Pitter-pat pitter-pat echoes off the walls and tiny mouse feet push the mouse body through a frenzied zig-zag and into a corner. He waits in the dark. In a minute, his heart slows and his muscles relax. His eyelids are heavy as acorns, but he waits.

His whiskers tingle with a warm breeze from above. He tenses his muscles.

Pain! The mouse flies end over end through the air and hits a wall. He feels the warm stench on his whiskers as the silent terror approaches. His side feels hot from the tearing impact.

The little mouse waits. He can't see. He can't hear. But, he can feel the hot breath move over him.

He waits.

He feels the cold nose touch him. He wakes up and punches the hated face with his hind feet. The mouse bounds into the dark and leaves the hissing screams of his enemy behind.

The mouse hurries along with a purpose now. He stops along an especially long wall, and scurries back and forth until he feels a familiar buzz along his spine. He hunts for the right crevice and pushes in. Tighter and tighter the walls press into him as if to tell him to give up and go back. Moments later, the walls release him and he falls out into a room as bright as the summer sun. He runs back and forth until he finds a shadow to hide under to rest his blurry eyes.

He smells death. No rotting flesh, no gaping toothed maw. Indeed, no life of any kind overcomes the smell of this new kind of death. If he were other than a mouse, perhaps he would ponder its meaning. He would recall the other times he escaped here and the new terror he felt, though not so much now. But, he is only a mouse, so he isn't aware of his past, only that he is relatively safe.

Soon, his eyes adjust to the brightness and he sets about the bright tiled floor. There's a new smell. An animal smell that's familiar, but not friendly. It's stronger, fresher. The mouse is fearful and excited. Along with that worrying smell comes the smell of food. The little mouse scurries and scurries all around until he finds the center of the inviting scent. It's above. A forever upward. He can't reach high enough. He can't leap high enough. He sits, impotent, under that glorious food. He's but a mouse; otherwise, he would feel a twinge of frustration. But, he does feel a twinge of frustration, like an unwelcome aunt knocking on the door. The little mouse doesn't know what to do with this new emotion. He decides (as much as a mouse can) and wanders back and forth beneath the food. He finds no way up, so he starts walking in circles, wider and wider, investigating the various walls and polls that block his way.

A wavy, thin and soft even to his tiny paws, hangs down a bit over his head. He can just touch it, stretching fully on his hind legs.

A hop up, and he's at the stuff with all four paws. He crawls up and up to forever high until he clambers onto a long narrow that holds the wavy up. He runs along the long narrow, hopping over shiny loops until he gets to the end. He sniffs and finds the scent is faint. He runs the other way. At the end of the long, he smells the food. It is a strong scent. He squints his eyes, and sees a surface nearby but far below him. Is this where the food is? He leaps from the end of the long, out into space and falls a near forever down. With a timid thunk, the little mouse sits on the cold surface. This surface has its own smell. A tang, like the structures that sometimes hold him prisoner when he's especially careless, and those structures that hold all the other mice, long since dead. He is but a mouse, so he only remembers his own mousiness of a moment past. He sniffs again; along with death, the tang brings forth the warmth of other bodies huddles together and safe. He feels a new sensation. Regret.

He pauses seconds before he scurries back and forth, zeroing in on the joyful scent.

Fresh! He tears into crunchy leaves. New! He burrows into soft clouds of food, sweet and filling -- like nuts, only better. So many strange foods and so many more familiar. He squeaks a joyful call for his clan. No one hears him.

A distant clamor stops all joy. He waits. Another clamor. Closer. Clanking noises and slow steps. Noisy. He leaps off the surface and falls another forever. He hits the ground and runs straight for the wall. A sing song utterance. A guttural sound. Clank! They're in the room.

The mouse hides against the wall. There are no shadows. The light nearly blinds him, but he waits. Two animals. Forever high, though they stand on the floor.

They're at the food surface. They bellow at each other. Something tells the mouse that he's not in so much danger, so he starts to relax. Maybe these are not so dangerous.

The animals' short bellows turn to long, roars. One moves his front legs everywhere; then, a moment of silence. Then, a short bark and one animal runs toward him. He's frozen. He must move. He pushes off his hind feet with all his might, The animals are all around, lumbering, but getting closer. He feels desperation, looking for his crevice.

