Have you ever awoken from a dream feeling as if you could never go back to the you before the dream? Like a bucket of ice water had been thrown upon your sleeping form, startling you awake with force? Sometimes a dream is a vision of prophetic power, sent to warn us of our fate in the world. I only wish that some little angel or demon had ever warned me of my fate. Instead I have run into every day blind, and every day I fear what is to come. We never understand how much we can do until we are pushed to the breaking point. I know my destiny is far out of my hands, and my only choice is to follow the pull of the tide.
My story is nothing to be marveled or upheld. It is a simple story of a girl, a mouse, and a stone. It was only a month or two ago, when the days were still cold and snow was starting to fall, when my house was visited by mice. In their newfound shelter, they scurried and scampered and made themselves at home. My mother, who has a very intense distaste of the rodents, set glue traps all throughout the kitchen and let the scene play out. Maybe a hour goes by, and the squeals and squeaks in the kitchen tell my sisters that a mouse has been caught. The trap didn't kill instantaneously but only trapped the mouse in a puddle of death. As all three were afraid of mice, I was called in to dispose of the mouse.
I like to consider myself the one in my house who does the dirty work. Now believe me, my mom is willing to do everything in order to provide for me and my sisters, but some things are a strict no. So I come into the kitchen, get a glove, and pull the glue trap from under the counter. My mother yells up from the basement, “Put it in a bag, and throw it away outside.” But as I look into this mouse's tiny black eyes, I know that it will only suffer, pulling its loose flesh over and over, ripping hair and skin, breaking bones, all in the helpless struggle for freedom. This moment might not seem like a world-changing event or significant in any way. But for me, this moment opened a door that I never knew could open. I was now faced with impossible choices, which I had to make because only I could make them for myself. This moment didn't feel like destiny or fate but just free will to make a life or death decision.
So I yell downstairs, “ What's the quickest way to kill a mouse?” My mother replies, “Hit its skull with a rock." Now I was old enough to know that this would mean the death of a living thing, no matter what path I chose. I walk outside, place the mouse on the ground, grab a rock, and look into those eyes again. I realized at that precise moment that this was hard for me to do but even harder for the mouse to watch. It can see everything I do and hear every word I speak. I don't know if this mouse can understand language or comprehend its place in the universe. My path and this mouse's path could have crossed by preordained fate or a unlucky set of events, but now this mouse and I were intertwined, and there was no going back.
Smack! I miss.
Smack! I miss.
Smack! I miss.
Smack! I hit.
Smack! I miss.
Smack! I kill.
The squeaks end. The eyes are lost in a pool of blood and brain and bone. I lift the glue trap and throw it away. Once it falls into the empty abyss of the trash can I burst into tears, hating what I’ve done but hating the fact that I could do it--that I can kill--even more than that. At the time I didn't realize that maybe this was a step on a staircase I was meant to follow. Whatever else I do from now on is a byproduct of that single event. And everybody can laugh at the girl who is crying over a dead mouse because we as a society don't see the importance of that single mouse’s life. But to that mouse, that was the biggest event of its life. It was born, and then it died by my hand. As I walk back into my house, tears streaming down my face, I wonder if it could feel it. If that mouse could feel the impact of the rock and feel the life in its body cease to exist. I spend the rest of the night crying for the life I took and the self I lost.
As I think about that day now, I see the meaning of choices. It wasn’t anything crazy or life-threatening that helped me realize a life lesson but just a small mouse. I see now that life is a series of choices. Every choice is a single number in the numerical code that makes us who we are. Every mistake or victory, every feeling or action is a single number. Some of those numbers might be predetermined by mystical forces in the universe, but most of them are decided by us. We are always in control of our destiny, but the only way we live and love and dream is if we make the right choices for ourselves.
My story is nothing to be marveled or upheld. It is a simple story of a girl, a mouse, and a stone. It was only a month or two ago, when the days were still cold and snow was starting to fall, when my house was visited by mice. In their newfound shelter, they scurried and scampered and made themselves at home. My mother, who has a very intense distaste of the rodents, set glue traps all throughout the kitchen and let the scene play out. Maybe a hour goes by, and the squeals and squeaks in the kitchen tell my sisters that a mouse has been caught. The trap didn't kill instantaneously but only trapped the mouse in a puddle of death. As all three were afraid of mice, I was called in to dispose of the mouse.
I like to consider myself the one in my house who does the dirty work. Now believe me, my mom is willing to do everything in order to provide for me and my sisters, but some things are a strict no. So I come into the kitchen, get a glove, and pull the glue trap from under the counter. My mother yells up from the basement, “Put it in a bag, and throw it away outside.” But as I look into this mouse's tiny black eyes, I know that it will only suffer, pulling its loose flesh over and over, ripping hair and skin, breaking bones, all in the helpless struggle for freedom. This moment might not seem like a world-changing event or significant in any way. But for me, this moment opened a door that I never knew could open. I was now faced with impossible choices, which I had to make because only I could make them for myself. This moment didn't feel like destiny or fate but just free will to make a life or death decision.
So I yell downstairs, “ What's the quickest way to kill a mouse?” My mother replies, “Hit its skull with a rock." Now I was old enough to know that this would mean the death of a living thing, no matter what path I chose. I walk outside, place the mouse on the ground, grab a rock, and look into those eyes again. I realized at that precise moment that this was hard for me to do but even harder for the mouse to watch. It can see everything I do and hear every word I speak. I don't know if this mouse can understand language or comprehend its place in the universe. My path and this mouse's path could have crossed by preordained fate or a unlucky set of events, but now this mouse and I were intertwined, and there was no going back.
Smack! I miss.
Smack! I miss.
Smack! I miss.
Smack! I hit.
Smack! I miss.
Smack! I kill.
The squeaks end. The eyes are lost in a pool of blood and brain and bone. I lift the glue trap and throw it away. Once it falls into the empty abyss of the trash can I burst into tears, hating what I’ve done but hating the fact that I could do it--that I can kill--even more than that. At the time I didn't realize that maybe this was a step on a staircase I was meant to follow. Whatever else I do from now on is a byproduct of that single event. And everybody can laugh at the girl who is crying over a dead mouse because we as a society don't see the importance of that single mouse’s life. But to that mouse, that was the biggest event of its life. It was born, and then it died by my hand. As I walk back into my house, tears streaming down my face, I wonder if it could feel it. If that mouse could feel the impact of the rock and feel the life in its body cease to exist. I spend the rest of the night crying for the life I took and the self I lost.
As I think about that day now, I see the meaning of choices. It wasn’t anything crazy or life-threatening that helped me realize a life lesson but just a small mouse. I see now that life is a series of choices. Every choice is a single number in the numerical code that makes us who we are. Every mistake or victory, every feeling or action is a single number. Some of those numbers might be predetermined by mystical forces in the universe, but most of them are decided by us. We are always in control of our destiny, but the only way we live and love and dream is if we make the right choices for ourselves.
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