Consummation

CONSUMMATION

Mimi was awake when she heard it. So it wasn’t her imagination or a dream. It came from downstairs. It wasn’t a furniture creaking sound, either, or a bird landing on the window sill. It was a distinct crack, like someone in a room two doors away smacked a table with a ruler. And what followed it was some very very faint whispering. It left Mimi awaiting a return crack, but there was none. And it wasn't a big enough commotion to make anybody get up and investigate. Sometimes she would hear her parents moving something and talking softly. But not now. Mimi thought of burglars and kidnappers for a little while, then she pulled her Pooh-bear close and her mind veered off into more fanciful realms.

But the whispers came back

Mimi didn't know what time it was, only that it was still dark. Halfway down the stairs she remembered the sound. Alert for anything out of place, she scouted the living room and then the dining room and finally the kitchen. Was she the first up? She heard the sound of water running in the powder room.Surely a spoon had fallen off the counter or a calendar had dropped off its hook on the wall. Nothing. She switched on the kitchen light.

There it was.

It was the tiniest movement. Maybe it was a tail wag and maybe it was a tiny leg pawing. Slowly and just the slightest bit. Mimi sat down on the kitchen floor in the corner formed by the sink and the bottom of a cabinet. She held Pooh bear in her lap. The movement had come from just beneath a cabinet in the nearest corner. She studied it carefully, not daring to approach. She had never seen a mousetrap and she didn’t know how they operated. But she had an idea of what a mouse should look like. One of her books was about giving a mouse a cookie. The thing in the corner seemed to have a kind of mouse head. Tiny ears and whiskers, but turned away. Its eyes, at least the one she could make out, seemed to be bulging out of its head.

It was better to look at its other end. There was a mouse tail and mouse paws, the rear ones. So it was a mouse half way. But then there was this metal bar that held its belly down, and the top half of the mouse was Y11”1"s111Y1twisted around and in shadow.

She knew then that the mouse was dead or dying or in some terrible condition that wasn’t in any of her books. She cried with a great suddenness, starting with a loud, almost shout. Both of her parents arrived, her mother stooping down to pick her up and sort of hissing, “Jim” over her shoulder. She knew her father was busying himself with the mouse corpse, and her crying continued. It was hard and punctuated by gulps of air and it went on at a high volume until it wasn’t about the mouse or anything, but just crying for the sake of crying. Her mother said “shh, shh, shh” and carried her back up the stairs. She patted her back as she turned the corner at the top of the stairs and walked, not fast but not slow, to the child’s room. The door was ajar and she swept through and deposited her on the edge of the bed so that she was sitting upright, holding her stuffed animal.

Her mother sat, cross legged on the carpet and watched her as her crying gradually subsided, with at least two points where the cries rallied back to maximal volume then calmed again.

“Y’arright, Memes? .

Mimi sobbed some more.

“Wanta talk about it?”

“It was dead, mama!” Her voice broke into sobs. “The little mouse was dead!”

“I’ll admit it didn’t look too good, but Daddy’s taking it to have it looked at, and there’s always a chance they can revive it.”

“Really?” She coughed and her mother rose, located a box of tissues and proceeded to apply one to her nose, which she dutifully blew into.

“They can do wonders these days with, you know, surgery and xrays . . .”

“Won’t they need tiny beds and machines and everything?”

“Oh, you listen, kiddo, they’ve got MRXes and PDQs these days that would really, you know, surprise you.”

Mother and daughter stared at each other until the former sprang to her feet and went to the bed and sat on the edge alongside her daughter. “Okay now?”

“I guess so.” She leaned into her mother’s side and sighed. “But what was that thing he was stuck in?”

“What do you mean, honey?”

“There was a bar that was practically squeezing him in half! And it was attached to a little board!” Mimi’s breath caught again and for a moment her mother feared that she would collapse into another paroxysm of sobbing. “I thought I could hear him calling, in a little mouse voice.” She sat more erect and looked into her mother’s eyes.

“That’s a little alarm just for creatures like him. Outdoor creatures aren’t supposed to come inside. You don’t see bears and wolves and things roaming around in people’s houses, do you?”

“No”, Mimi sighed doubtfully.

“What if you woke up one morning and there was a bear in your bed staring at you!?”

Mimi giggled. “I’d send Pooh bear after him!” she held out her stuffed animal.

“”Good luck with that!” her mother made growling sounds and pawed at her and tickled her. They both giggled.Then her mother eased her back under the covers. “You shouldn’t be up so early anyway! Go back to bed for a while and I’ll wake you in time for Sponge Bob!” She tucked the coverlet and kissed her on the forehead. “And maybe, just maybe, pancakes!”

And so she did and so Mimi fell into a deep sleep.

* *

When Mimi awakened approximately two hours later, there was a mouse on the adjoining pillow staring at her. She blinked several times and pulled Pooh closer. She wrinkled her nose to see if it would scare it away but it simply wrinkled its nose right back. Then it sort of flexed its whiskers. She thought she saw its mouth moving, revealing several impossibly tiny teeth, and she thought she heard the whispering again. It sounded like “consta . . ., consta . . .

