Aunt Kathy's Mice

A very short story about many things, including mice. It'll be polished later after I've calmed down from trying to load it correctly for almost an hour and fixing a multitude of mistakes that mysteriously appeared every time I tried to edit. Enjoy.

 “I’m not crazy,” I’m often fond of whispering to the cupboards when I search them for Aunt Kathy’s mice.

            I can swear I can hear the little b******s in the walls at night, scrabbling away behind the peeling floral wallpaper. It’s a faint, almost inaudible scritch-scratch that just moves back and forth through my bedroom.            

I can’t sleep with two mice crawling through my walls. Which is exactly their intention.

I always hated the mice. They gave me evil looks when Aunt Kathy wasn’t in the room. She wouldn’t get rid of them, though, because they were her friends. I flushed them down the upstairs toilet after Aunt Kathy’s funeral, but they snuck back in through the plumbing.

I’ve yelled at them. I even tried moving into the spare bedroom, but they followed me in the air ducts. I took out the air ducts after that, but they still follow me.

I even tried shushing them the way Aunt Kathy tried to shush them when they wouldn’t stop running on their wheel, but I couldn’t find the lighter fluid.

The annoyance of the mice has spread far beyond my sleep, until now the mice follow me everywhere. They even stalk me to the subway, but I don’t know where they hide. I’ve searched my bag many times, and I even once made someone else search it, but if that’s where they were they escaped in the nick of time.

The woman didn’t want to help me at first, but she was much nicer after I started telling her little boy about Aunt Kathy’s mice. I guess she felt sorry about her rudeness once she heard my story.

She didn’t find them, though. I’m sure that they hid in my pockets instead, the little s***s, but they must’ve gone into my bag again when I started checking before leaving the house.

I lost my temper with them in the pantry, grabbing a broom when the noise got close and putting a hole straight through the wall.

My quick action caught them by surprise, I know, because I saw their little tails disappearing as the dust settled. They don’t come to the pantry anymore, because they’re afraid I’ll see them. I bought a shotgun, now, even though Aunt Kathy said guns are wrong, because they make so many holes at once.

Those mice won’t be able to hide for long.

Author's Note

Ignore small errors like the un-indented first line, if you would. I did my best but the site was being absolutely impossible.

Reviews

[brita]

Hahaha. I loved this one. It was totally absurd and not what I expected. I was laughing hysterically at phrases like "They gave me evil looks" and "the little s***s." This poem put me in an overall happy and silly mood. Reminds me of myself in times where I have let the most diminutive possible object in the world get to me. Just goes to show that the littlest things and life are often what affect us most. Sometimes drive us mad...
:] Nice job!

[Malenkov]

nice little (absurd?) tale, almost Kafkesque in flavour, the writing is taut and vivid, I think you could take this further, though it stands well on its own, but you could stretch the tension out on the piece for example by having the broom scene as a climax, with the noise becoming unbearable while he's at a party or something, that would make a good scene, padd the lenght and deliver a bit more puch if you wanted to go in that direction. But ut still stands nicely alone - a strong sense or anxiety and parania came out in the scene and I was thinking - is this guy crazy- the mice itching never being too clear if its all imagination and then the surprising reversal in the last scene where I thought they would stand around hands on open mouths think what the hell has he done.... perhaps he is crazy, seeing mice everywhere, and we get to see this indirectly through his words - in which case well done in rendering a great unrealiable narrator. Good writing, use of movement and a good story. Do think about turning the party into a full scene but nicely done.

Good writing. Lets see more of that!

[Fabian G. Franklin]

I found this absolutely hilarious! Bats in the belfry and rats in the cupboard! lol great write!

[R. G. Nestle]

The story made me first think of H. P. Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls." I really want to know more about how this person got to the point of insanity.
The difference between the Lovecraft story and yours, though, is that the rats in his story "really" existed. Dang! Now I have to read that story again.
Good job on this one. I look forward to reading your finished version. I'll be reading some of your other works over the next few days and hope that you will read more of mine and give me some very honest reviews. I need to know the good and the bad. I'll do the same for you. (BTW have nothing negative to say about this little story. I liked it!) Take care of yourself and keep the creative processes churning away!

[Emily B]

I hate mice. I hate listening to them chew in the walls knowing you can't get to them. Mice may have their place in the food chain but I wish they'd live it somewhere other than my closets.

[[untitled]]

LOL, that's a pretty funny storie, I like it beacuse you wrote it in first person, which I like better than any other type, but thats me. I enjoyed the craziness of the story, but it also had lots of structure.

I just have one question though: Where did you get your inspiration for this story? It's a pretty good write, I enjoyed it and can't wait for more of your work!

[Misa]

erm... l like your character here, but l'm thinking the statement about not being crazy might just be a bit...well, crazy.
the narration was quite nicely done though, catching just the right tone to make the entire story flow nicely; the title set the piece off enough that it was intriguing, and the addition of being able to see their tails in the dust brought a tiny hint of truth to it - nice blend of fact and fiction, l suppose, turned into something that flows quite well. nice job.
~Misa