dedicated to Paola, the cutest mouse
***
Paola the mouse had made up her mind about exactly two things.
One, she was going to leave her musty basement tonight. She was serious this time. She wasn't going to change her mind and chicken out. She knew that when she had angrily declared her intentions to move out during dinnertime, her family had not taken her seriously. Too many times before, Paola had made similar promises to leave but never acted upon them. That wasn't happening this time. Paola had had enough with the dark, dusty basement that lied underneath a middle-class suburban house. She was ready to finally leave and start a brand new life of adventure and purpose.
And two, no one was going to stop her.
***
Vivian the brick was unsure about a lot of things. Her most present uncertainty was where she was. She wasn't lying in a neat stack of other bricks, on display at a garden center like she usually was. Instead she was somewhere dark, moving, suffocating.
"We're in a truck," she heard the brick next to her say.
"What?" she said.
"Someone's bought us. We're all in a bag on the way to wherever they're taking us," the other brick replied. "Don't you pay attention?"
If Vivian was honest, no, she didn't pay attention. She never paid attention. She was a brick, what was there to pay attention to? Most of the time she was in her own mind, daydreaming, wondering. She hated her life as a brick and envied nearly every non-brick item. Shoppers coming and going, flowers swaying and blossoming, birds swooping and floating; she envied it all. Often she spent her days imagining a life as anything other than a brick. She entertained herself, dreaming of life as a person, a cloud, a blade of grass. Anything. It was the only way she managed to stay sane.
She felt the truck jolt to a stop and human chattering getting closer. The trunk door opened and the bag was heaved up, carried, and then dropped onto the yard.
"Hey Jerry," a voice from outside said. "When do you wanna start this?"
"Tomorrow," a voice responded. "I'm so tired. I think I'm gonna go inside and read my favorite book, Angelic."
"Hey I love that book! Alright, see ya tomorrow."
With that, they left and Vivian along with the rest of the bricks sat outside, confined within the bag. After a few hours, night had fallen and Vivian found herself pondering about the meaning of her life. What was she doing her? What was her purpose? Why did she hate her life so much? She never felt quite free, always trapped in her brick life. Well where was she now? She had an opportunity to escape in the night. No humans were around to see her and she had nothing to lose. The idea of freedom called at her, beckoning her to be welcomed into its sweet arms. The only thing that stood in the way of her and liberty was a loose knot around the opening of the bag. She wanted nothing more to leave and become a free brick. So why was she so afraid to do anything?
It took about another two hours before Vivian finally plucked up the courage to just leave. She shuffled her way to the mouth of the bag and spent another 30 minutes getting it open. She stared at the might-fallen outside world from the small gap. This was it. She was going to step out. She was finally going to be free.
And the moment she placed one of her corners out of the bag and onto the rustly grass, she felt all the pain, the hatred, the jealousy from her past life vanish.
She was finally a free brick.
