Six Billion Blind Mice

Today is the day I go completely ballistic. It starts out an ordinary morning, the only non-routine thing is scrubbing the yellow bile stain out of the sink, courtesy of last night's outburst. Out, out, damn spot etc. This is book-ended by a usual afternoon; I'm taking my usual route to the usual bus stop for my usual trip home. I cut through the Holiday Inn parking lot, even though they now have a big imposing sign stating that they are part of the Wheat Ridge anti-motel crime program. You know it's White Ridge when the worst thing you have to worry about is high-schoolers walking by the service elevator on their way to Taco Bell. A maid on break blows a smoke ring in my face. A cinder flies into my eye, which defensively cries it back out. The side of my face stings like hell for a few seconds. I give her what I call the Fuck You World Tour. To perform this elaborate routine, you start with the opposite of the alien peace sign. From there, you go into Dane Cook's superfinger, then drop your ring finger until you have a plain old middle finger. Then, you bring up your index finger to make a backwards-facing peace sign. (How you flip people off in the UK and Australia) Now, use your thumb and fingers to make an O shape. (Considered obscene in some Mediterranean countries) End with the fist-in-the-crook- of -your arm thing. The maid, being at least smart enough to be a maid, takes the hint. She ducks back inside, but not before throwing her cigarette, still smoking, into the lot. I do the considerate thing and try to stamp it out. I fail the first four times and the cancer stick rolls wildly around the lot. Finally, I catch up with it and grind it into ash. Then, I stop dead. Lying pathetically in a grease spot on the tar is a roadkill mouse. The mice that like to sneak into my house are fat, scary things with pure-black dead doll eyes. When I see them, I shriek the way they expect a girl like me to shriek. This dead mouse in front of me is not one of those mice. It's tiny, light brown with a white underbelly. Cute, actually. It looks like the friendly little mice in Disney movies. Death by SUV agrees with this mouse. You would think it was sleeping if the lower half of its tail wasn't a grey puddle on the asphalt. I swallow hard and try to erase the tail from my mind. The poor creature is just taking a break from singing adorable songs and outwitting the world's dumbest cats. I kneel down by the mouse. "Wake up," I whisper. I repeat myself a little louder. I keep on going like I can bring it back to life through sheer force of will, a little more urgency in my voice each time. I begin to cry for non-cinder-related reasons. Its little paw is still outstretched. It must have been trying to reach the flattened French fry next to its body when it was plowed over by one of the six billion blind mice with which it shares the world. I rise to my feet. "Take the fucking French fry," I shriek, "eat it! Wake the fuck up, you fucking mouse!" I lift my boot and grind the heel into the mouse's back. I stomp furiously, screaming, "Get out of the fucking road!" Yellow foam oozes gently out of its mouth. I can see its symmetrical little mouse spine trailing from its head. On its back, a faint imprint of my boots' brand name. I shove my hands in my pockets and cross the street to my stop, weeping. I sink onto the bench and convulse with sobs. Something screeches to a stop beside the bench. I look up through my tears, thinking it's the bus. Instead, I see a lime green '91 Acura Legend. Just what I need. The driver of the embarrassing vehicle is the long-haired Irish boy. My ex-boyfriend who used to call my umbilical cordless every day to say he loved me now calls to say he cares about me, just in a platonic way. This is just the latest in his string of misguided attempts to be platonic and caring. He pats the passenger seat. I shrug and get in. If I don't, he might do something stupid like chase the bus. I hiccough and sniffle until he pulls in front of the entrance to the park I walk through to get home. Before I get a chance to bolt from the car, the long-haired Irish boy grabs me in a Texas chokehold and hugs me for three minutes. I'm grateful to run into someones arms but furious that he won't even let me hate his guts. I shove him away so hard he hits his forehead on his windshield. "What the hell was that?" I demand.
"A hug," he says flatly. "It's the best gift you can give to someone who's been having a difficult time of it." I slam the door and run into the park. I vow to repeat that phrase to him if I ever vomit down the front of my favorite shirt. I walk home in a daze. The brand label ground into the mouse's back haunts me. I whistle a macabre tune as I go. Six billion blind mice, six billion blind mice, see how they drive in their gas-guzzling SUVs with crosses dangling from the front mirror, see how they won't give their ex-girlfriends a fucking break, see how they grind the other mice's internal organs into- that last invented verse shuts me up. I talk like I'm better than them. I act like there are only five billion, nine hundred nintey-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine blind mice in the world. I go to a fast-casual place for dinner. One of my guy-friend's sister is working behind the counter. She opens her mouth to say something to me, but stops, perhaps because of the expression on my face. As I order, I'm out of it and bitchy, and I cut her off before she can ask me, "For here or to go?" When she asks for my name, I'm staring at the wall. I mutter that I don't have one. She repeats the question. I make one up. She looks at me quizzically. I feel a twinge of guilt and consider apologizing. I decide against it. It's probably best to let her make her own judgement. Whatever she comes up with probably won't be as crazy as, "Sorry, Veronica. I stomped the living shit out of an already dead mouse this afternoon and I'm still feeling kind of bad about it."