scuttle beneath the oven, wait till dark, nibble through the basket and seize the rest of the day old rice. such was the only agenda of the tiny house mouse who lived within the baseboard of the clark's kitchen sink. it had never known a world outside their kitchen, never suffered a need its walls could not contain. the house mouse ate all that it required and desired no more, waiting patiently for the occasional crumb to fall from the cutting board, for the not-so-empty wrapper to be shoved into the garbage, for the days leftovers to be left even momentarily unattended. this continued even after mrs clark shot herself.

the house mouse did not see it happen, though it happened right there at the kitchen table. the sound of it startled him from an evenings sleep, but he assumed mr. clark had returned and slammed the door or perhaps dropped something in the garage. but when the house mouse woke the next morning, there was the inevitable stench of iron in the air, as though a raw steak had been squeezed into the kitchen drain, the blood now coagulated and cold in the pipes. the house mouse hid all the next day, avoiding the kerfuffle and mayhem of humans coming in and out. at any rate, not one absentmindedly nibbled on a chocolate bar or haphazardly shoved a hand into a bag of salted sunflower seeds.

mrs. clark's ghost was sitting upright at the table the next morning when the house mouse finally decided it was safe to venture out. he was not startled to see her. he had heard from the other mice in other homes on other blocks of how the humans tended to linger on even after they were dead like food that lodged itself in the disposal or hair that clogged the bathroom tub. the humans were their own obstructions, always blocking themselves, always standing in their own ways. the house mouse simply came and went, took as much as was available though never more than they needed and then off they went. they never lingered, never waited for the moment to spoil.

the house mouse pitied mrs. clark, as a woman who cooked most evenings for one, ate silently at the table, smoked a cigarette over a glass of something or other, then threw back a little blue pill before passing out on the living room sofa. the food she habitually left unfinished and exposed at the table was delicious but cold. mr clark came home at all hours of the night, stumbling and loud, though never loud enough to wake mrs. clark, who lay there on the sofa still, her dress wrinkled, her pearls clutched around her neck, her eyelids flickering away in a fugue.

the next morning, seeing the house mouse emerge from his home inside the baseboard, mrs clark attempted to scream, as she had done at least once a month for the entirety of her time in their home. yet today, she noticed, she made no sound. no matter how wide she made her mouth and no matter how genuinely felt her disgust at the sight of vermin, the kitchen stayed as silent as the grave. poor mrs clark, the house mouse thought, leaving traces of herself all over the house, like crumbs from mr clark half eaten box of vanilla wafers. sure, the house mouse would himself be dead himself soon, though mice never lingered as the humans do. they took what they needed and off they went. they did so until they did not need it anymore. and then they let it all go.

scuttle beneath the oven, wait till dark, nibble through the basket and seize the rest of the day old rice. that was what the house mouse thought. that and little else.