A short story by Ava Shaffer
PROLOGUE: THE PREGAME
There are little mice who live in the crevices of your local bar and they know all of your secrets. Yours, your roommate’s, that hot guy’s down the hall. Your bald economics professor’s, your overwhelmed therapist’s, and your geriatric academic advisor’s. Your ex’s and your ex’s ex’s. Secrets of betrayal, hookups, shit-talking, and backstabbing. Sins, obsessions, Tinder misfortunes, and academic dishonesty. Trust that the mice know it all.
Their ancestors lived on these lands long before red brick settled over the prairies. There used to be a movie theater there, premature kernels still tucked in wall cracks. The mice loved everything about that theater– the soft crinkle of popcorn bags, the blue slushies, the jumpscares from horror films, the squeaking red seats. The open purses on the floor. The mice could sneak in there like they were black-suited spies, just like in the movies. Those Kleptomaniac James Bond rodents, those pocket-sized pickpockets.
But structures and businesses and college cash are temporary. The mice are not. They traded one drama for another, and now the bar lives in their home.
An image: spilled brownish jello seeping into shag carpet, drying there in crusts. The mice’s fur smells of tequila and their whiskers stick together in clumps. Their naked paws are perpetually sticky, tiny toes fused together for eternity. They have a crazed look in their eyes from the late nights, close calls, bathroom cocaine, and the shit they have seen. Beady black eyes watch you all. With malice, with trickery, with love, with jealousy.
They watch Emerson in particular, the girl with the softest footsteps.
ACT I: THE COAT CHECK
If you give a mouse a coat check, he will fuck up your life.
Like fleas in an acrobat’s hair, they trapeze through the bundles of jackets on flimsy plastic hangers. They keep warm amongst the puffers and leathers, flannels and jeans. Secrets burrow in the seams of fabric, pilled pockets inviting trouble.
The bar mice are the ones who are stealing your cigs. They can smell a Newport a mile away, a Marlboro from two. Their twitching noses turn up at your American Spirits. Do better, they squeak.
With nails like safety pins, they scratch at fake IDs. Doodling cheese on the plastic that is not PVC, drawing mustaches on the boys who are not men. Scraping the false address off a Pennsylvania street. They don’t care much for the law but they are artists and their canvas is your photo taken in the back corner of a dormitory stairwell.
Some of the mice are romantics, some are gossips. Both leave gifts folded in jacket pockets. A mutual friend’s phone number (rodents are notorious matchmakers). An empty condom wrapper for the boy who just got back together with his girlfriend (Brock is in deep shit). A love letter from a TA to their student (mice have no concept of Title IX).
Most of all, the mice are sages and scholars, ones who ponder what is left behind. What is deemed unimportant enough to be dumped outside on a rack in the freezing cold, while its owner dances in the sickly sweaty inside. People carry so much and let go so easy. Phones always follow patrons in, wallets too. Gum wrappers, receipts, pens, and coins are not so lucky. Noticed and unnoticed things. Stuff. It means a lot to the mice, the small things in life. They hold these forgotten treasures dear to their rabid rapid hearts.
These sentimental mice who love to stir the human pot usually go unnoticed in their exploits. But tonight, a girl sees them. She’s tall (even though everyone is tall to the mice), with freckles and a brown jacket. While standing outside with her friends, she spots one of the mice scurrying under the coat rack. She smiles, breaking away from her human crowd. She crouches down next to the coats, a piece of pretzel in her palm. She offers it to the mouse.
He pokes his head out from a Canada Goose jacket cautiously. As much as he would like to get close to her, it is ingrained in the mice to never trust a human. All they do is take and leave and forget.
Despite his instincts, the mouse sniffs at Emerson’s hand warily. He regards her for a moment or two, weighing his options in his advanced mouse brain. Slowly, he takes the pretzel in between his two front teeth. Time slows while he chews. It is single-handedly the best brittle, salty snack he has ever tasted.
It is in that moment the mice throw their knowledge of humans and their selfish tendencies to the wind, and vow to protect this random girl, this Emerson, with their tiny lives.
ACT II: THE BATHROOM
Emerson leaves the mouse from the coat check, rejoining her friends. They talk loudly, smoke pretentiously, and slosh their blue drinks over the rims of their cups. Emerson stands with a bored look on her face, before excusing herself to the bathrooms.
