The Great Mouse Hunt

The Great Mouse Hunt

Once upon a time there was a young lady who looked very much like a mouse, and who was employed by the government as a courier.

Now she looked like a mouse chiefly in the aspect that, her countenance was almost always fiercely animated with a look of pure determined concentration as though she was always a little bit cutely-angry. Only mice have this expression, and because this young lady was rather miniature in stature, because her skin was lily white, and because she had been born with a genetic disease which had prematurely changed her hair to white, was why it was said that she looked-very much like a mouse, as opposed to a-very-little.

Anyhow its was said that she looked this way - angry, because she hated being a courier, and this was because not only is the carrying of letters very dangerous but also because the business of transporting is commonly done outdoors, and this mousey girl so very much hated the cold/rain in the extreme.

One fine-night, a stormy but rain-less night, the kind where one sees lighting minus the rain did this mousey girl have to work transporting several letters belonging to the King to a certain lord. So in the on-off lighting the mousey-courier walked, her eyes furtively darting back and forth suspiciously. In her estimations, she had decided, that it was a very poor night to be out and that she'd rather be doing anything else...

Along a sunken road she traveled upon crunchy gravel and in the dried mud tracks from wagons. She extracted a letter out of hiding, in the lining of her jacket, and studied the King's elaborate seal in order to pass the time when all of a sudden this mousey courier heard some noise behind her like the long dreadful moan of the dead! So she stopped in her tracks, and turned around brilliantly as the lightning flashed off her eyes!

What she beheld was a row of white fence posts illuminated briefly by the lightning, but when the dark fell the mousey-courier distinctly noted that several of the posts suddenly seemed to move of their own and instantly she was filled with hot electric fear as her little heart began to pound ever-so fiercely!

But when she reflected, she began to suppose that it couldn't have been anything more than a figment of the imagination, at least it certainly had to be. And as she began to sweat she tried to reason it out logically... Maybe it was her lack of sleep, or a folly of the senses, of course there was the flashing of the shadows and light from the storm to consider. But again her fear persisted and she began to drum up supernatural images of living fences, with gnashing teeth, and pointed claws! Of demons lurking just behind every tree! She even began to see the imaginary faces and muskets of enemy soldiers in the bushes, conspiring just how they might assail her and intercept the King's dispatches at silvery bayonet point!

Suddenly the mousey girl lost her whit and heart and broke out into a fearful run away from the fence-posts as again came a terrible sound! The storm only drove on her most dreadful apprehensions, and until she had gone a long distance did she finally stop, but only because she found it hard to breathe. She clutched a silver cross that she wore upon her neck closely, and tucked the King's letter back within its hiding spot. The lightening flashed far-off without sound, and she was momentarily distracted...

Suddenly another sickening moan issued from out of the shadows behind her, and the mouse took to flight again. This time she was carried by her little feet until she came to a ditch, and because it was so terribly dark, and because some specter was chasing her she miscalculated where the bridge was, and out she ran into the space immediately over the ditch. Her feet kicked in the air, looking for purchase, but instead they horrifyingly found nothing, and so she felt herself in free fall until she landed non-the-worse at the bottom of that impressively deep ditch. Luckily she was alright, and as she paused to inspect herself the soundless lightning flashed, her mind was now a perfect petrified blank.

Suddenly she had the bright idea that whatever was following her would be sure to take the bridge, and not look for her there in the ditch. So she made herself comfortable, and leaned against the steep and crumbling stony walls of the ditch. Everything lit up momentarily again, this time followed by a great electric crackle-boom overhead, and the courier's heart leapt from out of her breast as she unexpectedly came eye to eye with the creature that was pursuing her! And so suddenly went completely limp!

"But what was it that she saw?" you might ask, and that would be a very good question to ask in this case of mortal fright... And the answer is exactly as terrifying as your imagination would believe, as it was in the case of this young lady. She feared the worse.

However the reality of what she had seen that night was nothing more than a black-cat's shimmering green eyes. Lit like green fire by the lightning.

It was this animal that while leaping off a fence-post had caused all of the commotion to begin with. It was this animal's scratchy mewing that the mousey-girl had mistaken for something frightful and evil. And because this cat was familiar with the mousey-girl, since she fondly loved to pet and feed this stray in town, it had followed her all that night in pursuit of simple friendly companionship and warmth.

Luckily our mousey-courier had only fainted and not died as some might assume... She was curled up warmly in the ditch as the black cat rubbed its face against her hand trying to rouse her....