Baby Mouse

After a few drinks at The Bar tonight, leaning against one of Essex station red steel pillar, I watch a baby mouse running on one of the rails.

It's tiny little legs skipping on the cold metal as it tries to get traction. It's been a long day. Tomorrow will be even longer. The buzz isn't gone yet. I just want the train to come and take me home. As I watch it, I think that this stupid little mouse can feel from the rail whether a train is approaching the station or not. Every one of us on the platform are freezing our asses off, wondering why that fucking train is not coming and Baby Mouse knows, but won't tell.

And then I feel on my face the cold breeze that always precedes a train. Baby Mouse is still on the rail. Trying to run away from the train. Then stops, turns around, and runs toward the train, then stops again and runs away from the trains. You get the idea. It's sad. She tries to go down the rail but hesitates. Baby Mouse, she thinks, Waow! Man... that rail is really huge and there's no way I'm jumping.

When the train appears in the station, Baby Mouse is still running back and forth. The last split second I saw her before she disappeared under the huge mass of the first car, she was running away from it.

Whether Baby Mouse went to mice heaven or managed to pull out an impossible escape is a matter open to debate.