Motel Mouse

There’s a mouse in the bathroom. Unfortunately, I am also in the bathroom, and the door is closed, meaning the two of us are locked in here together. In my robe and pajamas, I frantically look around for a container as it scurries back and forth in the corner behind the toilet. The only thing close at hand is a hair dye mixing bowl, upside down on the laminate floor. It only takes a few meager attempts with the bowl for me to realize that it is much too small. I could’ve just opened the door to let it out, but that seemed counterintuitive to its eventual capture, and I didn’t want to deal with my roommate’s comments when I told them I let the mouse back into the house.

There wasn’t supposed to be a mouse in the first place. The apartment was supposed to be at least passably clean when we first moved in, but having arrived to my very first apartment to find piles and piles of garbage, some of which were taller than I was, both inside and outside the house, as well as painted over and calked shut windows, and a basement with a decaying couch and beer cans stacked and scattered around crumbling cement floor, and nothing surprises me anymore. Though, that didn’t stop me from screaming bloody murder when I first saw the mouse several days before, as it scrambled rapidly across the living room carpet, directly towards the open door of my bedroom, but I digress.

The next best, and only other, option seemed to be grabbing the trash can from right next to where she was hiding, sending her scurrying in circles as I pulled out the full bag of trash and set it in the bathtub, before flipping the empty can upside down and readying myself. I widen my stance, bend my knees, and stand with can held up, like a hitter up to bat, and just as scared as I used to be when it was my turn to swing. In middle school softball my reaction time was never fast enough, and often the ball would hit me, which was incredibly painful but did get me to first base, something my batting was generally not capable of.

Meanwhile, smacking at the wall and stomping at the floor to try and shepherd it toward the door where I’d have enough room to slam my open can over it, and my reaction time  has not gotten better. Everytime I go to attack, it flees in a split second back to its corner, far too fast for me to counter. It’s several minutes of this back and forth before I reluctantly acknowledge that this endeavor is not, and will not be, going any further. The mouse was simply too fast, catching it by hand would be impossible.

I stopped, at this point, still holding the trash can. The mouse also abruptly stopped, peeking out from beside the toilet, where it stood and stared straight back at me.

“What’re you gonna do?” I asked it, looking directly into its large black eyes. I couldn’t tell if it blinked back at me, but the more I looked at it, the more convinced I was of its need to survive.

“I don’t know what to do either. But you’re not supposed to be in here, and they wanna kill you.”

We stared at each other for a few more seconds, and I observed gray circles around her eyes, like she was tired. Her tail was almost cartoonish, or maybe I’d just never looked at a mouse this closely before. She was cute in a way I didn’t expect.

Then, she began creeping towards me. My hands tightened on the trashcan as she got closer. Suddenly, she dashed straight at me, making me jump backwards and watch in horror as she rapidly approached, before veering right and escaping through the vent next to me.

As soon as the pattering of her feet was gone, I breathed a sigh of relief, the tension dropping from my body in an instant. “Thank god that’s not my problem anymore.”