted to let her live around here a little longer, and then get a humane trap and release her back into the wild, where she probably could have eaten better, found a mate, gone country again and died naturally in a few months or however long she had.

Well TS, love. Nature had other plans.

I was cleaning the dishes this morning when I noticed a pickle or something floating in one of the basins I had left to soak. I admit, I could have cleaned up earlier, but between having everyone over Thursday and working all day Friday and then having D&D after, I hadn't really found effort to clean up (the time was there well enough).
I got my glasses on and took a closer look and discovered where the mouse had gone. In a sense, to mouse heaven. In another sense, I had a drowned animal in my dishes. That's why I can report her length and sex with accuracy, but you probably had your doubts when I began all this with "lived" in the past tense.
It was probably not a pleasant or quick death. She would have had to slip in, splash, float for awhile, swim looking for an exit, struggle and ultimately give in to the ocean she was in. Drowning is painful, and her eyes were open for the end, probably still writhing in pain.

Who knew? I certainly never thought twice about leaving my dishes around for two days. I never thought the act would have me murder a cute animal. I felt a great deal of remorse for the beast. Still wild and free, living at my side and under my feet. Small and quiet and efficient. Now simply small and silent.

What could I do? I hoisted the corpse out by the tail, gave a brief forensic study, and placed her in a sandwich bag and threw the bag in the trash. Having an open corpse in the trash invites all kinds of nasties, and I can only imagine what one of my mates would say when he discovered that funky smell coming from the trash is the corpse of a formerly cute beast.

I can't imagine this would happen with any regularity, but having a humane trap sitting about would probably not hurt my negative space. It is something a witch doctor should have.

Update: Usually I don't receive portents. In fact I never have. My only faculty for the scrying part of witch-doctory has been my own quirky memory. This event, however, bears a curious collection of coincidental similarities to something else I heard about. If that is the case, I may have already failed, and things are about to get much, much worse.
You may have seen buildings catch fire, but have you ever seen a family catch fire? I curse my imagination for seeing the connections. It will all be fine. I'm totally wrong on this one. I'll hear the sober-but-good news tomorrow, and then I can get back to half-remembering hazy experiences from other people's futures and meeting some of the house ghosts in my dreams.
Let me be wrong.

Back to News