Karl felt sad. His pet mouse, Tre, his most favouritist thing in the whole world had died. It was his little friend who lived in his pocket, who he told everything to, all his secrets and thoughts. And now Tre wasn’t moving or squeaking no more. Maybe he had petted it too hard? It was true that he didn’t know his own strength, as his mother always used to say.
Karl went out and laid Tre to rest in the garden. He scooped the earth with one of his huge hands, and gently placed his mouse friend in the ground. After a moments pause, he covered him with earth, and lumbered back up to the house. The nice man, Pete, was at the house– he would understand. And his friends were there too– Jeeby and Roger. Maybe later they could have a game of baseball. Karl liked baseball– he could thwack that ball right out of the park and into the next town!
His friend Jeeby- Jeeby was just another way of saying ‘G.B’. “G.B” stood for ‘Guns n’ Bombs’– Jeeby had robbed an army store a year back, and got away with six pistols and a box of high explosives, which he’d planned to use in a robbery. Lucky for him, the police caught him before he carried out his plan, and they couldn’t prove anything because they never found where he’d hidden the bombs and weapons, otherwise he’d be in the borstal, not here.
“He got away with it. He be Jeeby!”, as Jeeby liked to say, the maniac.
Roger– he was just Roger. Didn’t say much. Didn’t say anything, truth be told; kept himself to himself. Good at Poker, was Roger. Poker and knifings.
*
Pete arrived at work whistling. It was a gorgeous morning; sun and blue sky, and his wife had just given him the good news last night that she was pregnant. After trying for several months, they had done it! A new life soon to be in the world– their new life; their baby.
Pete had brought a special present for Karl today. He knew how much that silly mouse had meant to him– he even slept with the bloody thing on his pillow. Probably squashed it in his sleep, the great lunk!
The tree in the driveway was now full of dangling yellow blossom that was at once both bright and fragrant; humming bees were getting busy with it. Pete took out his keys from his jacket pocket, put the golden one in the door of the home, turned it twice. At work on time, regular as clockwork. Once inside, he snapped the keys onto a loop on his belt.
Karl was still feeling sad. The nice man, Pete, had arrived at the usual time. Karl was playing cards with Jeeby and Roger. Rummy. Roger was winning. “How're you today, Karl?” said Pete. 'Oh, y’know…' “Come with me,” said Pete, “I got something for you”. Karl followed him to the kitchen area. Pete pulled a small packet out of his jacket– “Here!” Karl took it.
Pete had been working at the home for 3 years now. It could be challenging work, but he loved it– loved the children he was put in charge of, enjoyed the company of his co-workers. Karl was fun to be with; not the brightest but with a big heart. A big man with a big heart. Well, he seemed like a man anyway– Pete had to remind himself at times that Karl was just a child in a man’s body. Six foot three and hadn’t even started shaving. He hoped that he liked the present.
Karl opened the package. Inside was a beautiful stuffed toy mouse. The fake fur made it look incredibly realistic, and it had small black beads for eyes. It looked just like Tre.
“What the FUCK?!” Karl screamed. He smashed Pete in the ribs with a fist. Stunned and winded, Pete sputtered– “What's wrong with you Karl?” “I'ma KILL you!” shouted Karl. Pete, shocked and acting fast, scrabbled past him, out of the kitchen, and into the living room. Karl followed. “It’s a present Karl–” he said, trying to calm the situation– “I thought it'd help you to remember Tre”. He pressed the alarm button to alert the other staff of a situation. Karl picked up a baseball bat. “Oh, you gettin’ it now” said Jeeby, happily. Roger glanced at him, looking uneasy. A film was playing on the television– the other residents were watching it, oblivious.
Pete went behind the sofa– Karl swung the bat but missed, leaving a dent in the leather. Pete saw the form of a golden bird shining outside, like a phoenix glowing in the ashes, and realised he had to get out. Where the hell were the other staff?! He dashed for the front door, with Karl following behind swinging the bat, slapping it in his mighty paw.
*
“What’s wrong with you, daddy?” said Karl. Daddy was swaying back and forth. His eyes were watery. He was talking about Karl’s mum, how he had to make it right, but the words were coming out wrong.
I need my daddy. What’s wrong with him? He’s not speaking right, and his head is sinking into the table. It’s like he’s ill, but he’s not ill. Daddy’s just a lost little boy. Now he cryin. I don’t want daddy to cry. He’s drinking from a big glass that he pours from a brown bottle. Usually that makes him happy, but tonight he’s all a mess like a tangled ball of wool. Karl felt sad. He lost his daddy that night, and soon mummy went away too. Now it was all down to him. To make things right again.
*
Pete got some way down the road, and Karl came lumbering after. Then Pete came to a crossroads, and had to stop– too much traffic. Karl was right behind him, and swung the bat against his knees. There was a loud crack and Pete hit the deck, ripping open the skin of his forehead on the rough swathe of gravel by the roadside. Karl reared up then, but Pete took advantage of Karl’s slower pace to quickly pick himself up just before the bat slammed down– spotting a gap in the traffic, he made it to the strip of concrete-enclosed grass that formed the central reservation, grasping his legs in pain. Karl looked for a break in the endless file of cars. Pete was struggling to walk now. So this was it, he was going to die. In such a stupid way too– and when you die, you stay dead. Forever. Fear rose in him like a broken window, like static on a radio dial.
