Day In The Life
©2012 - Sylvan Scott [844 words]

Mice were supposed to be small. They lived in the cracks of the world, scurrying beneath the paws of larger creatures who worked and played and lived in “normal” society. Geoffrey was small.
While expected, Geoffrey was smaller than every other mouse he knew … much smaller.
Waking up, he blinked his wide, blue eyes at the sunlight filtering through the crack in the ceiling. He allowed himself a few moments to luxuriate in his coarse, rustic blanket before getting up and putting on his shirt and pants. It was going to be a busy day.
He brushed his teeth with cotton bristles and washed up with water from the basin he’d made from a concave, key of a Blackberry.
After eating a big breakfast of a sunflower seed, he jogged along the space between walls, past old Mrs. Matherby, and out into the world.
Atchkinson’s Market was only a block away. With the morning sun peaking over the mountainous buildings at the six-o’clock position, he knew he’d be there by seven-thirty. He kept jogging at a constant pace, dodging other, early morning pedestrians. Most were mice, like him. At least this morning there were no true giants along his route.
Of giants, he knew plenty.
He lived in their walls, like most mice.
While their politicians screamed and hollered about the free ride the “tinies” were getting at the expense of the “normals”, Geoffrey knew differently. Mice may have had their lodging needs met by living in the walls, attics, and businesses of those who controlled the world, but they worked just as hard to live. Truth be told, they worked harder since the giant’s shops didn’t cater to them.
Then there was the problem of being stepped on. That was always a danger.
Geoffrey lived inside Two-Oh-One Hammerson Place. A fox couple lived there. Hippies, they believed in “tiny rights” and often tried to help by leaving out food or little knick-knacks they thought the mice might like. It was a nice supplement to what they earned with their own labors.
He ran past the dumpster cliffs that lined the cavernous alley joining Hammerson and Market. Soon, he stood beneath the striped awning of Atchkinson’s.
Mr. Atchkinson, was outside; the towering horse was hanging a sign advertising “Fresh Tomatoes”.
How the gigantic shire ever noticed the half-inch-high mouse, Geoffrey never knew. But before he even got to the tiny ramp that rose parallel to the stairs and into the small hole in the door’s lintel, the giant had noticed and waved.
“MORNING, GEOFFREY,” he boomed.
Geoffrey made a brief salute and darted inside.
For the next five hours, he moved about the store, brandishing a tiny pin like a sword.
Carefully, he evicted the unintelligent pests that threatened to invade the store’s flour and sugar. Roaches were a problem but, after a few swipes with his blade, usually got the hint and scurried away. Geoffrey was fairly used to the routine, these days, and had his rounds finished in record time.
Mr. Atchkinson’s daughter, a lovely bookish college student home for the summer, greeted him with his payment:  a doll’s purse filled with a few dried lentils, a slice of dessicated apricot, and several crumbles of bread. He thanked her and smiled shyly putting the straps over his shoulders like a backpack. He blushed as he left and thought, not for the first time, that he should ask her on a date.
Then began the run home.
He detoured past the new park (a stretch of gutter, raised by a broken pieces of street brick and walled off from the rest of the street by a thicket of washed-up twigs and leaves) to play a game of horseshoes with a mole and three mice. He suspected they thought they were letting him win, but he’d grown adept at using his whole body to hurl the make-shift, doll-house-scale bottle-caps like discus.
The sun was setting by the time he got home. He avoided the pet budgie that his fox landlords had left out and waved to Mrs. Matherby on his way in.
Stepping through the crack that led to his apartment, Geoffrey made his way up to the loft as the sun colored the sky with gold and red.
Outside the walls, his landlord’s television squawked about the upcoming election, quoting one of the candidates saying how he’d crack down on “the homeless menace”. Geoffrey shook his head and smiled. It was code for the “tinies”, he knew, and was accompanied with the usual platitudes about their shiftless, lazy lives.
He chuckled to himself and hung his shirt on a splinter by the entrance. It had been a busy day and tomorrow would be another. He wondered if those giant politicians could live the life he lived, working and running and struggling to survive. He doubted it but didn’t want to judge. Regardless of how they would live it, he knew that he did a pretty damn good job.
Turning in, he curled up in his woolen blanket and, soon, fell fast asleep.