They say that depression is a disease.  If that's the case, it's the only disease I know of that's caused by circumstance.
                    -- Alex Frazer-Harrison, in conversation.

ONE TIME the mouse told Kevin how much he admired him.  Kevin blushed.
        Kevin then told the mouse that it was people like him, people like the mouse, that made the whole thing worthwhile.  People who never gave up, who always wanted to keep learning.  People who were interested in things and who strove for the truth no matter what bad things happened to them in life.
        The mouse didn't know what to say, so he just thanked Kevin.  Afterwards, when he thought about how he'd thanked Kevin, he felt like a fool.

AND THE mouse made some new friends.  And he drifted away from his old friends.  Mostly, anyway.

THE MOUSE still hung out with the kitty cat, though.

THE MOUSE also worked at Charlie's part time, too.
        But Charlie's was a sad place, now.  The crow got laid off, the djs left, the penguin bought his own Charlie's franchise and the wolf came back as a co-owner of the penguin's store.  All that was left was the ostrich and Dave.
        Charlie's daughter and son helped out, too.
        But the mouse knew he didn't belong there any more.
        He was just biding his time.

EVENTUALLY, THE mouse stopped coughing and his throat healed.
        His throat was more sensitive now to things like milk and chocolate and greasy food, and because of all the coughing his voice was maybe a little bit deeper, but on the whole he was better.

THE MOUSE did stuff.  Nothing too important.

THEN KEVIN left.  He went to another-- much larger-- Kingdom to the South.  Actually, the-- much larger-- Kingdom to the South was interested in hiring Kevin's wife.  But when they realized they'd be getting Kevin they sweetened the deal.
        For a while, Kevin thought he might commute between Kingdoms, even though this new Kingdom was in another country.  Kevin was getting paid enough by this other Kingdom to be able to commute between countries on a plane, on a daily basis.  But he decided not to do that because that was a stupid idea.
        This other Kingdom was also paying Kevin simply to sit and think and write books.  He didn't even have to teach a class if he didn't want to.
        It was too good a deal to resist, and so Kevin left.

THEN THE little white mouse got into grad school.

THEN THE kitty cat came to the Kingdom Of The Eagle and the little white mouse hung out with the kitty cat even more.

THEN THE little white mouse did some more stuff.  Nothing too important.

THEN SOME bad people blew up some buildings in the country to the South.  The mouse saw it live on tv and at the time the mouse was freaked out.  It felt like the end of the world.
        But then he got over it.
        And then everybody else also got over it, too.  Even though they liked to pretend that they hadn't because then people would pay attention to them.

THEN THE mouse got a bunch of money from The Kingdom Of The Eagle, and the money was more than he was making at Charlie's, so he quit his job.
        Everyone called this money "funding" that had been awarded to the mouse because his marks were so good.
        The "funding" made the mouse happy.  But a part of him also bitterly considered it a partial repayment for his having to endure that brutal rape by the Eagle, way back when.  As well as the trauma of having had the Eagle's eggs put into his stomach.
        "About fucking time," thought the little white mouse, bitterly.

(SOMETIMES THE mouse still feels those eggs.  And the feeling hurts.  But sometimes the mouse likes that pain.)

THEN THE mouse went to classes.

THEN THE mouse started teaching a class.

THEN THE little white mouse did even more stuff.  Nothing too important.

THEN THE mouse noticed he'd started sinking into a new kind of time flow.  Days went by quicker and quicker and seemed to have less and less in them.
        And, also, even though he was happy a lot, a part of him was always waiting for something bad to happen.  He was always waiting for his mind to slip away, or waiting to be stabbed in the back by his friends, or family, or the people the Kingdom Of The Eagle.
        He was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

THEN EVERYTHING in his life became stable.  But it also became kind of numb.

HE ALSO got sad a lot, for reasons he didn't understand.
        And, before, when he got sad a part of him kind of liked it.  But this sadness was so deep and profound that he was almost immobilized.
        And then the sadness would go away, and the mouse would almost feel happy.  But part of him was waiting for the sadness to come back, because he knew it would.

SOMETIMES HE would lie in bed, curled into a ball, and scream in his mind.
        He would try to wish himself back in time, back to when he was younger and felt everything more strongly than he did now.  Even though nothing bad was happening to him, really.  He should have been feeling happier than he'd ever felt before because it actually looked like his life was turning out okay.
        Then he would be wracked with sorrow and the sorrow would kind of burn his mind.  Then he would feel better and continue about his day, wondering what was wrong with him.
        The little white mouse was really fucked up.

AND SOMETIMES he would go outside for a walk.
        And the wind blew through the trees and the mouse looked up at the sky.

THE LITTLE white mouse wished he could fly off the planet.  He felt cheated because he knew he would die having never set foot on another world.  Ever.

AND HE had friends, but he also always felt alone.

AND HE hung out with the kitty cat, and that was great.  Most of the time he wasn't sad when he was with the kitty cat.
        Most of the time.

AND HE did things over and over again.  Wrote, read, taught, marked papers.

AND SEASONS came and went.

HE LISTENED to music by Philip Glass.  Sometimes that made him feel better.

AND HE got older.  Or at least he felt like he was getting older.

AND THE sun would come up.  And the sun would go down.

HE WROTE.

AND SOME days it would be warm outside, and other days it would be cold.

AND MORE seasons came and went.

FALL, WINTER, spring, summer, fall again.

DAY, NIGHT.

WIND.

(To be concluded.)

Next:  Wind....
 

Epilogue 60.
Epilogue 58.
INDEX.
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