A moving wall swishes in front of him, but he zigs into the room, then back to the wall. A faint dank odor rises in front of him. he pushes ahead under one of the animals, running over its giant paw. The crevice! He's in, pushing hard to get out of that room. The animals' barks and growls fade behind.

A forever time later, the mouse dreams of fluffy clouds of food better than nuts. he dreams of crisp leaves and sweet berries. He feels the familiar buzz through his spine when he passes the crevice. He sniffs at it. The smell of new death is faint. He knows that this path is closed now. Resignation.

Day after day he scrounges for food, always aware of his silent foe. One day, he approaches a favorite old food store. He smells something rotten. He also smells his enemy. He's hungry, which instinct pushes him forward. He skitters and stops. There's a hardened hole in the side of a gnawable wall near the floor. The bad smells don't come from inside. He hops in and goes to work on the old grains. Once, these were welcome morsels. Now, they insult his tongue. He is but a mouse, with little memory for things out of sight. Would a mouse lick his chops at the memory of crisp leaves and plump tomatoes? He does. Would a mouse spit out his meager findings in mousy rage? He does.

Full but not satisfied, he plops out the hole and walks around the the gnawable walls and into the face of evil.

The cat stares at its prey. The little mouse sits frozen, waiting for death. There is a little light to see by, and the mouse sees the eyes from inches away. He feels no fetid breeze on his whiskers -- no stirring of the air by a switching tail. Dead.

Dead. The little mouse, if just a mouse, can only feel the lack of fear at the dead thing. This little mouse feels relief. Joy. He ponders a new question to mousedom: "Why?" If he is just a mouse, and he is, he will walk away and continue his existence looking over his shoulder for the cat who now lies before him. He does not walk away. In the poor light, with his poor eyes, his exquisite nose, and crafty whiskers, he circles his erstwhile foe. He climbs up onto its back and inhales his studies. New death.

This is not the death of old age. This isn't the death of disease. This isn't the death of prey. This is a death that smells like all the mousy deaths before. Isn't this just a mouse who cannot have memories? But, this mouse remembers his clan.

This mouse now feels two things. Terror and curiosity. And, this little mouse does not abide.

He sets to work, sniffing the ground for suspect scents. it takes him little time to find them. The same tang and somethings else that he can't recognize.

There is a trail, and he follows. Whatever fear held him back is pushed away by his need for knowing. That tingle grows stronger again. He's in another place that he doesn't normally visit. It's always too exposed, but he mouses on.

His little body weaves along the strange odors on through dark halls and musty corridors. The scent stops at another wall. Side to side, he scurries around the room and finds no more scent. It stops at the wall. He sniffs and feels for a way to get through but finds none. That never quite familiar frustration seeps into his little heart. He touches the hard surface before him with his nose. It's not damp and cold like the dank floor below him, and it's not gnawable like his once favorite food stash. It's hard, cold, rough. He smells something like the tang from the bright place, but this surface doesn't fill him with that strange dread. He touches it again. The familiar tingle runs up his spine. The roughness looks clearer before him. He listens and hears sounds from beyond the wall. Clanking. Buzzing. Hissing. Moving.

The mouse runs around the room to a patch of rough stonework along the far wall which he climbs. A ticking sound comes from the dead-end. The mouse hunkers down.

Light! For a moment the whole room floods with a small piece of that blinding light. It's gone as fast as it came. In its place are the new scents. The mouse looks down at the wall and sees a gaping hole disappear. In front is a new thing, the thing that smells of new death.

The little mouse waits. He sits frozen; not with fear, but with the desire to see. It moves. And, when it moves it hums. The mouse hears no footfalls. In the dim light, the mouse makes out a body, squat on the ground. He sees no legs. He sees a tail. It twitches, but not like a his dead enemy. Instead it moves back and forth like a twig. Its head looks mouth-less, little curved and angled sticks bristle out in place of jaws. The mouse sees no eyes, but he sees large, ear-like things ringing its head. He waits and watches. The new thing turns in circles making its strange humming sound. It weaves back and forth toward the entrance to the room.

