A January Night

At the end of the evening, one of the guests offered me a lift back to the Friary which was actually situated nearby, however, as it was very cold, I happily accepted.

Outside the Friary’s main door I said goodnight to the kind driver, and began to insert the key into the lock when I heard a noise behind me. I turned round, but I couldn’t see anything. Having inserted the key into the lock I opened the door. I was about to enter when I heard the same noise again. It seemed to come from the entranceway. I didn’t move, and the noise stopped. I looked around carefully, and finally I saw a piece of cardboard which, moved by some unknown force, began to jump from side to side. It was a cold evening, but there was not the slightest wind, and that piece of cardboard, which was jumping around, did not make any sense.

I had become very curious by now, and wanted to know what was going on. All of a sudden the cardboard stopped moving. I bent down to look closer, but could see nothing. I was about to pick up the piece of cardboard when it suddenly jumped forward. For a moment I thought someone was playing a practical joke on me, and had attached an invisible piece of string to the cardboard.

The truth, however, was much simpler: the piece of cardboard, covered with a sticky resin, was a rudimentary but highly efficient mousetrap. Once the mouse, attracted by the bait, puts its paws on the sticky cardboard, it can’t get away. Desperately trying to free itself, the mouse ends up getting progressively more stuck until it can’t move at all. Death is then inevitable: either by the person who set the trap, or as prey to other animals, or, the least miserable of ends, through sheer exhaustion. In any case the mouse does not survive long.

This was a sweet little mouse, and reminded me of the main character in the movie Ratatouille. Feeling compassionate, I decided to free it. However, it turned out to be no easy task. The mouse had no intention of collaborating and, more frightened than ever, even tried to bite me. I picked up a stick and patiently tried to separate the mouse from the cardboard, when one of the Friary’s neighbours opened his window and shone a torch at me.

“But what are you doing, Father?” he shouted angrily. “Are you mad? I have been trying to catch that mouse for two months!”

Mortified and humiliated, I left the mouse to its destiny and entered the Friary. After reciting Compline and before falling asleep, I thought back to that mouse.

The poor have many things in common with mice:

·        they live in filthy, smelly dens that some people even dare to call homes;

·        they are often dirty, and are avoided and despised;

·        they are very strong and resistant, and will never disappear;

·        they are considered useless, even dangerous by our society;

·        at times they are bad and nasty, and they often steal;

·        and, as ‘birds of a feather flock together’, wherever there are poor there are also mice, and vice-versa.

Afraid of looking ridiculous, I left that poor mouse to die. I hope the same won’t happen with the poor. The former is understandable, the latter would be unforgivable.