Dreamer Mouse or 'The Imperfect Rodent'

“My character seems full of holes,” said Mouse. I get all filled up with emotion, and feel like I want to do something about it, don’t you know, but then something always happens. Thus sun makes me drowsy, or I get hungry and go eat a bit, or someone comes by to visit, and the next thing you know, all that whatever-it-was that I had in me somehow seems to have leaked out.”
“I don’t think that is so uncommon,” said Rat. “I think we are all a bit like that, now and then. We sometimes get filled up with great ideas, but then we just wind up going and having supper or a good nap instead.”
“Yes, but I can’t help wondering if that isn’t the difference between the ordinary type and those, you know, who do those extraordinary things that everyone remembers and admires them for. When they get filled up with inspiration, it doesn’t leak out. It just keeps building, like in a pressure pot, until finally…finally out comes the whistle, so to speak. A great book, or painting, a famous poem, that sort of thing – and three hundred years later we ordinary types are still reading or looking or thinking about them, and getting inspired in turn, only, it all seems to leak out somehow,” said Mouse.
“Hmm…” said Rat. “You could be right in that. But not everyone can do something extraordinary in such big ways you know. If everyone did that, who would do all the common things that need to get done, like washing the dishes? I think we pretty much need all types for the world to go round properly, and maybe some of the washers ought to get a little more credit at that.”
Mouse just sighed. “Oh Rat, I know you are right. I just can’t help feeling a bit melancholy about it somehow you know. I don’t know why I have this desire for doing something…something…well, I don’t know, something grand. Something that will benefit others for a long time to come, and inspire them, and so on. That sort of thing. But I just don’t seem to have it in me to do it.”
“Have you ever tried?” asked Rat.
“Oh yes. I have had several good starts,” said Mouse. “I just don’t seem to have it in me to actually do it though. It makes me a bit sad, you know, when I have the desire, strong enough to feel like I am missing something important by not doing it, but not strong enough to ever get it done.”
“Well, what is ‘it’, exactly?” asked Rat.
“That’s one of the hard parts,” said Mouse. “Figuring out what it is. I just feel like I need to do something, but I am not always sure what. I am pretty sure it is something important, but I don’t seem to have the sticking power to finish it out somehow.”
“Maybe you’re just lazy,” said Rat. “No offense. I am pretty lazy myself. I’d rather lay in the sun enjoying the river going by than painting the ‘Grand What-Not’ or spending all my days indoors pecking about at some typewriter.”
“Sometimes I feel that way too,” said Mouse. “But sometimes I feel something in me just wants to come out, and I just know it is something Grand, but maybe you are right, maybe I am just too lazy or don’t have quite the right temperament. It is a bit frustrating to be right on the edge, so to speak, of being that type of person who does those sorts of things – I mean, and really follows through, doesn’t just dream about being or doing something.”
“I’m not sure I follow you entirely,” said Rat. “Although I get the gist of what you are saying I guess. It just seems rather simple to me. We all want to be great in some way, but few of us want to go to all the trouble it takes to get there.”
“Well maybe it is that simple, but maybe it isn’t,” said Mouse, wiping a small tear from the corner of one eye. “It still makes me melancholy sometimes. I try, but I just can’t seem to keep putting one foot in front of the other long enough to get there. This great big something wells up in me, and I want to do something about it, but the inspiration leaks out, like I was saying before.”
“There, there now, cheer up,” said Rat. “I didn’t mean to sound harsh. Just trying to help and all that.”
Rat felt a little bad, although he wasn’t sure why, so he gave Mouse a handkerchief.
“I tell you what Mouse, let’s go have a picnic down by the river today. It will cheer you up, and perhaps once your spirits have lifted, you will see things in a more positive light. I am sure that someday you will achieve something grand, if you have your heart set on that sort of thing.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I am just feeling a bit sorry for myself,” said Mouse. “I just can’t seem to help it sometimes.”
“Nothing wrong with letting a little out with a good friend,” said Rat companionably. “Makes you feel better. How about I pack us up a lunch and we take a nice walk down to the water now, eh?”
“The hares and the voles and some of the others, they look down their noses at me you know,” whispered Mouse. “They say I’m a dreamer. Just the other day, Badger told me I could learn a lot from watching a Donkey. ‘Slow and steady’, he told me, ‘that’s the way you get things done. You’ve never accomplished much Mouse, you know. Still living in that same little second-rate hole that your brother gave you’.”
