I quietly sneaked out and found my way to the ceiling of the room 1.6.07. It is much easier for us to walk in the ceilings than walking on the floor when people are awake. The distance between the concrete ceiling and the metal platform creates a cosy walking environment for us. It is also good place for playing hide-and-seek because there are many pipes, cables, boxes etc here. The veins and trachea of the building! I should also mention that most of the people are coward and they like ignoring our presence although they knew we were the ones making those rattling noise above their heads. I went straight to see my sweetheart but she was not on her desk yet. Instead of waiting there and doing nothing, I decided to look at some of the people whom my sweetheart is sharing the office with and tried to imagine their personal lives. Being a mouse and looking at them from a very high point, I thought I would be able to make some good observations.
Generally speaking, people in this office seem to me quite unhappy. There is no ambition in their eyes, no enthusiasm of being the smartest animal on earth. In fact, they are no different from the mice in many ways. Instead of we go looking for food, people get together in the offices to make money and later on, they use this money to acquire food. I understand that the thing they call money can buy more than food but I don’t understand its function when you sleep or make love or play with your children. The biggest funs of life –even for humans- can be achieved without money but they seem they have forgotten this.
Let’s take this young man as an example. I saw him on his desk for many late evenings. Almost 40 years old, still single, wearing a pink shirt with a nice pink neck tie, looking for true love but while waiting for the true love to get him hooked, he does not waste his time. Coming from a good Vietnamese family, having a degree from an overseas university, speaking fluent English make him one of the best assets to hold for the prospective wives in the city. He usually studies or works till late hours in the office or should I say he tries because his two mobile phones on the desk and the chat program on the screen constantly distracts him. He neither denies the harmful effects of the gadgets near his studies nor gets rid of them. He is in conflict of achieving something valuable in his life before it gets too late and not missing the fun outside while he is still young. So the biggest dilemma is not to know in what stage of life he is living now! Many girls contact him in the day times, he communicates with several of them at the same time. If he wants, there will be no single night he will be sleeping alone but sometimes he also feels that urge to get chained, to belong to someone and to be desired by someone only because he is unique, irreplaceable. It seems a lonely, unhappy life. The more he tries to extract the juice of life through the sensuality, the more he gets stuck into the illusion of time and youth.
Behind him, next to the window, there is a relatively old guy with pitch black hair. Unlike the young one who only trims his beard to look cool, this old guy gets a clean shave every morning. When he speaks, the entire office listens to his wise words. Sometimes he talks about the large rats –he points his leg to indicate its size- in Alaska and sometimes the financial crises happened 30 years ago. But no matter what he speaks about, the words coming out of his mouth goes to the ears of every single person in the office. Living with his cats and occasionally with his young daughter, he seems very lonely and fragile too. Life has run away under his feet and he ended up in this office with colleagues as young as his daughter. The way he speaks and the way he longs for attraction from others always make me think that this man is the loneliest island in the world.
Then I slowly walk towards the western corner of the office. This is the quietest part of the room. Not because the people here are working silently but because they hardly come to work or when they come to work, they finish quickly and leave. These must be the same advertising teachers who were the main topic of the gossip I have heard two days ago. The ones who were allegedly favoured and given very nice timetables! From the books I have read, I know that people are very sensitive to the injustice. When they see it, they react irrationally no matter if they deserve the thing they fight for or not. However, there is one thing that holds true for all societies, from mice to humans, from cockroaches to elephants. That is the need for fair treatment from the rulers. If they notice the unfairness to themselves, it does not really matter whether the ruler had good intentions or not. What matters is the resulting picture of tortuosities. Isn’t there a famous saying “The path to hell is paved with good intentions.”? I don’t remember who said this but for me it clearly points out how people with good hearts cause harm to the others by ignoring justice for everyone or neglecting the consequences of this ignorance.
This is also probably why people created religions at the first place. Promising salvation is the only common denominator for all world religions. Life is not fair to people, the human-made laws usually take sides of the powerful ones, there is no equal treatment in terms of access to food, information, shelter, entertainment etc. Therefore, they need to believe that there is another land, not in this world but after death, which will create equal opportunities for everyone, which will make fair sharing of the unlimited resources. This is why there is no money in heaven. Right, dear diary? I have never heard anyone saying I will buy a huge land in heaven once I go there. So actually this makes God a true socialist. Of course, if we look at the picture of today’s world, the misery and pain the people are going through, we should call him a sadist who creates opposing groups of people to inflict pain on each other and enjoy watching the pandemonium above them. Let’s say he is a capitalist now but he promises everyone a socialist future. This fits to him better!
You see, dear diary, how bad I am as a writer! My mind seems like a small boat in a stormy ocean. I was going to tell you my love story but I keep ending up criticising people, their faith, their life styles, their work problems. I wish there was someone looking over my writing whenever I enter to the wrong road and pull me towards the story. If the next generation mice read my writing, they will definitely condemn my writing as “ugly chit-chat but nothing more” but hopefully the clandestineness of this notebook will be protected forever. Otherwise, my children will suffer a lot in the hands of the great leader or the mice following his ideas word by word. Maybe someone will find my diary after I and my children die and say “Like all good stories, this one is not about one thing or the other thing, it is about many things but at the same time it is about one big thing: life” Ha ha, what a dream! Like the melancholic girl Amelia...
