I hadn’t noticed him at first when I stepped outside, half asleep, and walked directly to the cat bowl to bring it inside for a refill. As I turned to take the empty dish I first saw the damp gray mouse, presumably dropped from Pete’s mouth moments earlier.
It laid there still, dead I thought. It was tiny, a baby. Its eyes closed and it was on its side, legs extended. I ran inside to get something to scoop it up then ran back outside with two paper towels and knelt down to pick it up when I saw its legs move ever so slightly and its tummy rise. I wasn’t prepared for it to be alive and immediately drew in a breath, feeling an instant urge to scream and climb up onto a chair. But the little one did nothing, just continued to live there in the most vulnerable way possible, on the cement, out in the open with a cat nearby.
I called for Pete and grabbed him. Back inside, I secluded him in a room, shut the door, and headed up the stairs to get a shoebox. I had just one. I poked a few holes in the lid, added a small towel and ran back downstairs to fetch my teeny patient. He hadn’t moved. With the help of the shoebox lid, I gently pushed him into the box and onto the towel. I put the lid on and took him out into the garage where it was cool as meanwhile, my daughter watched TV in the other room oblivious to my rescue effort.
He appeared to be in a deep sleep, I thought looking down at him in the box. When I gently nudged him with a pencil, his legs moved very slowly, like slow motion footage and I could see his belly gently go up and down. There was no blood, no wounds, but his fur was matted down wet with Pete’s spit. Everything seemed to be in good working order, so I left him there in the garage and went back inside.
I checked on him every 15 to 20 minutes or so. His condition had not changed. Either he was sleeping it off or dying. I couldn’t tell which, but he didn’t appear to be in pain or under any duress, maybe just shock I thought. I contemplated CPR with my pinky finger, but it didn’t seem necessary. He was breathing.
I had to leave the house so I transferred him to my closet upstairs, turned on a light and left alone in the quiet small room. Just in case, I placed some crumbled cheese and water in the box. It was hard to find a water dish small enough for an about inch-long critter- not including a skinny tail. I thought of a cap of something, but even with that, I couldn’t find one small enough. A small dish would have to do. He’d figure it out, I thought, if he got well enough to want a drink at all.
When I returned a couple hours later, I discovered he had moved to a new spot. He was awake, on all fours but not moving. Good! This is a good sign, I thought! I had to leave again for J’s dance performance and when we got back and I walked into the closet I immediately noticed that one of the puncture holes I had crudely made jabbing a pair a closed scissors into the lid of the shoe box was a little larger and looked nibbled on. I lifted the lid and to my surprise my little buddy’s fur was dry and fluffy! He scurried and hid into a fold in the towel as any mouse would do. I couldn’t tell of he had eaten any of the cheese or drank the water, but this was a completely different mouse than the one I saw that morning nearly dead.
Thrilled over his recovery and my successful emergency room care, I took him outside, opened the lid, tilted the box and in a flash he scurried off into the bushes, flapping leaves as he quickly ran over them. He was gone. I smiled.
Pete was still in the house at this point, so any threat that I was aware of I kept away to give my little boy a second chance. It was his lucky day! Had I not seen him, Pete would likely had returned to finish him off. Had someone else saw what appeared to be a dead mouse in their courtyard, they would have probably scooped him up and throw him into the trash without noticing that he was still alive.
I had to be there to notice him at that precise moment and observe his condition. It was his only chance. I could have been at work, out for the day, and then it would have been too late.
He is the luckiest mouse in the world, as least for today.
—SBM
Single Busy Mommy 