Yesterday, while I was trying to restore data from a borked SD card, a tiny, sick mouse stumbled into my life. Suddenly there he was, flopping around on the kitchen floor, clearly not exhibiting the movement pattern of a creature that feels reasonably well, is sensibly cautious, or is capable of pursuising a purpose. Timothy, as Dean named him a few hours later, had none of that. Since he was so off balance he kept falling over himself, I found it easy to catch him.
And here my troubles began.
Fully aware of where this was leading, Dean watched as I improvized a mouse hospital room by attaching a strainer to a glass pot, with paper towel pieces as bedding, water and heavy cream in separate bottle caps, apple pieces, peanut butter, a cracker, and a pink sugar heart sprinkle.
The little mouse was not interested in any of this. Falling over again and again, tumbling, struggling, busy scratching his right ear (which seems deformed) he did not care about anything but his itching ear.
Dean asked whether we should name him, while I was resiting getting attached — or admitting attachment — and getting my hopes up. Dean looked into Habitrail (which is not suitable for mice, by the way), while I tried to figure out what that little mouse was suffering from that had caused him to just stumble right into the center of attention in our apartment. And then Dean started calling him Timothy, after the seal from the episode "To Guard A Seal" from the old time radio show .
You know you are doomed when you give them a name, right? Damn. God knows I am not bored, and the last thing I need is having my heart broken by a sick mouse. I have enough on my plate right now, as does Dean
I've been catching mice in humane traps for a few months now, and I have seen quite a few, but Timothy is so tiny it seems ridiculous to worry so much, to research mouse diseases and remedies, and to try to help. He could sit on a teaspoon. He could comfortably take a bath in a bottlecap filled with water. (Oops, maybe I should not have written that; right now, he is sitting in one of the bottlecaps.) Our cockroaches are bigger than Timothy. Scratchie's paw is bigger than Timothy.
Today is Day Two, he is still alive, he still has balance problems, but he is no longer frantically rubbing his ear, nor is he hopping around like mad. He's started showing an interest in the heavy cream. I keep watching him for long times, until I am kind of sure to detect intention in his repeated moves towards the cream-soaked cracker, and that is not just ending up falling over into the cream by mistake. He keeps falling, but he has started eating, and I hope to count more pooplets in his pot tomorrow than I did this morning.
Ha, there we have it. Currently, Rachel's happiness can be measured in mouse pooplets.
I know Timothy might break my heart tonight, but I am doing what I can. I do not have to be a Buddhist to care about a tiny life, just me. And looking at the bigger picture does fill me with hope. Within the last 100 years, Western Civilization has made incredible progress for animals. Wherever people achieved some kind of economic stability in their lives, they started treating animals much better than nature does. People have
In New York, volunteers are organizing events like (a big fair to connect people with pets). is an organization that hooks up rescue animals with veterans. Cruelty and ritual abuse against animals is still common on our planet, even in New York, but it is regarded as, well, cruel and abusive by civilized people. In a few decades, people might have Star Trek scanners that allow them to quickly diagnose what is wrong with a creature of almost any size, zap their parasites, and compose and disperse the right mixture of supplements to support its healing. Timothy would feel better in no time.
65 years ago, Richard Diamond sang to Timothy the seal to help him heal. Right now, I have to go buy more heavy cream. Timothy might get hungry.