It
made a nest without me seeing and slept for forty-eight hours. My
skin was the sheet on which it lay, my collarbone its pillow and my
layers of clothing its bedclothes. In sleep, its eyes (and I presume
it was in possession of a pair) were closed – I never saw them open
nor in dreaming flutter; when I checked beneath the covers its heart
was the only part that winked at me. A tiny heart which at its centre
flashed green. On and off, on and off, every twenty to thirty
seconds, with a faint or strong beam depending on what illumination I
myself was under. I mostly looked down the neck of my jumpers so as
not to to disturb or distress it. I never did; it never once woke up
from its deep slumber, and therefore afforded me many opportunities
to study it. For I was drawn again and again to its heart, though it
would be more accurate to say this,
for although I'm no biologist I knew it wasn't in its rightful place.
It had obviously been put there – by whom? - so possibly it had
two: a scientific and a natural heart, or the scientific had for
experimental purposes replaced the natural. It had a black button, of
a different shade to its own black colour, sewed to its body too,
which the woman, I remember, said I should press should there be any
problems i.e. unusual displays of behaviour, and these too should be
noted with date and time (using the twenty-four hour clock) of
occurrence in a logbook.
I
didn't think of it then, but I've wondered since whether prolonged
sleeping was one such display?
How
should a mouse usually behaved? I haven't had much first-hand
experience of rodents unless you count hamsters. Of second-hand
knowledge I had some from Beatrix Potter tales, although I don't
think you can swear by them that that's how mice conduct themselves.
I didn't for one moment consider, for instance, that this mouse was a
tailor from Gloucester. Nor that it might have worn itself out making
a dress for a lady mouse, who when the dress was ready admired
herself in a magnifying glass, and saw, from behind a screen, that
all was to her satisfaction. No, I refused to let my (and Beatrix
Potter's) imagination run away with me.
However,
it did give me an idea, which at the time I attributed to my
intellect and not as I do now to the image of the lady mouse: I used
a mirror to inspect my sleeping mouse guest further. It was then that
I noticed that quite aside from the stitched button it had three
tails, all of different lengths and each unusually long – one
snaked its way over my chest and down to my waist – and a tattoo of
an archer (a torso with a bow and arrow) in red ink on its body.
The
tails I felt I could account for: they were a birth defect or a
genetic mutation. Perhaps its mother when pregnant had eaten food
laced with a toxic substance. But the archer...well, that was more
difficult to speculate about: how does one tattoo a mouse? I didn't
think it likely mice frequented tattoo parlours, man or mouse-run,
and so it must have been done to it, perhaps under duress, or at
least without its consent. I very much doubted any mouse would have
chosen to have an archer, aiming an arrow, inked on its body, but
then (and this I say with hindsight) I knew and still know next to
nothing about the world mice inhabit. Nor did I know (and I never did
subsequently find out) how the woman who put it on me came to be in
possession of this mouse. Perhaps it was a rescue; perhaps a tamed
house-mouse. Perhaps it was one of many; perhaps this woman did this
all the time: planted perfect mice-guests on people. A mouse for the
weekend Sir/Madam?
I
knew even then I would never get to the bottom of this mystery: the
woman, the mouse with its quiet sleepy behaviour and unusual
appearance, the tattoo. The latter 'clue' the most curious of them
all as it made me think of mad professors doing goodness knows what
or a secret police operation, conscious as I was (purely due to its
position) that I felt tempted to talk into it like a walkie-talkie.
If the mouse at 11:20am on the Monday, after exactly forty-eight
hours of uninterrupted slumber, hadn't suddenly squeaked – eek eek
eek – and promptly died, I may have broken my resolve not to and
spoken into it: “Testing, testing...”
Picture credit: Lady Mouse in Mop Cap, 1902, Beatrix Potter (source: WikiArt).
