My house has been under seige. Our movements have been monitored and we have had to keep a watchful eye in order not to piss off our captor. You see, there is a mouse in the house. That's right...a mouse and it has been there for about four days or at least that's as long as i've known it was there. I've nicknamed him the captain as he cannot be taken down; Poisoned bread apparently doesn't work, sticky paper seems to be be his friend and humans are just entities that he has to deal with on a daily basis. He has eaten parts of my saltine crackers, a snickers bar, I think some plantain chips and a bit of my shoelace.He actually resides in the kitchen between the cooker and rack where we keep the plantains but he vacations in my closet within the shoes from time to time.
Four days ago at about 2am, I was watching television and I heard it...that all too familiar rustle from a corner in my room. I stood on my bed and scanned the room and there he was, all of the size of a big pencil eraser (you know the one that was half white and half black but the black part never worked). He didn't scurry or run, he walked, actually, he meandered across the floor towards the wall that was close to my bed. That was all I needed to see to flee into my father's room in a distressed state. He promptly told me to "Go deal with it" so I woke up the housekeeper instead.
Our housekeeper is about 40 years old and is used to these distressed calls from me. After he cleared the sleep from his eyes he walked somberly behind me probably remembering the happy times in his life before I came to be in it. After baricading himself in my room and making a series of loud "mouse-catching" sounds he emerges and says he has baricaded the mouse in my closet (where I keep my lotion and deodorant) and so I should probably not open it until the morning when he will be in a better position to catch it. Though distraught, I am comforted by the fact that it is at least quarantined and I go to bed and have dreams of mice running through my hair.
I spent most of the next day ashy, musty and outside of the house ( which apparently translated to our housekeeper to leave the animal in my closet). I get home at about midnight to find that I still cannot open my closet. Soon, its 2am and i'm on the phone with a friend and I see the captain through the corner of my eye. He squeezes himself out of the closet, scurries accross the floor and squeezes himself under the door into the hallway. After the shock has worn off I tell my friend that i will call her back I contemplate screaming for my father but decide against it as he will probably feel a serious urge to throw something at me (It's ramaddan so I wouldn't want to test him).
The next morning, as i was getting dressed for work i decided to get something from the kitchen and who else is there but the captain- having a morning stroll around the plantain rack probably on his way to get his morning newspaper. He sees me and makes a cartoon like dash behind the cooker. That was the last I saw of the captain. I hear tell that three days later he was found dead with no possible traces or cause of death; most just said natural causes.
Sometimes I sit in my room with the window open and when a breeze blows through and I hear a little rustle I always sit back and sigh and wonder if Tom from Tom and Jerry was really the bad guy after all.