Immediately, a band of mice scuttles after her. They must protect her. From the horrors of the bathroom in a bar. Vomit on tiled floor, unsavory phrases written on the walls, clogged toilets and plastic dispensers with no toilet paper on them. Emerson is too good to see any of that.
Do not get it twisted– these mice are not sewer rats. They are rodent royalty who sneak sips from your martini and wear your shoelaces as boas. They are high-class bar mice who dine at decadent establishments, thank you very much. Put some goddamn respect on their name.
They frequent the bathrooms anyways, to be watchful guard-mice for Emerson. They listen to gossip with their twitching pink ears. Tuning into the glorious hearsay and scuttlebutt of the women’s restroom. Secrets are aired like piss-stained laundry inside these confidential graffitied walls. Rumors are passed like an extra tampon from a bedazzled purse. Friendships are formed, packs are made, and hexes are placed by the girls with purple lipstick. The mice learn which boys to nip at the ankles of and which girls will be leaving with other blushing girls. They squeak their approval of radical femininity, sorority, and sharing a stall from their hiding places in the wall. They take nothing but secrets, leave nothing but pellets.
The mice avoid the men’s bathroom. There’s not enough community or gossip to warrant getting peed on.
ACT III: THE DANCE FLOOR
The most beautiful flowers grow in a warzone. When Emerson heads to the crowded dance floor, the mice solider-up and follow after her. It is a well-known fact that the dance floor of the bar is a dangerous goldmine for the valiant mice who dare to brave it. Warriors surge from the walls and scamper between the legs of drunken partiers. Dodging like pros. They veer away from Air Force Ones and high-top Converses, wrinkle their snouts at that random guy wearing open-toed flip-flops. Each time the bass drops, the rhythm catapults their little bodies across the floor, bundles of gray shooting into discarded cups like they’re ping pongs in a drinking game.
There is no better human for the mice to rob than a dancer with another person’s tongue down their mouth. Preoccupied! Distracted! Unaware! Sometimes the mice can even crawl onto these lust-drunk couples, who mistake the little rodent's footsteps for a lover’s caress. The mice weave between grabby hands and swipe goodies from back jean pockets.
Emerson is currently one of those couples, wrapped in the arms of some man with tattoos, a pornstache, and a mullet. The mice roll their eyes, their girl can do better. With some watching her to make sure this mullet man doesn’t get too bold, the other mice get to business at what they do best. Stealing and snatching and shoplifting.
Despite the hazards of the dance floor, there are grand treasures to be found in such chaos. Sweet karaoke melodies put them in that frenzied searching zone. Dancing warm bodies forget themselves and drop down guards and possessions. Gold jewelry, shiny lipgloss, credit cards, large-jawed hair clips. They snatch it all up in their greedy worthy paws and carry it back to their lair. Where it’ll be loved and held and appreciated till death or pest extermination due them part.
ACT IV: THE HOARD
Once everyone has gone home, heads on pillows or in toilet bowls, the mice slink back to their home below the floorboards, prizes of the night in tow. The mice watched as Emerson departed the bar with that inked man. As she left the dancefloor, an okay-ish man trailing behind her, the mice scooted to the dusty, fogged-up window to get one last glimpse. They pressed little pink palms to the window, watching her go. A tear or two might’ve slipped from beady black eyes. Sniffling may have left their twitching snouts. They’re always left forgotten. Emerson’s moment of kindness, her extended palm, was just a small moment in her big night, and she has moved on. But the mice would never forget her, or her pretzel gift.
The lights are on and the workers are sweeping, the night is done and the sun is rising. What will you do when you reach into your back pocket and realize your gift card is missing? You keep on living! The mice cherish these gifts you unwillingly bestow upon them and you move on through life, love, small redbrick towns, and new revolving bar doors. Yet the mice remain. Amongst their, your, our STUFF. All this STUFF!
They have your compact mirrors and cracked phone screens, white powder drugs and handheld vape machines! Wristbands and 21 birthday sashes, Apple watches and false eyelashes! Old-school lighters, chewed-up straws, pop tabs, broken heels, and those ATM withdrawals. Rings and keys and blonde wig extensions lie amongst hair ties, headphones, acrylic nails, and other mice obsessions.
These objects remind the mice that they are also fleeting small dazzling memories that get to be one small part of your wild vibrant young human being life. You may have missed their observant stares, ignored the gray fluff on the floor, neglected the brown tail you saw whip around the corner. But they will never forget you, or what you left behind as you move forward.