From: jjas@acs.nntp-read.bu.edu (Jason Stephenson)
Newsgroups: alt.prose
Subject: Story: Mousetrap
Date: 28 Jan 93 00:04:09 GMT
Distribution: alt.prose
Organization: Boston University Information Technology Boston, MA USA

The following story is copyright 1989 and 1992 by Jason J. A.
Stephenson.

Here's a little something I found on one of my old disks a few months
ago.  I doctored a few lines about 3/4 of the way through to maintain
stylistic consistency.  Also, please bear in mind that I was in my
last semester of high school when I wrote this.


			      MOUSETRAP
				  by
			Jason J. A. Stephenson


Kssh-tack!  The spring sent the curved piece of metal on its deadly
way to snap the neck and end the creature's life with a feeble yip and
a barely audible gurgle of blood in the throat.  Sometimes, the strike
would not be precise and the bar would close on the creature's back,
pinning it, preventing its escape and prolonging the death agony.  The
poor thing would gasp and yip, spitting blood through its teeth, and
struggle to free itself, but its legs were soon paralyzed and the pain
too great.  Within minutes the terror-stricken beast would surrender
itself to the hopeless darkness, and the suffering would end.
Kssh-tack!  Yip!...
	"Have some more quiche, Juan," she said, holding the dish
forward.  "I bought the spinach in town, but the eggs are from the
hens out back."
	Manuel shifted in his seat.  He could not pretend not to have
heard it.  "What was that?" he demanded nervously.
	"It was just one of the mousetraps, dear," his mother said as
Juan took the dish.
	"This is very good," Juan commented as he piled more quiche
onto his plate.
	Manuel ate on in silence as the two grown-ups chattered about
politics, about Gerald Ford and someone else named Squeaky.  Manuel
thought of a mouse when he heard that second name.  He wondered why
anyone would have a name like Squeaky, and he wondered if it was the
same Ford who had made his grandfather's car.  He drank some more of
that sweet-tasting purple stuff from the bottle that Juan had brought.
They called it wine, and it made the back of his throat feel funny,
kind of like the way a butter-scotch candy did.  He liked it, but he
had to drink it slowly because they would only give him one glass.  He
did not understand why; they each had more than one glass.
	After dinner they cleared off the table and went into the
kitchen, and Manuel went into the living room to play with his toy
soldiers.  His grandfather had given them to him, and his mother was
angry about it for some reason.  Manuel did not know why.  They were
green and plastic and small and harmless.  He would set them up on the
couch and make machinegun noises like he heard in the John Wayne
movies on television.  He would imagine a jungle and pretend the
pillows were hills and the cracks between the cushions were ditches.
He would knock the little green men over with his finger, and they
would be dead.  He imagined their blood.  It was red and thick like
ketchup and came out in big circles on their clothes, like in the
movies, not in long streams like when he cut himself.  Manuel wished
he was John Wayne.
	When the grown-ups had finished the dishes, they came into the
living room, and Manuel had to stop playing with his soldiers.  He
would sit and listen to them talking about welfare, food stamps,
social security, books, photographers, and the world outside.  Manuel
would crawl around, and Juan would catch him and tickle him and
massage his back.  Juan laughed, told him jokes, and taught him songs:
		Alouette, gentille alouette,
		Alouette, je te plumerai...
	Manuel liked Juan.  He had a beard that made his face prickly,
and he wore funny boots with buckles on them that Manuel would put on
and clump about the house in, though they were much too big for his
feet.
	Manuel hated going to bed.  He wanted to stay up and talk to
Juan.  Though he did not always understand what the older man said,
Juan was interesting to listen to and talked of all kinds of people
and far-off places.  Manuel wanted to visit those places one day, like
France and New York.  In France the people spoke a different language,
and Juan spoke some of it so Manuel could hear it.  He thought it
sounded funny and sad and beautiful all at once, and he decided he
wanted to learn to talk like that.
	Manuel went to bed despite his protestations for a reprieve.
His mother insisted, and Manuel trooped upstairs and undressed and
slipped under the covers.  He lay in bed for almost a half hour before
