Schrödinger’s mouse

Oh, misery, misery, as I sit, wracked with tubercular coughing amidst the dust of my little garret, bringing you the next instalment of my sorry existence….

Er…. Oh alright then. Slightly pissed off at having developed bronchitis due to weekend excesses, I am safely installed on the sofa at my friends’ lovely house where I am looking after David, their cat, and twenty-five tomato plants. So far the tomato plants have presented little trouble. David, on the other hand is high maintenance. Too much or too little attention brings the same punishment or reward – a mouse, brought to my bed in the early hours of the morning.

Yesterday I thought I had the balance right. Light tummy tickling for fifteen minutes, quick scratch behind the ears and then I went to bed to listen to Radio 4 with the door firmly closed. It was as if we’d been married for years.

At 2.30 am I am woken by a scrabbling noise, followed by the sound of something running very fast up and down the stairs. I put the pillow over my head. David starts to fling himself at the door. I realise that he is trying to bring me a mouse.

I am terrified of rodents. I start to sweat with horror. Not daring to turn on the light, I get a chair and wedge it under the doorknob. I sit, hunched in bed, trembling.

‘If you had a girlfriend,’ I think crossly to myself. ‘This wouldn’t be a problem. There would be someone to go and sort it out. Why haven’t you got a girlfriend? Why? Why?’

The mouse issue has become a symbol of my single status. I begin to sink into a pit of despair. The thudding gets louder.

‘Maybe,’ I think, ‘it’s not David. It’s the mouse. In fact, it’s not a mouse, it’s a huge RAT. Maybe David wanted me to save him and I failed him. Now the rat's going to break in and devour me.’

I am drenched in sweat at the thought of the killer rat. I begin to calculate how long I would be able to stay in the room. I unearth a bottle of water from my rucksack and a packet of throat sweets. I decide that I could stay for days. I decide that, in fact, I might rather like to be trapped in the room. I could hide in it. I would never have to find out what the agent thinks of the book.

The mouse has become a metaphor for the reading (and judging) public.

Suddenly the noise stops. After a moment of relief, the fear returns. The sound of silence is even more oppressive. I become convinced that the mouse/rat is waiting quietly outside the door to make me think it's gone away and then when I come out it'll pounce. It's lulling me into a false sense of security.

I sit for the next two hours trying to work out whether or not there is a mouse behind the door, dead or alive, victim or predator. If it’s dead then perhaps I could just wait for it to rot away before I come out. If it’s alive, then I can't leave.

The situation is brought to a head when I begin to need to pee. What begins as a slight, uncomfortable sensation quickly turns into pain. I begin to hop around the room, trying to distract myself but it doesn’t work. I think I’m going to wet myself. I realise that I would be absolutely rubbish in a hostage situation.

At last, I have no choice. I remove the chair from under the doorknob. I put on a pair of shoes. I open the door, poised to run.

David is sitting on his own, looking forlorn. He lets out a small miaow. I give him a hard stare.

I told you I was going to need careful handling...