Postcard from Toodyay

The mouse, the nest. Tiny things in a big landscape. I focus on these, some emotional scaling going. I am peering out of myself like a snail tentatively coming out of its shell. The trees rise high beside me, the valley lies low before me. I puzzle at the nest, its position here on the verandah, clinging to a creeper. The little birds that flit between the verandah shrubs have gone. It is the beginning of summer yet not hot enough to have quieted them.

In the middle of the kitchen floor, a tiny mouse looks up at me. My eyes at first think it is the shadow of a dropped utensil. Then I see it, a little brown mouse, very clean. He turns, looks at me and doesn’t scare. He stands his ground, the kitchen floor. After all, where else would a hungry mouse like to go? The TV is of little interest, and the bed would be nice – but after dinner. Perhaps he has tried the laundry before – bad memories hang on his tongue. The study could be a last resort – a page or two if all else is lost. But his ground is now at the heart of things – biscuits and a jug of cream, crumbs on the counter with raspberry jam. So sweet. He looks at me as I am philosophizing about his existence. He watches. I don’t move. Then he walks, unhurriedly, to the foot of the row of cupboards built into the wall and disappears.

… and this, the morning after, I am still carrying him. He has eaten and rested, and now looks to eat and rest again. I take my to-be-eaten-before-breakfast-standing-up pill and philosophize.