The little mouse, though only a mouse, understands. The new thing has found his scent and is tracing its way out of the room. The mouse understands that the thing will come back and search for him. He decides to follow it.

This strange game of thing and mouse goes on for days and weeks and whole seasons. The mouse learns the habits of this beast. It will climb stairs, but with difficulty. It sleeps in the hole in the wall. It does not appear to eat. It places fresh nuts on the ground and waits. The mouse understands what a trap is. By day, he sleeps in one of many cupboards, with shredded paper for bedding. He often paws at the black marks thereon. By night, He waits by the rough wall. When he is there, he feels the comforting tingle in his spine. When he follows the creature, he still feels that tingle. He decided long ago that the creature is a thing of the bright room.

One day, there is something different about the creature. The mouse sees a little flap on its top. It looks like an opening. He wonders if it can be for food. But, there seems to be a lifelessness about it that makes him question if it is a creature as he sees it.

On that day, the creature spies the little mouse. And, as often happens, it gives chase. The bristling sticks make a hissing, flickering light as it follows the mouse. The mouse, familiar with the habits of this strange beast, leaps to and fro with little fear. He finds a joy in the chase and he feels an extra something else. Anticipation.

Down the hall the little mouse scurries, followed by the beast. He hops into the gnawable's hardened hole and dashes to the top. Below, at nearly half a forever, the beast stops. It hisses and hums and waits. A little door opens in front of it, and the little mouse can smell soft cloud better than nuts food. With a great heave, he knocks an object off the top surface of the gnawable. This is but a tiny mouse, but the object was on the edge of falling. Over many weeks, he filled it with condensation from the dank halls. As the object falls, the mouse looks over the edge. His sight, in the dimmest light, is sharp and clear. The anticipation bursts as he sates his curiosity: why does the beast avoid water?

The object shatters in front of the beast, whose bristles still show the occasional light. The smell of new death fills the little mouse's wee nose. Flashes of light blind him. In the dark that follows, he peers down and sees the beast, still. The tail does not twitch. The ears do not turn. There is no tingle in his spine.

Another sharp smell hits his nose. He imagines it is a kind of death for something that never lived.

Now for a decision, little mouse. His little mind is full of things he has never smelled nor heard nor touched nor seen. He jumps from his high perch and lands behind the beast. He is cautious, lest he fall into some trap, but he is sure that it is no longer able to do damage. He gingerly touches the side of the thing with his whiskers. Satisfied, he climbs onto his back and peers into the hole. Not flesh, not anything familiar, but that smell of new death is everywhere.

The mouse ponders (as other mice do not). He decides that this smell is not always death, but is something else -- maybe something good. This little mouse has an imagination. He uses it to come to his next great decision. He hops down the hole and closes the flap. It's a difficult feat, but he is successful.

Now, he waits. With all the anticipation, he feels hungry, He finds more cloud food deep inside the beast and eats it. He waits. For many forevers he sleeps in short stints.

He awakes to the sound of ponderous steps. The tall animals he hasn't seen in many seasons have come as he predicted. His hiding place shifts back and forth. He feels violent movements. He is certain that these animals are holding the beast, not with their mouths, but with their legs. He will wait and see. Only minutes later, the mouse feels the pleasant tingle in his spine. He is sure that he is in the bright room. With a thunk, the beast stops moving. The mouse waits. He listens to the animals murmuring to each other. They grow more distant until a clatter hides their voices.

The mouse clambers out of the beast and looks around. The bright light no longer scares him. It no longer blinds him. He sees that he is on a hard cold surface with that signature tang. He sees great structures in the distance that dwarf even the tall animals. He understands.

He sees the thin wavy from many seasons ago, and realizes something new. The patterns on its surface are no longer dark and light, they have other qualities. Some parts of the pattern appear warmer, like the sun will feel on a summer day. Other parts seem cooler, like the hissing light of the beast. He understands.

On a large black wall within a wall, white squiggles run all over. He knows many of them from his bedding materials. He understands. There is a symbol that is wrong. The tall animals made a mistake.

The tiny mouse sits on his haunches and looks at his front paws. They flex imprecisely, but he has an imagination unlike all of mousedom that finds a solution. And, he understands.