AND SO THE little white mouse stayed in one place, and stayed in one place some more, and stayed in one place even more.
        And while he was staying in one place, traces of fragments of the Eagle's eggs (the eggs that had been lain in him so long ago, and which had almost killed him-- but, he thought, he'd killed them, he'd gotten them back, he'd done to them what they wanted to do to him... hadn't he...?) began to, somehow, do something.  They began not to fester but to somehow ferment or heat up, or something.  In any case whatever they were doing, it actually didn't seem to be bad.  They were making him want to absorb information.
        But they didn't do this all the time.  In fact, that feeling only came on him occasionally.  Most of the time, the mouse just felt bad and angry and sad.
        And the girl and the boy artists moved away, and so the mouse was sad.  And when the artists left none of their friends came and visited the mouse.
        But the kitty cat came by to see him now and then.  He liked that.
        And, for a very long time, he stood and stared at a wall.

SOMETIMES THE MOUSE would go visit the artists, and some of his other friends.  And that was good.  But when that was over he'd go back to the store and stare at his wall.
        And then months would pass, with the mouse, standing in his store, staring at his wall.

EVENTUALLY, SOMETHING HAPPENED.  Hard to believe, but it's true.  The mouse got moved to a bigger store up the block.  This meant he had a change of scenery.
        You see, one of the mouse's owner's other stores (and the mouse knew that the owner of the store the mouse worked at really wasn't his owner, but it sure felt like it most of the time.  And this made the mouse feel very strange, and even kind of raped every time he went into work.  Because on a certain level even though your boss doesn't own you-- because you can leave your job an any time-- your boss still does sort of own you.  This is because you are more dependent upon his or her money than he or she is upon you.  You can always be replaced, so you better do what your boss tells you, and then take your crappy paycheque and prostrate yourself like a good little slave-- the mouse thought-- and get what's yours.  And this usually involved lots of sliding motion and petroleum lubricants.  And even if there're no lubricants, there's still always blood.  And so, the mouse was growing more and more bitter-- even if the eggshells in his body were giving out a warm light and the kitty cat's visits made him feel happy) burned down.  And then meant that the mouse's owner could take that insurance money and buy a bigger place and fill it with more employees.  And so that's what he did.
        This was both a good and a bad thing.
        On the good side, the mouse wasn't as lonely any more.
        On the bad side, he missed the little store (which was actually finally starting to make money).  On the good side, he usually got a small break around the time the kitty cat would usually visit him, so he could walk to where she was, they could go into a drugstore, and then they could chat for a while.  This made the mouse happy because the kitty cat was funny and smart and cool.  So, he still had something to make him feel happy.  Even when the job got unbearable.
        Because, on the bad side, the job usually did.  Get unbearable.
        Usually.
        Because the owner hired a small angry crow to manage the store.  And the crow did random, unpredictable things because he drank a lot, and he never finished any of the projects he started except for the window displays.  He was good at window displays.
        And, also, on top of the crow, there was the ostrich.
        And then there was just this guy named Dave who was just sorta nice.

WHILE THE MOUSE was at the new store, he started to realize how much he missed the old store, how much he missed the comfort of a small place, and the fact that at the small store he had been allowed to be his own boss, do things the way he wanted to-- while here he had to listen to the crow, who usually made no sense.  And, in fact, the mouse felt more than a little betrayed.  After all, why should he, the guy who'd been in charge of a store, suddenly have a superior who knew almost nothing about the business?  In fact why should he-- in effect a manager-- suddenly be demoted to a simplistic till-jockey with no explanation at all?
        The mouse fumed.
        And he also listened to the ostrich, who was always changing, and learning, and bettering himself:
        "I'm learning, I'm changing, I'm bettering myself, really I am.  Every day I learn something new from all the books I read, and I read only books by doctors because the doctors they know what's what, I used to read novels but I'd filled my head with so many stories and lies I just didn't, just didn't know what to do, whether I was coming or going and people abused me, they took advantage of me, and but now I'm better I'm reading and learning, and sure it costs money after all self-help books don't grow on trees but I'm learning and reading and maybe it all costs just a little bit of money because the knowledge is out there if you want to pay for it and with knowledge only with knowledge the kind of knowledge you can find in these books, true books not stories like novels, can you find the truth which will set you free and that truth is this, you've got rights, I've got rights, I've got my rights and this book over here told me I've got my rights I mean I'd never even really considered that, that I've got rights, before when I let everybody push me around and abuse me but now it's a different story because I'm learning and I'm growing and every day I learn a little more and grow a little more because I do, that's what I do, I learn and grow and sometimes I think that the Freemasons are watching me but don't tell anybody that."
        And then the ostrich would stick his head in the sand.
        And, the crow would mince around the store, starting on projects, and then forgetting them.
        And the mouse's head would start to ache.