She whispered to the creature, “Is your name Constance?” It seemed to say no. “Constantine?” She had heard that name on television. It was the title of a movie. “No” again.

“Consent?” What could that mean? ‘Concentrate’? Was it ‘concentrate’?” There was the slightest nod. Mimi closed her eyes and tried to eliminate any other sounds from her mind. She thought that was what “concentrate” meant.

“Good morning, Mimi!”

“How do you know my name?” she blurted out. She realized she had made a mistake.

“We have very acute hearing. I heard your chieftains call you that. It would be best not to alarm them.”

Mimi thought back to the kitchen and the mousetrap and a tear came to her eye. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

“Uey? In the kitchen? Don’t be. He led a long and exciting life.”

“How old was he?”

“One.”

“One? My little cousin is one and he can barely walk.”

“We’re different species, darling Mimi, and different species have different life expectancies, and different ideas about the passage of time.”

Mimi thought about that for a moment and said, “Okay” She thought some more then said, “Huey is a funny name for a mouse!”

“He was a famous mouse. He once was being chased by a very fierce and cunning cat, and he executed an escape maneuver that included turning 180 degrees and running back between the cat’s legs to safety!”

“He was famous. I saw that on a cartoon one time! But how come he couldn’t escape the trap thingy”

“Your chieftain used peanut butter for bait. Uey could never resist peanut butter. He wanted to bring some home to the nest and he got greedy. A mouse like Uey just isn’t capable of caution. And let’s just say one year is a very long time for a mouse but a very short time for a, do you want to know what we call your tribe?”

“What?”

“Hoppers”

“Hoppers?! Why?”

“Well, our scouts noticed that you got around on two limbs instead of four, and then one reported that they saw you and your friends hopping around on the sidewalk in front of your house.”

“Me and Katie and Sandy play hopscotch! You were watching?”

“Yes, one of ours. They reported that it looked like fun. They wished we had chalk and a sidewalk!”

“I’ll get you some chalk! I’ll get it for you now!”

“No, no, please. Leave a piece in a corner of your deck. We’ll find it.” He looked up. “That’s your chieftain.”

“Miriam! Miriam, honey, breakfast will be served just as soon as you brush your teeth.”

“I’m coming, mom!”

“Daddy says to make it snappy!”

“K” Mimi turned back toward the pillow he had vacated. “Are you still there?” she whispered.

“Yes” he climbed back up to the pillow’s crest.

“Will you wait till I get back?”

“I have to get ready to go”

“Why?”

“I’m old, darling Mimi, old mice have to move on, make room for the youngsters.”

“How old are you?”

“Two.”

“You’re only 2?”

“It’s like a century in your years.”

“Oh, and you never even said your name?”

He whispered and whistled a fairly long passage, then said, “Red.”

“Red? How are you a Red?”

“Long story short, I brought a small beet back to the nest one time. Everybody loved it and everybody pooped red for a day.”

“That’s funny” , she giggled.

A voice came from downstairs, “Miriam!”

She turned and shouted toward the door, “Coming!”

When she turned back he was gone.

As she climbed onto her seat at the kitchen table, she shouted cheerfully, “Hello, Chieftains!” With her spork she separated a silver dollar pancake from a stack and started the feast.

Her father sat alongside with his giant mug of coffee and put his arm around her shoulders. “”You okay now, Meemstress? All better, huh? I let him go out in the yard. He’ll be okay. We just can’t have mice in the house, honey, and there’s no better way to, you know . . .”

“It’s okay, daddy. I know. He shouldn’t have tried to get all the peanut butter

Behind her back, her mother silently mouthed the words, “peanut butter?” to which her father nodded in return.”

Several minutes later, as she was finishing, her mother began brushing her hair into pony tails. She asked, “Why did you call Daddy and me, 'chieftains'?"

“Because you’re the leaders of the hopper tribe!”

Her mother turned to her father with a quizzical look. He glanced over the rim of his coffee cup and shrugged.

* *

Mimi searched for him while she was changing out of her school uniform but without success. She even took the pillow out of the pillow case, then had trouble putting it back on. She pulled the top sheet and coverlet back and peered under the bed. Nothing.

At the end of dinner, Mimi announced she was feeling tired and wanted to go to bed. But her mother objected. “As assistant chieftain, I hereby declare this to be a day of strawberry shortcake dessert with whipped cream!”

“Senior chieftain daddy, do you hear what this peasant is saying? Declining the royal shortcake?”

“I am chagrined, appalled and dismantled,” her father remarked, studying Mimi, “on the other hand, this means more for me!”

With a theatrical aside, her mother remarked, “Don’t worry, Memes, I’ll save you some.”

