Mouse woke up and rummaged around for clean briefs. Which wasn’t easy. He’d spilled milk on the stack of matchboxes that was his dresser. It was slowly deteriorating into a sour mush of cardboard and paper. It broke down a little more each day. Like everything else.
He found a pair and held them up. Lots of daylight. Not much fabric. My clothes have more holes than a block of Swiss cheese, he thought. More holes than my work history. Which is saying a lot.
Mouse creaked across the floor and sat down on his spool. The other spool, which he no longer needed, was cracked in pieces in the corner. Future firewood. It would be good for a couple long burns, if he was still around.
Looking down at himself, he saw more flab than he remembered. Bare patches of skin where there should not be bare skin. He flexed his paw. Crusted blood on the knuckles. How did that get there?
Flashes of memory. A haze of mead at the local watering hole. Smoke and mahogany mixed with sultry jazz. Must have been an argument about something. Politics? Sports? Love? Probably someone talking trash about Gertie. Yeah, that’s right. Flick and his crew invaded his little corner and started taunting that she’d found someone else.
He knew it was true, she’d said so herself when she walked out for the last time, right after he’d smashed the spool.
He knew it was true but still it felt good to throw that first punch. Satisfying. Like a bite of apple pie with ice cream or stretching out in a fresh cut lawn. Effervescent, really. His face twitched into a little grin as he remembered. His balled up paw came out of nowhere, solid, direct, and laid Flick right onto the floor. Felt good. He still had it.
And when they threw him down, four of them, kicking and smashing, he didn’t fight back. That felt good too. He deserved it. He’d been causing himself a lot of pain for a long time. A good beating like that was a momentary healing balm, a welcome salve that covered over the regret and helped him forget.
Brilliant! 👏👏👏