DESPERATELY TRYING TO stay sane, sometimes the mouse would read some really good books, and learn some stuff because the Eagle's eggshells were working their magic in his guts.  But, also, sometimes the mouse would start to feel himself fragment.  He was becoming desperately unhappy-- even more unhappy than he'd been back in the Kingdom Of The Eagle.  So, one day the mouse got himself a computer and decided to tell the world about himself using the Internet.  And what he wrote was crappy, and arty, and paranoid, and self-conscious.  Here is what the mouse's writing was like:

THE LOUSE AND THE BEAGLE ONCE THERE was a cute little louse.  He lived in a magic kingdom in the middle of an enchanted forest.  Or at least the thought he lived in a magic kingdom in the middle of an enchanted forest.  And, as we all know, sometimes thinking is good enough.
        The little louse was cute and young and innocent.  As far as lice went.  Anyway, he had sensitive eyes.  And he was always smiling.  Or, at least he was always smiling inside.  (Sometimes, outside, he was scowling-- but the scowl was usually all in good fun.)  And, inside, he was cute and innocent, in his own way.  Inside, he was a cute little louse.
        And the little louse was happy.
        He hopped and skipped to school.
        And sometimes school made him sad, but even when school made him sad, he was still a happy stupid little louse because he lived for art.  To him, art was everything that was great about the human (and louse) race.  Writing, painting, music, theatre and film and dance.  You name it.  If it was art, to the dense little louse it was great.  Even the art he didn't like he still respected because it was art and one single louse can't like everything, can he?
        And he knew he was going to grow up and become a strong, great big writer louse.  And his writing would be the best writing-- the funniest, the happiest, the saddest, the most intelligent and humane writing in the whole wide world.  And then everybody would love him, and then they would all say:
        "Hooray, hooray for the little white louse!"
        So the little louse went to school and learned all kinds of exciting things.  And he got smarter and smarter.  And he wrote more and more.
        And eventually, he heard about this place called The Kingdom Of The Beagle.  And a few days after that, the little louse went there and was walking in the corridors of a building when he heard a rustling behind him.  He turned, and looked and suddenly his entire world became light.  And when the light cleared, he saw an enormous dog.  What a happy dog!  It looked like the most wonderful hairy dog in the world.  A place in which to burrow and suck-- because he was a louse, and that's what lice do.  They suck.
        "H-hello..." stammered the louse.
        "Arf!" said the Beagle.  "This is my world.  Study me."
        "Huh?" said the louse.
        "Now it's time to hump you.  Because I'm a dog and you're just a stupid little louse.
        "You-- you're-- you're nuts!" stammered the little louse.
        The Beagle shrugged.
        "You don't have a choice," said the Beagle.
        And then white smoky wisps came off the Beagle when he moved and they lunged at the little louse like tentacles.  And they grabbed the little louse, and held him near the ceiling of the room.
        And the little louse tried to scream, but a white smoke tentacle went into his mouth.
        "Thesis, antithesis, paralysis!" howled the Beagle.  And then the Beagle began to laugh.
        The little louse began to cry.
        And when it was over the little louse felt sick and raped, and he tried not to pass out.
        And years passed and he grew sick and bitter.  Nothing came of him and his writing and he went to work for a controlling bastard and had to take orders from a drunk crow, and all his friends left him except for a couple, and so ome day he finally had enough of all this fucking bullshit and got a computer and a word processor and started to type:

THE GROUSE AND THE SEAGULL ONCE THERE was a grouse who had enough.  He'd had enough shit from everybody.  So he just sat and sat and sat and wanted to die for no reason at all.  And everyone else could just fuck off.  And it was amazing, really, he just wanted to die.  Like there was nothing in the world that could make him happy and even if everything was going his way he still wanted to die like he'd just outlived his usefulness and just wanted to die.
        And there was this Seagull that always flew above his head and it screamed stuff like "Thesis, antithesis, synthesis" and it started laughing at him, like it was there just to laugh at him, and the people the seagull saw when it landed on the rocks talked to the seagull and they felt happy after they talked to the seagull, but the grouse could never get close to it because it always flew away when the grouse came up to it and then it laughed at him.
        And so the grouse fell into a hole and lived there for a thousand years while the seagull flew overhead laughing and somehow making other people feel something good and giving them some sort of meaning but the grouse, all he wanted to do was sit and die and who needed seagulls anyway, all seagulls do is pick through garbage....

SO THE MOUSE talked a bit to the ostrich, and tried to talk even less to the crow.  But the crow was always in the mouse's face-- and so the mouse had to put up with a lot of crap.
        At least the crow would go away on "lunch breaks" and spend hours out of the store.  But, then, when he came back he'd be drunk.
        The mouse had also been toying with drinking, becoming an angry drunk mouse, but he always pretty much had hated the taste of alcohol, and being around the crow day in and day out made the mouse decide that maybe drinking wasn't the way to go after all.  After all, look at the crow: always forgetting things, screwing up even the simplest of operations like ringing sales into the till, nervously hiding his drinking from everyone, getting angry for no reason, hung over.  The mouse was already nervous and snappish.  He didn't need to make things worse.

DAVE WAS GOOD, though.
        The mouse liked talking to Dave.
        Dave always had transformer robots to play with, and comic books and stuff.
        One day the mouse accidentally boobytrapped the big freight elevator at the back of the store.  The mouse had boobytrapped the elevator by not locking it up properly and Dave got stuck in there for hours and IT WAS COLD IN THERE!!!
        And eventually, the mouse's owner came by and heard Dave going:
        "Hello?  Hello?  Anyone?  I'm getting cold."
        And the mouse's owner went:
        "Dave?"
        And Dave went:
        "I'm stuck."
        And this made the mouse's owner throw a temper tantrum, and then the mouse's owner went to call some people to dismantle the elevator, but then somehow Dave magically managed to unstick the elevator.  The padlock on the outside door of the elevator had gotten caught on the floor of the elevator because the mouse had locked the elevator like retard.  But, right at the nick of time, before the mouse's owner called the repairman, Dave had knocked the lock free with his foot.
        The thing was, the mouse had locked the outside door badly two weeks ago, and people had been using the elevator for two weeks without getting stuck between floors.  But the very first time Dave used the elevator, he got stick.
        Dave was cool.

SOMETIMES THE CROW would make leering comments about cute girls.  He would talk about how hot their butts were and stuff, and they'd still be within earshot!  A few of them seemed to sort of like it, but most of the customers the crow leered at didn't really like it that much.  Of course, the crow mostly did this when he was, you guessed it, drunk.

ACTUALLY, WHEN THE crow wasn't drunk or in some other state of mental crisis, he was actually a pretty nice guy.  He was smart and funny, and could draw really, really well, and was also an actor.  He was also a pretty good actor.  The mouse had seen the crow acting in stuff a few times, and he was pretty good.
        It was actually sort of a shame.  And when the mouse wasn't angry at the crow, the crow made him feel kind of sad, because the crow had had a lot of good things going for him but he'd wrecked himself with booze.
        Sort of a shame, actually, because the crow could have been a pal.