Mimi tried to get up from her seat, but her mother pushed her back softly. “Are you sure you’re over the whole mouse thing, honey?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Mrs. Choi said you drew a picture of a mouse in art class today.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She said it was an old mouse but otherwise very realistic looking.”

Mimi shrugged. Her mother squatted alongside her chair.

“Have you seen any other mice?”

“You mean like the other one? Like here in the kitchen?”

“Uh huh”

“No.” Mimi was glad it had been only a kitchen mouse. She knew she was a very bad liar, and if she told the truth there would probably be mouse traps in her bedroom.

“Are you sure you don't want to stay up late with us? It’s Friday and you can watch cartoons as late as you want. And get this, Daddy is going to make real popcorn, the kind you make in a pot and shake and shake and then throw into a paper bag, and put butter and salt on.”

“I don’t think so, mom.”

As she trudged up the stairs her mother shouted, “Brush those teeth and put clean jammies on!” She turned to her husband and said, “Poor thing, she’s worn out from all that drama this morning.”

* *

Mimi stayed awake as long as she could, but it wasn’t very long and she slept soundly all night. But when a tiny shaft of light from the dawn shot across the room, bounced off a mirror and returned to light up a bedpost, Mimi awakened. She had her back to the other pillow and she fought alongside Pooh bear to face the other way. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to focus on the pillow.

There he was.

She imagined he was smiling but it was too hard to determine.

“Good morning, little hopper.”

“Good morning, Red!” She giggled to herself.The word, “hopper” reminded her about the chalk. And that, in turn, reminded her of her breakfast stash. She turned to her nightstand and withdrew a fragment of the silver dollar pancake. “I saved it for you.”

He gave the gift a few tentative licks, then squeaked happily as he nibbled it. “Don’t think I don’t love it, but I want to take some back to the nest.”

“Sure, okay”, she piped, “I can wrap it up for you!”

“No, please, I’ll manage”

“Do you like oatmeal? I can bring that tomorrow.”

“Mimi, remember how I told you that a mouse has to be bold and daring and live life on the edge? Like Uey. Yes it finally caught up with him, but that’s a part of our lives that we love and cherish, as crazy as that might sound to you.”

Mimi made a stern face. “You should stop doing that.”

“We can’t. It’s a part of us we can’t change.”

They looked at each other for a long while.

“Bring the chalk out on your deck today at noon. Look at the flagpole your chieftains put up. When its shadow is completely gone, look down into the yard. I’ll wave goodbye to you.”

Mimi began to sob. “Don’t go. You don’t have to go.”

“I do. I’m sorry. Be happy for me.”

* *

Mimi passed the kitchen and headed for the gameroom where big sliding glass doors lead outside to the deck. She had two chunky sticks of sidewalk chalk in one hand.

“Don’t wander off too far, Meems, you want PB&J for lunch?”

“Sounds great, mama!”

Outside on the deck she found her father patiently trying to load string onto a string trimmer. Mimi looked at the flagpole. Some shadow, but not much.

“Hey kiddo, grab hold of the end of this line and pull it taut, okay?”

Mimi dropped the chalk in the corner and went over to her dad, glancing back at the flagpole.

“Easy now, not too hard . . .” he held one part of the trimmer down with his left thumb and manipulated the line reel with his right hand. “Okay, baby, thanks!”

Mimi ran back to the corner where the chalk lay. The flagpole shadow was nearly gone. She heard her father’s voice and it had an unaccustomed note of urgency. “Mimi, look up there, you know what that is?”

She peered up into the sky where he was pointing, “the bird?”

“That’s no ordinary bird. That’s a red-tailed hawk.Look at him, he’s circling around up there, looking for lunch.”

“What does he like to eat?”

“Oh, other birds, I guess, mice, rabbits, squirrels. Any of those critters out there had better watch out. He’ll come down on them at about 100 miles per hour and sink his big talons into ‘em. He’s a raptor, and raptors have tremendous eyesight and descend at phenomenal speed. Remember that Tennyson poem we read? About the eagle? ‘And like a thunderbolt, he falls’”

Mimi stood up on one of the crosspieces and looked down at the flagpole. No shadow. She peered into the yard and thought she saw Red in the corner of the yard on a little rock. She yelled, “Red! Red! hide!”

Her father gave a little chuckle. “They can’t hear you, honey. And who’s ‘Red’?”

Red stood out now as he began his trek diagonally across the new mown yard. The hawk began its descent, tucking its wings back and making of itself a streamlined projectile. Mimi and her father both winced when the raptor made impact, throwing up a puff of dry grass.. The bird so stunned itself that it had to walk about seemingly to regain its senses. Its prey, however, was locked, squirming in its talons.

At length, the hawk took off with powerful strokes of its large wings. Its cargo, dangling below, twisted and wriggled as it ascended. Mimi burst into sobs as she watched, then was forced off her perch and back onto the deck as the bird unaccountably altered its flight path and flew directly overhead within a few feet of her. Red looked Mimi in the eyes one last time and was gone.