“That’s perfectly ridiculous,” said Rat. “You’re not a donkey. You’re a mouse. Imagine, a mouse trying to be a donkey. Perfectly ridiculous. A mouse is a mouse and a donkey is a donkey, and there’s no point in looking down on one just because he isn’t the other.”
Rat sniffed a bit, and his eyes flashed. He had a few choice words he would have liked to have said to Badger at that point, being very protective of his friend Mouse, and also a bit quick of temper at times, but upon reflection, he realized that then he would be a Rat trying to be a Badger if he did that, which made no more sense than a mouse trying to be a donkey, so he decided the next time he saw Badger he would just smile and invite him to tea, which of course Badger would refuse anyway.
Badger looked down his nose more on Rat than on Mouse by far, though it didn’t really bother Rat much. He was used to being looked down on – it seemed to come with the territory of being a rat somehow, but he enjoyed life all the same. The funny thing was, the more he enjoyed life, the more it seemed to make the others look down on him. It had gotten to the point that he could hardly sit by the river and lay in the sun sipping lemonade nowadays without offending somebody, although most of the others were polite to him if they met him in the road. “Nice on the surface, but you can tell they don’t care for me much on the inside,” as he had told his cousin once.
Mouse had been rather quiet, and Rat had begun packing sandwiches, when Mouse said quietly “He’s right you know. Badger that is. I do still live in that second-rate hole. I’m just a dreamer that has never amounted to anything.”
Rat stopped what he was doing and put his hands on his hips. He eyed Mouse sternly for a moment.
“Even if he was right, he was wrong to say it, or even think it. Let him be concerned with his own hole. And besides, what he was implying, or you took him to be implying, wasn’t right at all. Why, just by being good company to me, a Rat, whom most won’t do more than say a ‘how-do-you-do” to, in a rather cold voice at that, you’ve done more good than all that pack put together, whether they recognize it or not. And I’ve seen you with the young mice, and how they enjoy your company. You have a good heart, Mouse, and you shouldn’t let it worry you if you don’t measure up to the standards of those hypocrites.”
Mouse hadn’t seen Rat so angry in awhile, and he wasn’t quite sure what to say. He hadn’t meant to spoil his friend’s mood and some of the things Rat was saying made him feel a bit nervous for some reason.
“But Rat,” he said. “I have made a fair share of mistakes too, you know. That time I fell into the farmer’s wine jug, and came out so tipsy that I accidentally put a dent in your door by banging with it stick, trying to wake you up in the middle of the night. You’ve been good about it, but I am sure you weren’t too happy at the time. And there have been other things, you know. Even as mice go, I am not particularly a good one. Maybe some of those who look down on me do so rightfully. And after all, they are all perfectly nice to me whenever I chance to see them.”
“Well none of us are perfect,” said Rat. “Never mind about that night. I forgave you the moment you did it. The only difference between people is that some things stand out more than others do, but we are all about the same, really, when it comes right down to it. Some of the things you have done are no worse, and perhaps a good deal less worse, than the act of looking down on someone and making them feel unwelcome or unhappy. In my book, that is the worst kind of thing, because it is hurtful to another person, and its deliberate, and they don’t even recognize it as something bad or worry about it or anything.”
“Well as I said, they are nice to me,” said Mouse doubtfully.
Rat was stirred up by now, and not to be deterred. He rarely ‘got on his soapbox’, as they say, but when he did, he usually wouldn’t get down until he had his say, to the full and then some, and this time was no exception.
“Nice, shmice. Not one of them would go out of their way to make you feel really welcome and part of their group, and if they did, they would be doing it to make themselves feel better about themselves, not because they thought any better about you or that deep down inside where it counts they felt you were as good as them. Believe me, I know. I am a rat, after all,” said Rat.
“That’s not entirely true,” said Mouse. “About a month ago Badger and his cousin and a few voles invited me over for tea.”
“Yes, I remember that,” said Rat. “And you felt bad for a week afterwards too, with all the ways they kept saying such polite things to you while you were there, things that if you read between the lines were really meant to tell you how bad you were and how you needed to change and become a better mouse. Oh I remember better than you how you felt after you went to that particular tea party. And now that you don’t go to their afternoon tea anymore, they probably just sigh and tell themselves, ‘well, we tried. Our doors always open, but he doesn’t want to come,’ so as to make themselves feel better about looking down on you, don’t you know. It doesn’t even occur to them that the reason you don’t go visit with them anymore is how condescending they are to you. Of course, it doesn’t even occur to them that they are condescending to begin with. The ridiculousness of it all is that they are looking down on you, but really they could learn a lot from you, on having a good heart, and a lot of other things besides, but as my dear departed pa used to say, ‘you can’t change another’s heart’.