THE SAME COULD be said of the ostrich.  Except that the ostrich hadn't wrecked his mind with booze-- although he did drink a lot when he was younger.  The ostrich had wrecked his brain with New Age philosophy, veganism, and self-help books.  When the ostrich was a New-Agey vegan, he'd put all his faith in the mystical powers of crystals, faerie-folk, and anti-commercialism-- all the while spending hundreds of dollars on health food and New Age merchandise.  Also, when he was a New-Agey vegan, the ostrich couldn't see that his diet was killing him because his body wasn't getting enough protein.  (Most vegans get very, very sick all the time-- all the while actually claiming they're healthier than every one else!  But they catch colds at the drop of a hat, and sometimes are out flat for days at a time.  And they always seem to be eating, munching, nibbling, because they can never truly get full on their diet.)  And, because of this lack of protein, the ostrich started becoming very gullible, believing anything anyone would tell him-- as long as it was a conspiracy theory that made the government look bad, or it was in some way mystical.
        However, when the ostrich's finally body got so weak that he actually did almost die, he stopped being a vegan-- which caused him to have a small nervous breakdown-- and then he became addicted to "improving himself," by spending hundreds of dollars on self-help books.  The mouse thought this was just switching form one addiction to another, but the ostrich, being an addict, didn't listen to the mouse.  Instead, the ostrich kept on telling the mouse that he was growing and learning, and learning and growing.  Day after day, week after week, month after month the ostrich would tell the mouse that he (the ostrich) was learning and growing and getting better and better and fixing all the problems with his (the ostrich's) mind, until the mouse wanted to cram his paws into his own ears and go "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I'M NOT LIIIISTENING TO YOU!" because there's only so much talk about learning and growing and getting better and resolving all your issues with your family and God that one mouse can take.  And besides, if you have to tell everyone that you're learning and growing, that you're getting better and better, that each day your mind is getting healthier, it really is, you can feel it-- you're not really getting any better.  In fact, you're getting worse.
        Sort of a shame, actually, because the ostrich could have been a pal.

ONE DAY THE kitty cat came by to see the mouse and look at some Japanese comic books-- which the store had quite a few of at that time-- and the crow said some crude sexual stuff to the kitty cat that made her stand in the corner, reading a Japanese comic book, sniffling.  Later, when the mouse asked the kitty cat why she didn't kick the crow in the testicles, hiss, and claw out his eyes, the kitty cat said she didn't even notice that the crow had said anything to her.  The mouse didn't really know what to make of this, but he was still very angry with the crow.

AND THEN THE ostrich started telling the mouse about a mystical dream he'd had after drinking some Bach flower tincture mixed with herbal tea, and how the dream-- which he couldn't actually tell the mouse because telling someone your dreams is like having them control your soul-- had made so much stuff clear, had helped him so much, had led him to a truth about his father and his mother, had shown him, the ostrich, a way to resolve all those issues inside him, because issues must be resolved, people have to grow, and learn, because that's what we're put here, on this Earth, to do-- to grow and learn, and help ourselves out of the holes we, ourselves, dig for ourselves, because we never assert ourselves, and we have rights, you know, everybody has rights, God makes us all the same, and we all have rights, it's just that we never choose to act on them because we choose not to learn and grow, and that's what he's doing now, he (the ostrich) is learning and growing, and every day feels a little bit better about himself, a yes he does, a little bit better....

STEAM BEGAN TO whistle out of the little white mouse's ears.

IN FACT THE mouse spent a lot of time angry.  And sometime it was all the mouse could do to keep himself from buying a gun, going out to a mall and opening fire into the crowd, all the while screaming:
        "HOORAY!  HOORAY FOR THE LITTLE WHITE MOUSE!"
        And then, of course the mouse would put the gun in his own mouth, pull the trigger, and sleep peacefully forever.
        And the little white mouse didn't really understand why this was happening.  After all, his life wasn't all that bad.  But still, somehow, he was filled with rage and hate and sadness and despair, all at the same time.  He was both hyperactive and lethargic, happy and angry.
        The little white mouse's mind was starting to break down....

Next:  Still on the phone....

Epilogue 30.
Epilogue 28.
INDEX.
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