Mary Had a Little Mouse
Mary Had a Little Mouse
Mary had a little mouse, its fur was white as snow, and everywhere the mouse had gone, Mary wished to go.
Mary was a strange person, everyone said so. She sat quietly in her room, waiting, always waiting. Young, pretty, and she was once to be married.
Oh, a handsome devil he was. Tall, lean, dusty hair, deep blue eyes. Yes, she was instantly in love with this fine man called Thomas.
After a couple of dates, he proposed to her. Though she played coy, she knew she’d say yes. So did he.
A few weeks after she said yes she found, though she did not wish to, that she gave in to his sexual appetite which she soon learned seemed unsatisfiable. Still, she wanted desperately to please him, to show her love, so she did whatever he asked.
After a few months, she asked when the marriage date was to be. He said soon, but no date was set. She told him it was a good thing, she was pregnant. He seemed upset. He did use logic and talked her into getting an abortion.
After all, they were too young to be tied down with kids so soon. Though she didn’t know it until later, that abortion was a bit botched and she was now infertile.
Then, one day while he was away and she was cleaning she found he had a secret. A drawer, hidden in his desk inside another. She found it innocently enough when she was putting away some of his clutter on his desktop. He had left it unlocked. In it were stacks of disks. It was the top one’s label that caught her eye. It read, “Mary learning deepthroat.”
Though at that second she was pretty sure what it meant she placed it in the computer and watched herself in a porn movie. After checking the stack she found another that said, “Mary loses virginity.”
In it also was, “Sara climbs on top” one that said, “Lynn gets it on,” and other names unknown to her. Each was carefully dated and seems fidelity was not in his makeup.
As she became a bit upset she also found a bank account and a website. She went there and saw, among others, her picture and for a small fee you could watch “Mary getting it on.”
Yes, Mary was a strange one. She said nothing, put it all back, and went about her housekeeping. Keeping an eye on the drawer and him, she found several secret cameras and recording equipment. Still, she said nothing. She asked again when the marriage was to be and he said he felt maybe they should think about it a bit more. He didn’t know Mary had been doing just that.
On a Saturday morning, very early, Mary decided it was time for a command performance. While Thomas slept she placed a fresh disk in the recorder.
The last she saw of Thomas was under a red-stained sheet on their bed as she was handcuffed and led out.
The court found that stabbing him exactly one hundred times, all recorded, was probably a sign of premeditated murder and she was given life. It was later commuted and she was sent to a mental institution. The disk they found was labeled “Thomas gets religion and becomes holy.”
Mary was a strange person as she sat and stared like she wasn’t there. The little mouse having ran by and left through its little crack, took Mary’s mind with him.
“Hello Mary, how are you today?”
“Still a bit blue I think. My sanity appeal didn’t go well I’m afraid.”
“I know, I have a hole in the doctor’s office as well.”
“Krill, why do you help me? Why did you talk to me? You know they think I’m crazy now don’t you?”
“Mary, Mary. They thought you were before. I mean, come on, one hundred times?”
“There was a reason, though I told them nothing.”
“What reason? Can you tell me?”
“Sure, you’re a mouse, who’d believe you?
“When I found the disks he had exactly 96 of us making love. I wanted to make an impression on him at our one-hundredth time being recorded for his business. A special one.”
“Well, you did that. Still, why didn’t you just get him prosecuted?”
“He’d have gotten off in a few years. He killed my baby and he killed me inside, he also killed any hope of ever having one. Yes, I was the fool. Yes, even as I killed him I still loved him. Yes, I let him talk me into it. So yes, I wanted to be sure I was punished as much as he was.”
Yes, Mary was a strange one as she sat in her room starring at the wall. The doctor observed her for awhile then closed the slide door and walked away. You see, Mary was in a mental prison, not a federal one. The Doctor felt she was actually justified in her action, though against the law, revenge was a powerful motivator and she was quite insane, at least at the moment.
Meanwhile the little mouse sat high in a belltower at the local church, Mary loved to look out at the world she could no longer be part of. She felt content and almost happy as her and Krill sat there until the sun set, always beautiful to watch.