falling asleep, listening to their voices downstairs and Juan's
booming laugh.  They sounded like they were way off in the distance
somewhere.
	One day when Juan was not there, Manuel played in the kitchen
with his toy soldiers.  He had the sink full of water, and he would
drop them in, pretending they were drowning.  He had a little plastic
tug boat, that he played with in the bath, which he pretended was a
battleship, and he used a Matchbox car for a submarine because it
would not float.  He imagined a clay tiger was a sea monster, and it
fought the soldiers and sank the battleship.  The submarine finally
killed it, but the water made the clay dissolve partly and the tiger
began to break up into chunks.  These chunks floated though the whole
tiger wouldn't. Manuel threw them in the trash but kept a piece of the
head for no reason.
	He heard kssh-tack from under the sink and opened the door to
see what had happened.  He saw lots of boxes in different colors and
sizes and several jugs and a great mass of rags.  It was dark under
there, but when he leaned right, enough light came through from
outside that Manuel could see a small, flat piece of wood in the back
with funny shaped pieces of metal attached to it.  There was a mouse
on the board, its face smeared with peanut butter, lying perfectly
still with a piece of metal flattening its neck and bending its head
at an awkward angle.  When Manuel shifted some more he saw the rich
color of blood splattered in small streaks on the back of the cabinet.
He reached in to touch it.  The mouse was warm and soft like a wool
sweater and kind of lumpy in places.  Its fur was sticky with blood
around its neck and mouth.  The peanut butter rubbed off on his
fingers along with some blood, and Manuel wiped it onto his pants.
Real mice did not look much like the cartoon mice in his storybooks:
real mice looked dead.
	So, this was what dead meant.  Manuel sat back on the floor
and studied the situation.  A solemn expression crossed his face, and
then his lips curled into a frown that pulled the rest of his face
toward the floor.  It did not seem such a terrible thing to Manuel.
Despite the obvious violence which had been done to it, the mouse
seemed somehow at ease, at rest.  The only sound to be heard in the
kitchen was the slow incessant drip-drip of water falling into the
sink, and not even the sounds from the rest of the house seemed to
penetrate the room.  Death was silence, eternal silence.
	Manuel reached in again and this time withdrew the trap from
the cabinet.  It was not very heavy even with the added weight of the
mouse whose body dangled from the trap, bent at an angle it could
never have assumed in life.  He brought it out into the light and
placed it on the countertop.  Manuel tried to lift the piece of metal
that held the mouse down, but the tension of the spring was too great
and he could not raise it enough to remove the body from underneath
it.  He tried using a fork as a lever.  This worked but he cut the
mouse open while levering the trap and some of the animal's insides
fell out.  "I'm sorry," he muttered as he pressed his fingers against
the gash.  He took one of the rags from under the sink, wiped his
hands with it, and then wrapped the mouse's body in it.  Manuel
carried this bundle out the back door.  Taking the shovel from the
back porch on his way out, he walked out behind the shed and began to
dig a hole.  Once this hole seemed deep enough, Manuel dropped the
bundle into it and said a few words: "Ashes to ashes and dust to
dust..."  He then piled dirt on it and marked the spot with a stone.
	A light breeze moved through the trees, bringing with it the
scent of spring blossoms.  Somewhere in the distance a lonely bird
cried.  Manuel sniffed at the mouse's blood crusted under his
fingernails.  Death was silent and death was sweet.
	"What is that?" his mother demanded in her stern voice
pointing at a bloody piece of wood with pieces of metal attached to it
which rested in a small pool of blood on the counter.
	"It's a mousetrap, mom," Manuel stated with an air of
self-important exasperation.
	"Yes, I can see that, but what is it doing on the countertop?"
	"It's sitting there where I put it."
	"Why?"
	"The mouse died."
	"You should never touch things like that, Manuel.  They are
dangerous.  Leave the mousetraps alone in the future.  Will you,
please?"
	"Yes, mother."
	That night, Manuel ate dinner with the fork he had used on the trap.
				 -30-
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