Anyway, leaving these unnecessary self-talk behind, let me get back to the real story. I moved back to my sweetheart’s section to see if she was there and found that she already came to the office and now sitting in front of her computer. She was wearing a nice green single-piece dress which showed a bit of her cleavage. The skirt part of the dress was long and covering her legs till the floor. Her hair was braided in French way and the tail was somehow extending to the front through her shoulder. I could see her cleavage clearly because I was looking from above. Her breasts looked bigger from here or they are actually big... As a mouse who is in love with a human female, I must confess that I wish to be closer to them. In fact, the best thing to do would be to get squeezed between them and fall in sleep in that sweet warmness. But anyway, there is no need to get too intimate now.
Thanks to the hundreds of holes on the metal platform, I could see everything very clearly. However, it was hard to detect her writing because of the distance. I changed my position a few times, moved from one hole to another one but no help. I ended up with the same visual problem. She was typing some words but I could not read them. Then I have decided to take a big risk and changed my vertical position. With my back feet, I held one of the screws on the platform and started dangling down towards the floor. It was not an easy act as I am not a monkey and my feet are not designed to hold the weight of my whole body. However, I did not have a chance.
Once I stabilized my body movement and became absolutely stationary, I started reading her computer screen. She closed a web site and turned on google. On the search bar, she typed “Mouse” and then clicked enter. At that moment, dear diary, I felt like finally I am winning. She must be feeling the same way so now she has started trying reconciliation strategies with me. I thought this is how humans re-negotiate deals after they accidentally mess up with things. I almost cried but I had to stop my tears because if they drop, they would drop on her head or on her beautiful green dress. Google search resulted millions of pages and she chose the Wikipedia article. This also showed that she really wants to understand me, understand my culture, my way of life. Isn’t it amazing, dear diary? Isn’t it the miracle of love?
Unfortunately, after a few minutes later, my happiness turned into a nightmare. After she scanned the Wikipedia article, browsed back to the google and this time she typed “How to kill a mouse?” Then my head started whirling, my eyes got itchy, my skin got irritated, my tongue felt like I just licked a rusty metal... The whole world turned downside up (I was upside down already!) and made my muscles get looser and looser. The more I tried holding the screw, the more my legs rejected listening to me. What was the point of being too cautious after all this anyway? She wants to kill me, wants to poison me and wants to see my corpse... I had no more hope of a happy future. So I let it go... I left the screw I was holding and felt free in the air, falling like a bomb...
No, dear diary, my life did not pass in front of my eyes, neither I thought of my childhood nor I saw a large piece of cheese. It was too quick that any word I can utter to describe that moment will take longer time than that moment itself so there is no need to write superfluous clichés. In fact, it is not important to know how I felt during the fall. It is important where I fell. As everyone would admit, those who fall cannot choose the branch. I did not choose either but the dumb luck played one last trick on me.
I fell on her head, right on top of her hair. Then my body bounced back and after a few flips in the air, I found myself holding on her dress, right in front of her cleavage. Till that moment, she was not aware of what was going so I had a few milliseconds to make a decision. I had two choices: to jump down to her table and run away or to climb up and get inside her dress, spend a few seconds very close to her body, then fall free to the ground. I thought second choice is a better one as I would never have such an opportunity again. So I did it right before she saw me on her chest and started screaming and running around like a headless chicken.
Once I got inside, I forgot my recent frustration. Even it would last less than 2-3 seconds, I was happy to be there. It was like suddenly diving into the sea and leaving all the hubbub of the world above the sea level. Like being inside the water, it was warm and quiet. I was sure that outside there was a huge hurricane going on but I did not want to worry about it. First I held her bra and jumped between her boobs. Unfortunately, seeing that there is no path to slide down from bra to the ground, I got off and jumped down. At that moment, I saw her hand, apprehensively looking for my body and trying to bring an end to the storm. But I was quicker, I fell once more and comfortably hit the ground, very near to her light leg. Then of course, I started running like a sprinter. I ran, ran and ran, leaving my love behind. I jumped into an open hole of the electric line, right behind the rubbish bin and disappeared. While running away and carrying my heavier-than-a-rat heart, I found almost no regret in my mind. At that moment, the adrenaline in my blood and the heart beat in my chest was my best friends. I thought I had fun and that was important...
Unfortunately, once a disaster hits a mouse’s house, the rest will come like a chain reaction. When I arrived home, I found no trace of my three babies. They were all gone. I asked the policemouse waiting in front of my house and he said “Once I noticed you escaped from the house arrest, I informed the great leader. He sent a nursemouse and a doctormouse here. They took your babies to the orphanage in 3rd floor. If you get acquitted from all your charges by the court, you will be given your babies back. If not, till the end of your punishment term, the babies will stay at the orphanage and will be raised by the principles of the great leader.”
Then I started crying. My three babies are taken from me and most probably I will never see them again. I sat right in front of the mousepolice and murmured “Then what, what is next?” He walked behind me and put two pieces of shackles on my back legs. After locking the chain to a heavy mass, he patted on my shoulder and said “Let’s go. It is time to get cleaned in front of the great leader and the mouse community. The entire police department is looking for you now. Time is almost 3 pm anyway. Let’s go and finish this.” I said nothing, took the heavy mass in my hands and with small steps that the shackle can allow, started walking towards the court...
To be continued...
Grear combination between Snow and her lover-phuhahaha!
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