“Krill, tell me again of your home?” she asked.
“The azure sky on a summers eve is lit by the twin moons as a soft breeze waifs the scent of flowers across the meadows and the early fireflies start their nightly dance of light. Off in the distance is the mountains, dark purple in the darkening light of evening. Hanging about their peaks, the thunderstorm can be seen, its light flashing and its peel of thunder heard, but barely,” the mouse said.
“Sounds wonderful. So restful, so content.”
“Yes Mary, I miss it deeply, but I found you to talk to and even these sunsets are sometimes quite beautiful,” Krill said.
“Will you get to go home, Krill?” she asked.
“Maybe. I managed to get off a signal before we crashed. If so it will be a few more months yet. If not, I shall die on your planet. Such are the workings of God.”
“Do you believe in God? I use to, but after what happened I find if he exists he must be quite cruel and uncaring.”
“You have not been out there. You haven’t seen the beauty of the universe. Its balance and its order. Even in destruction the sheer beauty of it all makes it impossible to deny something exists that rests its hand upon us all. I have seen your human beliefs and they are not far from our own. If he has treated you badly, perhaps it is to make you stronger, to allow you to handle life yet to come.”
“Oh, to be able to believe that!” she said.
“It is called hope, Mary. Not faith, your faith must be in yourself. But to have hope that perhaps he or she sits there and weeps with our pain and smiles at our joy. To me that is the purpose of God, to give us hope.”
“Krill, I wish you were a man, I could truly love you.”
“I am a man, just not a Hu-man. Get it? Human?”
“Yes Krill, your humor has improved.”
“Mary, did you tell your doctor about me?” he asked.
“Of course, just as you told me too, why?”
“Oh, nothing really. There is a quaint saying among you humans I like. I think it says, ‘The truth shall set you free’. Mary, always tell your doctor about us, our talks, your feelings.”
“I do Krill, just as you said, though it makes them more certain I am crazy.”
“Are you?”
“Crazy? Probably, I know I’m sitting in my cell staring at a little blue dot on a crease in the wall yet I ride in your brain with you and see the world through different and happier eyes.”
“Did you turn in that attendant that tried to rape you as I said to?” Krill asked.
“I told the doctor he tried to have sex with me. I told him the man said no one would believe me since I was crazy.”
“What did the doctor say?” Krill asked.
“Nothing, but come to think of it I haven’t seen him since,” Mary told the little mouse.
“Good, good, then see, he believes you. Well, it is almost dark, we best get you back, they will bring your supper soon.”
When back in the room Mary could see herself sitting and staring at the little spot. Krill went there and like that Mary was back in her own body as Krill left.
After supper she had her weekly visit with the doctor. She told him all about Krill, his beautiful description of his home world. How he believed in God and the sheer beauty of the universe. When the session ended she returned to her room. As she lay on her bed she remembered the love she once had for Thomas, his beautiful eyes, his warm touch, and she cried.
For several days Krill did not stop by. He was a very busy mouse. He had places to go, things to do and see. He was an emissary of his people but when he found earth by crashing on it he felt disinclined to tell the humans of his presence.
That is until he found Mary. She did not know he was able to read minds, nor that he was a doctor himself. His ship was full of people like him yet only he, though God’s will, survived the crash and he found he was lonely.
Oh, he could and did mate with the female mice on earth, but they could not reason or care or carry on any conversation, they just served his physical needs as he did theirs. Mary was different. Like his dead mate, she was thoughtful and caring, yet her mind was a shambles.
Tormented by what she did, yet happy in its doing. Hating him and loving him, Hating herself. Still, he found she had a beautiful mind, alive, able to think wonderful thoughts of scenes he’d not have time to see, of places he’d not have time to go.
Mary talked to the doctor in an early session and he asked of her friend Krill. She told him honestly he’d not been around for a few days. Maybe he was mating with the earth mice again or he might be exploring.
Once back in her cell Krill came by and stood in front of the blue dot. It was actually his dot, it was a Hypoden. A hyper-density energy transfer device used by his people to enter the minds of sick people to help cure them, only here he let her enter his instead.
