Mouse trap

A mouse (whose name was Clay), overhearing the farmer and his wife talking about something they had bought to "take care of the mouse" looked through a crack in the wall in hopes of seeing some kind of food. To her dismay, from the small plastic wrapper emerged not cheese but a shiny deadly mousetrap.

Devastated, the mouse retreated to the farmyard (which was called Trump Acres) and took up a loud lament, "A mousetrap's in the house! A mousetrap's in the house!" and soon enough the entire mouse population of the farm was alternately crying "Doom!" and beating their undersides with tiny clenched paws.

The chicken (whose name was Alla), scratching in the dirt for corn, clucked in annoyance at the commotion. "Little mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you," the hen said seriously before walking away. "But it is of no consequence to me, and I cannot be bothered by it. Just suck it up, princess."

The pig (whose name was Adam), still half-buried in the trough, was more sympathetic. "When I win the next farmyard election," he snorted before re-submerging headfirst in the pork barrel, "I promise to take immediate action to reduce the number of mousetraps in the house by thirty percent within three years. In the meantime, I can do nothing but pray… but be assured I will. Remember that I do respect you as a person."

 

The cow (whose name was Felisha), which had been chewing absently on the farmer's five-leafed bumper crop, only looked off dreamily into the sunset as the mouse repeated its terrible news. "That's a bummer," she said before walking away. "Say, did you know that I'm planning to develop the land in my stall? I'm going to call it Cowtopia."

The mouse sat and absorbed these various cruelties until the sun began to sink, then gathered herself and stiffly returned to the stall to feed her young for what may be the last time, and to think.

That very night, a loud snap echoed throughout the house, and the farmer's wife (whose name was Melania)hurried to the trap, knife in hand, to add yet another tail to her growing collection. In the darkness, she did not realize that the trap had caught not a mouse but a terrible snake, one filled with deadly venom, lured there by Clay and now caught by the tail.

The farmer (whose name was Donald) rushed his wife to the hospital, where she was treated with potent anti-venom, but infection set in, followed by terrible fever.

Chicken soup, the farmer thought after returning home, under the studied gaze of the mouse lingering unnoticed on the pantry shelf just above him. Chicken soup is just what you need when you have a fever.

Not long after, the chicken's neck lay pinned across a block of wood by the farmer's mighty left hand. The right hand placed the hatchet gently on the chicken's neck, then lifted it up to deliver a mighty swing. The last thing the chicken saw with its tear-filled eyes was the mouse looking down from the farmer's shoulder, a look of grim satisfaction on her pointy little snout.

When the fever did not break, the pig soon found itself hanging upside-down from a tree in preparation to feed all the friends and neighbors who had come to tend the farmer's wife in her illness. As its life drained away, the pig noticed the mouse distributing leaflets and campaign signs. and realized that this time he had lost the election.

Sadly, the farmer's wife soon died. So many people attended her funeral that the farmer needed to slaughter his cow in order to feed them all.

"But what will become of Cowtopia now?" the cow told the smug little mouse, as she walked into her final stall. "By the way, I really hate you."

 

At the wake, several mourners remarked on the interesting kibbles the farmer had thought to add to the rice dish, and many of the children enjoyed playing with and petting the "gerbil" that they assumed had escaped from its cage. Several even showed the rodent to their mothers and fathers, who oohed and aahed over the nice pet and patted it on the head before wiping tears from their eyes, and one even kissed it.

But as his visitors finally filtered home, the farmer felt a cold shadow drape over him, and he shivered as he perceived the dark and mirthless eyes of the mouse upon him.

Not long after, a mysterious illness swept across the countryside, killing millions. The farmer, one of those unfortunates who did not die, spent the rest of his days locked in a sanitarium, haunted forever by visions of a large mouse with preternatural intelligence staring heartlessly at him with eyes that spoke of the void.

And so, wise reader, the next time you hear of someone facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember that when one of us is threatened, all of us are at risk. We must keep our eyes upon one another and stay involved, or suffer the consequences.

Moral: The life you save could be your own.


The Pit of Shame
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