The Mouse

THE MOUSE / Susan M. Gaines THE MOUSE IS TINY, even for a mouse—no bigger than a newborn baby's hand. He Uves in a place of wide open spaces and spectacular storms, of uplifted, rainbow-colored sediments and looming red cliffs carved into deUcate, fantastical forms, an exalted place where the creative forces of the earth have surfaced and joined. But the mouse is too tiny to see this: he Uves in a duU dry world of sand and sagebrush with a distant, perhaps nonexistent , sky. It is by accident, not by design, that the mouse discovers the car. Hunted one night by an owl, a fluttering presence that he senses but cannot see, the mouse is dashing hysterically from bush to bush, when suddenly the owl is gone and he is under an expansive stretch of cover, as if a sky has materiaUzed above him—a real sky that he can feel, almost see, a strange-smeUing, darker-than-night sky. Disoriented, the mouse freezes, nose quivering to assess the strange scent. Then again he is propeUed into motion by a sound, more immediate than thunder, and a Ught, more persistent than Ughtning, as if the night has been overturned to day: the mouse, searching franticaUy for darkness, is running upward towards his new sky and dipping, Uke a pool baU, into the hole—a dark cavity, a hidden place. He stops. Safe. It's a whUe before the mouse reaUzes how safe he is, frozen there inside the frame of the car, but once he understands—that this is a whole universe of holes, of safe, tangible skies and sweet, lovely darkness—he crawls deeper. The man and woman who own the car awake in awe. The air is clean and scented with sage, the place they have camped of such sublime beauty—the sky so expansive and wild with wandering clouds, the pastel colors and bizarre shapes of the cliffs so magnificent, and the quiet so pure—that for the moment they forget that the earth is no longer big, or powerful, or aweinspiring , that such awe is outdated. It was dark when they set up camp the night before, they had gone a long ways down this dirt road and chosen this spot—this nameless spot somewhere in Utah—quite at random. It is the beginning of the third day of 32 · The Missouri Review what is to be an extended vacation: they have spent the first two days driving, escaping California. In silence, they make their breakfast and pack up their tent. They eat and drink their coffee standing up, turning in bewildered circles to admire the view. Then they rinse their dishes and pack everything away in the car. When they have finished they realize that, without thinking, they have prepared to leave, and there is a brief discussion, that maybe they should stay, another day, maybe two. But no, the man points out, they were planning to go to the mountains, to the Grand Tetons, maybe YeUowstone, the car is fuU of backpacking gear and food. WeU then, maybe spend just half the day in the desert, up along that spectacular gorge they drove past the day before—maybe the man will be inspired and paint a picture, the woman can sit on a rock and write a poem. Anyway, says the woman as they drive off, they can always come back someday, stay awhile. They haven't gone far down the dirt road, are no where near the gorge, when the mouse darts out from under the driver's seat. It runs across the man's foot, and when the foot moves—for the man jerks his foot and lets out a Uttle yelp when he feels, looks down and sees, the mouse—it darts back under the seat. "There's a mouse in here!" exclaims the man, glancing nervously at his feet as he puUs off the road. "A mouse?" says the woman. "You're kidding." "No—it just ran across my foot." "Are you sure ..." "Yes I'm sure," says the man, climbing out of the car. He gets down on his knees and looks under the seat. "I...