wrung dry against the rocks

We have these mice. 

They are terrible. We want them gone. At night they scratch up the inside of our radiators, the charming old radiators with beautiful wire covers. The mice burrow behind my knitting basket, they trace the moulding along the bottom of our walls, they shit in our kitchen. We want the mice gone. Someone is going to come tomorrow and use disproportionately large tools and fill all the holes with steel wool and poison, any hole that is larger than half an inch, since that is the smallest dimension through which a mouse can squeeze. 

We catch them on sticky traps and they are tiny and heaving, barely longer than my pinky finger. One fell over on the trap, his whole pathetic body glued lengthwise. One lost his back legs and tail and dragged the trap with him back under the radiator to hide. I pulled him out and dropped him into a plastic bag filled with water, held it shut for whatever length of time I deemed appropriate to drown a mouse. 

I'm telling you this because I didn't used to be able to do these things. When T.'s house was infested I would hide in bed in the mornings, woken by a frying pan coming down hard on a stoop, the sound of one of his roommates's bludgeoning a caught mouse. One morning I was making breakfast, and as I went to throw the eggshells in the trash I saw a mouse corpse laid out on the top of dirty paper towels, plastic cups. I was inconsolable. T. held me as I wept and he buried the mouse deeper into the trash, out of sight. 

Something happened this year, in these past few months. I became capable. There is nothing I need him for, not really. I used to say I still woke up scared during thunderstorms, and I do, and he isn't there to comfort me. So I comfort myself. It's not that hard. I open jars with a few good whacks on the countertop, hot water, an elastic band. I grab a chair when I need to reach the highest shelves. 

I used to be one of the tender-hearted. The thick of my heart was exposed. I cried over every commercial with a dog in need, stories of endless suffering, the Gilmore Girls. I just cried. I cried because he would look at me with something I recognized as primitive and essential, and he would fold me up and I would be reminded of just how safe I was. 

It's inhumane, yes, what we're doing to these mice. It is cruel and vicious. But I want these mice gone, you understand? I want the jerks dead. I look without pity on their tired bodies. I am not interested in weakness anymore.