*
He staggered off the central reservation, then half-limped, half-crawled across to the other side, where Karl caught up with him, running like a tank, both feet in his big boots. Karl smashed him hard in the ribs while still running– Pete doubled over from pain, and Karl flipped round and blasted his shins with the bat. Pete fell to his knees, screaming for help.
An old couple were just going into their house nearby. The old man said, “I’ll be with you in a minute– I just need to get my wife inside”.
A thousand thoughts of escape flashed through Pete’s mind, before the realisation, not arriving without some grim humour, that, barring some miracle, this was the end. Then resignation, and acceptance. It was a beautiful day to die– the sky was blue, the trees waved in the gentle breeze– even the brutal white noise of the traffic seemed wonderful, perfect. His wife’s conception– this too was part of everything, and was perfect too– life ends, life begins. One in, one out. In, out, in, out, shake it all about. All of this passed through his mind in an instant that seemed eternal, like the Summertime in childhood.
Even the pains shooting up his legs like knitting needles, and the blood that was seeping down his forehead and making a furry crimson lake of his eyebrow were perfect. The sweat was stinging in his eyes as he looked up into the shining sun.
Karl gave Pete a good sideways one in the face with the bat, knocking out a spray of blood and splinters of teeth, and Pete finally fell back onto the street, jerking, then spasming, and finally unmoving. The shining form of a golden bird appeared above his battered body, swelled up to the size of a house, and then zoomed off into the ether. I think I was the only one who saw that– I was down by the supermarket that used to be a cinema, looking North, and I wondered if the sun had returned to earth. It was just the brightness– I couldn’t look at it directly, but I felt it. Pure light without heat. There, and then gone again, like a comet ascending, rejoining the sky. Anyway, no matter, I’m not actually in this story.
The old man then came over, having helped his wife into the house. He seemed entirely unafraid of Karl. “What have you done here then?” Karl paused. “He mocked me, man. I had this pet mouse that died, and he went out and found a mouse in the forest and killed it and gave it to me, to insult me. Who would do that?! Look!”
The old man took the mouse and examined it. Karl took the time to take a tissue from his pocket, and wiped some of the blood from his bat. “You idiot,” said the man, “this is a toy mouse.” He peeled back part of the head, to reveal the stuffing, and several bands of elastic holding the body in shape. “Not only that-” he reached inside a seam in the mouse's stomach, and pulled out a small key. He then inserted the key into a slot in the mouse's back, and turned it a few times. The mouse immediately became animated, it’s limbs making a running motion. The man handed it to Karl, who watched it moving. “It was a stuffed clockwork mouse” said the man. “A wind-up.”
“Oh.” Karl looked forlorn. “So I killed my friend for… for nothing?”
“Your friend?” asked the man. He looked at where Karl was indicating– there were just some scraps of leaves, playing in the breeze. Karl’s head was spinning. He looked down at the baseball bat– there was no blood. The old man said nothing. There was nothing to say. After a brief moment, he turned, and walked back to his house, as the cars zoomed by, unconcerned.
And Karl looked down, and he saw clearly then that Pete
was the mouse; everything that was Pete was there in the mouse, had always been there, and the mouse was alive. He grasped the key and turned it a few more times, then removed it. The mouse’s head raised up as if to look at him– maybe there was even a subtle wink? He set it carefully on the ground, and its little legs scuttled it off into a hedge. It soon disappeared into the undergrowth.
Karl released the bat; it clunked onto the pavement. Still the traffic flowed on, like an endless snake eating its own tail.
*
Later that day, Karl was with a couple of local children– Sam and Chris, on the fourth floor of an old building on an abandoned lot. Karl liked hanging out with them. Today they were playing a new game– each of them had 100 feet of metal chain attached to them, with a grappling hook on the end. The aim of the game was to get to the bottom of the building, by bunjee-jumping with the chain, or using the grappling hook to make a swift descent, before one of the 20 timed bombs that he had carefully planted at the bottom went off. Karl had found Jeeby’s bomb store, fo’ sure. The catch, was that all of the timers had been set randomly– he’d set them without looking, so you didn’t know how long you had. The aim was to make it off the lot before the whole place got blown into the sky– the aim was to get out alive.
“Ok, go!” Said Karl, pressing the remote button that started all the timers. The kids started off.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, Karl saw a movement. He turned– a mouse! Running along the corner where the ruined wall met the floor. He thought he might have seen a key sticking out of its back. It had a different colour fur to Tre, but his heart leapt to see a real running mouse! And yes, there was definitely a clockwork key, slowly turning as the mouse scampered along. And then suddenly, the whole wrecked floor was full of mice, all running crazily, willy-nilly, bumping into each other, and all clockwork; the keys revolving as their motors whirred. Karl was transfixed, mesmerised. The children had already abseiled halfway down the building, when the first bomb went off– BOOM!– blowing out part of the foundations and rocking the block with aftershock. “C’mon Karl!” shouted Sam as he neared the bottom. “C’mon Karl!”
Karl picked up one of the mice, held it between thumb and forefinger. He watched its tiny legs scrabble back and forth against nothing, in futile struggle, as the key started to wind down. He smiled and petted it. “Hello little mousey!” he said.
The two children made it off the lot, and looked up at Karl silently, as he sat still on the fourth floor of the building.
Karl smiled to himself. He didn’t feel sad anymore. He looked up into the sun, high above; it hung there like a giant golden bird, shining beneficent light on everyone and everything– the cars, the trees, the shops, the bees, the women, the houses, stuffed mice and men.
Fin
This is a work of fiction; any similarity between characters alive or dead is purely coincidental.