“Oh its easy to do things and look good on the outside, but when a person’s heart has some bad spots, first they have to recognize it themselves, which almost never happens. They get indignant if you even suggest it, because they think they are living such a good life that their heart must be good too. Although I will say that once you recognize it, half the battle is won, because then you can set about changing it. I have heard of such things happening, usually when something really terrible happens, but it is not too common that someone changes their heart, although I have seen plenty of people change their habits on the outside and begin to feel plenty good about themselves as a result.”
This had been one of the longest speeches Rat had ever given, and Mouse was a bit overwhelmed. Mostly Rat just said things like ‘pass the lemonade’ or ‘stop being so sensitive, Mouse’, but his conversations tended to be short and to the point. It made Mouse feel rather good inside that Rat had taken his side, for he knew that Rat, in his heart, didn’t look down on him in the least, which was why they were such good friends. Mouse felt a passing sadness for the other mice out there that might not even have a Rat for a friend, for he knew most mice were looked down on by others as being somewhat irresponsible, if not worse, even though among the woodland creatures, some of the greatest poets, painters, writers, and thinkers of the past centuries had been mice.
“Well, we have done enough sermonizing ourselves, I think, and enough thinking too,” said Rat. “Let’s go enjoy a nice quiet picnic by the river. I think I shall even bring a bottle of my grandpa’s wine, so that we might share a cup or two – and if that bothers those others, why, that’s their problem, not ours.”
Mouse still didn’t share the confidence or diffidence that Rat did, and he wasn’t sure if he agreed with everything Rat said sometimes, but he was beginning to feel that a picnic would be nice, as he was getting hungry, and the river was indeed pleasant this time of year, so the two of them stopped talking and finished packing, and were soon headed down the lane, hand-in-hand and whistling a merry tune.
They had a fine picnic that day, and many days thereafter, and eventually, Mouse managed to write a book that was mildly well received, and later wrote another one that won a prize, and by the time he was an old mouse, he was quite well known and respected in certain circles for his literary works. He and Rat often sat on the front porch of Mouse’s new hole in a bench swing together, sipping lemonade and watching the sunset, and although Badger and some of the other’s didn’t entirely approve of Mouse even then (for contrary to popular belief, even old age does not always bring wisdom and grace), it didn’t bother Mouse that much. He had even begun to be fond of many of them, despite the fact that they still looked down their noses at him from time-to-time and were critical of the sorts of things he wrote, for he had discovered a new and interesting thing, that a good deal of the nature of the voles and the hares and badgers of the world, though imperfect, needed understanding too, just like anything else. Mouse found that the more he liked them and gave them room in his heart, that the more the feeling grew, and he found himself becoming even more fond of them. It was rather like a chain-reaction, and he had just begun a new book on the subject, that had to do with the fact that a lot of what a person seemed to be like, had to do with the attitude of the person who was doing the viewing. He had long since decided, after what he had been through, that we could all use a little (actually a lot) of understanding and forgiveness, even those who had a hard time extending understanding and forgiveness to others.
Rat, on the other hand, had gotten rather crotchety in his old age, and even more to the point and less concerned about the feelings of others than before, so that most of the other inhabitants of the old forest avoided him altogether. He had a soft spot for Mouse, though, and the feeling was mutual, so the two spent many hours in that swing, and although sometimes they argued, they spent most of their time talking about life and rivers and sunsets.
Then Rat would totter home to his hole that was conveniently nearby, for Mouse had bought him a new one so that they could be close together after he had moved into his new hole. Although Badger had once loudly declared that Rat didn’t deserve to have a new hole unless he had earned it himself, and for once Rat had been somewhat inclined to agree with him, Mouse had insisted, until eventually Rat gave in and moved his belongings into the new hole. After their long evening talks, Mouse would sometimes go to bed, and sometimes work a little more on his latest book. Sometimes, however, he would just stare at the candlelight, or the stars, or the shadows on the wall, and despite having finally realized success as a writer, he would dream of doing something far grander than he had ever done before, that all would remember and love (or at least respect) him for, and benefit from in generations to come. For like most of his kind, Mouse was a dreamer, but the funny thing was that he had come to accept that about himself, and be content with it (and even like himself a little bit), and only then had he begun to accomplish anything worthwhile, so now-a-days Mouse felt only pleasure when he looked up at the stars and dreamed.