“Want to go for a stroll Mary?” he asked as she sat up on her bed after seeing him.
“Sure! Missed you.”
“Stare at the dot then.”
As Mary stared her conscious mind entered and layered itself onto Krill’s. She instantly chastised him. Sixteen females? Isn’t that a bit much even for you?” she asked.
“Mary, I told you, I’m still a man, just not a Hu-man and these are not thinking rational animals like you or I. I just fill their natural needs, nothing more.”
“Maybe it is because I am a rational thinking being I can say horse pucky!” she giggled.
“But you’re not, your insane remember?”
“Sure, rub it in.” They had had similar conversations, neither was embarrassed.
This day, though risky because of the road they had to cross, he ran to the small park and climbed high in a tree. She named the birds they saw and he even found an old Robin’s nest in the branches. They found it restful as they watched a beautiful day slowly pass. Finally, he felt he had to tell her.
“Mary, they contacted me, I’ll be leaving soon, to go home.”
For long minutes she said and thought nothing, her mind remained empty, uncommitted to the reality of what he said.
“I’m sorry, you knew it was a possibility,” Krill said.
She shook it off. “Yes, only now I feel I’ll truly go insane, for real.”
“We both know you’re not insane. Oh, you went mental about Thomas, sure, you planned and executed him, yes, for that period of time you were not yourself. Now you feel the pain and sorrow of your actions and I feel in my heart God understood and has forgiven your deed. Have faith in yourself.”
Krill gave a warm fuzzy feeling, one of caring and love to Mary’s mind. “As we discussed, when I’m gone tell the doctor I left and will never return. Mary, be strong, it will be okay, I promise.”
“When do you leave?” she asked.
“Tonight they arrive. They dare not stay.”
Mary mentally cried at the coming loss of her only friend. He said, “Mary, down the street, is a young man. He works as a cook at the restaurant. Meet him if you ever get a chance. His name is Robert.”
She laughed at his joke. She didn’t know he was quite serious.
That night, after all the lights were off, in a doctor’s office, a computer turned on and a mouse operated a mouse to open a word processor. Then, by jumping on the keys, the mouse wrote a long diagnostic letter to a fellow doctor of the treatment and cure of one mental patient named Mary.
At its end, he signed it Krill the Emissary of Hermaphrodites. A name the doctor would recognize.
In a footnote, at the last minute, Krill added a warning.
If you do not want your planet overrun by prolifically breeding mice with IQ’s over 150 and the ability to read minds you might wish to do something about my several hundred offspring about to be unleashed upon your world.
The next morning a doctor interviewed a patient to find her delusion had left. He then found her delusions’ note and the very first thing he did was call an exterminator.
***
Six months later a beautiful woman sat biting her lip at a restaurant waiting to compliment the chef named Robert on a delicious meal.
I have read this several times as I was not sure how I felt about it.
The first half of the story is all told, that thing writers are always warned about, “show, don’t tell” is completely missing. Mary is mechanical, emotionless and rather two dimensional in her behaviour.
Where is her rage, her outrage at the betrayal? There is no screaming match, no change in her demeanour, she just plots and executes a savage killing with all emotional depth of a saucer.
So the first half becomes a vehicle only for the second half of the story.
The second half is far more interactive but is just the end result of the vehicle from the first half. It makes me think that the author came up with the idea of a mouse from another planet who tells people stuff, and then worked backwards.
Most killers are that way, cold and cool and collected. Though it does not create the drama TV writers want. The story was conceived from the idea of a model I read about who murdered, cooked, and ate her new husband. Omaima Nelson, who told a psychiatrist she dressed in a red hat, red heels and red lipstick during her 12-hour dismemberment “trance.” She had appeared before prison officials in Chowchilla, Calif. for a parole hearing.
I then twisted it a bit and it was intentionally a mostly tell story.
Thank you for the read.
WHY “SHOW, DON’T TELL” IS THE GREAT LIE OF WRITING WORKSHOPS
http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/why-show-dont-tell-is-the-great-lie-of-writing-workshops