Patriots and Scoundrels

            The proud and noble eagle will always be the eagle – regal and magnificent, riding the high winds, circling in the thermals, always hunting the endless skies above – the arc of blue-gray heaven – from one far horizon to another far horizon, in sunlight or haze, in clouds or high blue majesty.  And from high in the sky, the eagle has the godly power of life and death over the field mouse on the earth below.  Still, in life’s eagle-mouse equation, as the mouse lives its catch-as-catch-can existence in search of food, it has a mousely choice -- cowardliness or fearlessness.

            This is a story – a parable, actually – about a cowardly mouse and a fearless mouse.

            It was late autumn, and below the silently gliding eagle was an expansive brown farm field.  On the north side of the field was a deep hardwood forest stretching away to far mountain peaks.  On the south side was a brushy forest dropping into a long valley.  Most of the leaves of the forest had already turned their autumn colors and now lay blown to the earth.  In the brown field two field mice had their burrows.  The mice were brothers, advanced in age, but still active and industrious -- mostly, and after a fashion.  One brother had his burrow at the north edge of the field near the hardwood forest.  There, outcroppings, boulders, and a stone wall bordered the woods and the mountains beyond.  The other mouse had his burrow across the field near the brushy woods and the valley below.

            Now generally, the eagle envies the mouse’s magic, his elusiveness, his survival skills and instincts, his ability to go within small places and to see the little, inner world up close.  As for the mouse, he enjoys both sunshine and darkness, and only sometimes does he think about, and wonder at the eagle’s boundless flight.  Such is the relationship of the eagle and the mouse.

            This particular day, the eagle was soaring high across the wind-torn sky watching the forest and fields, the rivers, the lakes, the mountains and the valley below.  All was his domain, even the unknown beyond the far horizons.  Below, in the brown field at the southern edge near of a stand of timber, the cowardly mouse was scratching at the earth for fallen seeds, for old corn kernels, for anything he could bring home to his female.  He did not see the eagle in the high sky above.  But the eagle saw the earthbound mouse and down he came, diving in a blur of speed after his prey.  But this day, the old mouse saw the eagle’s shadow cross his sunlight, and just in time, with his little heart pounding inside his chest, with his lungs screaming for breath, with his little mouse legs in a whirr, the old mouse scurried deep within his burrow, down deep and dark inside his inner world of safety and peace.  He only stopped running when he bumped into his fat female in the darkness.  Today, it was a close call for the old mouse, and perhaps, as fate goes, luck had nothing to do with it.  It just wasn’t his time.

            But in the dark burrow the old mouse was visibly shaken.  His female saw something was wrong.  Females always know.  But the old mouse averted his eyes, avoided her stare, and shouldered past her to a far corner where he began to hit the whiskey bottle.  (Hey, I said this is only a parable...)

            Sometimes, when a mouse lives a full and painful life, when he is finally old and has lost his optimism, he finds his last peace in whatever small sanctuaries he crawls to and claws into.  And sometimes he crawls inside a whiskey bottle.  (No, not literally inside.  Follow along with me here...)  And sometimes in the dark hollows of the earth, if he is old in spirit as well as old in body, such a mouse goes deep within himself to see the essence of who and what he is and what he has become.  And maybe in those final days and nights of old age, down in the deep small places within himself, if he is lucky and brave, he is finally able to kill the monsters and demons that lurk within the shadows of his soul.  But this old mouse was not brave.  This old mouse was a cowardly mouse.  He had lived his life, and he was ready to die.  That night, the cowardly mouse skipped the supper his female offered him.  That night, the cowardly mouse stayed in the corner and drank himself to sleep.

            At the far end of the same field lived the fearless mouse, and he saw what almost happened to his cowardly brother as the eagle plummeted from the sky with a sweep of silent wings --  down to the blowing brown grass and then skyward again -- with blinding speed, with talons of death that almost claimed his brother’s life.  The fearless mouse did not particularly like his cowardly brother – nor did he particularly dislike the deadly eagle, but he refused to live in fear.  To his fearless way of thinking, this brown, wind-blown field was his field, his home, his turf.

            Like his brother, the fearless mouse was old, born in the same litter, actually.  But unlike his brother, the fearless mouse was not ready to die.  And this old mouse was as wise as he was fearless.  So, later that day, when the sun was right in the sky, when the shadows were long, the fearless mouse scampered out of his borrow and into the field near the boulders and the stone wall at the edge of the woods.   It was a dangerous time of day, with the sun sinking low in the sky, but the old mouse was not afraid.  There at the edge of the field, the shadow of the fearless old mouse stretched long and dark along the earth and up the side of a tall, flat boulder.  The mouse danced and chittered, and his shadow danced and chittered, and the eagle above took notice.  Down came the eagle – the mighty eagle – the deadly eagle -- gliding, soaring -- in a swoosh of  talons and feathers, and the old fearless mouse pretended to not see him as he continued dancing and chittering along with his shadow.  The eagle was almost upon him when just at the last precise moment, the old fearless mouse did a basic side-step-two-step out of harm’s way – at the same time closing his eyes and hunching his shoulders for the inevitable deafening, sickening whack and thud of the eagle crashing headlong against the tall, flat-sided boulder behind him.  Of course, feathers flew in all directions at the abrupt termination of flight, and the eagle scrunched, crunched, and then slid to the earth down the smooth side of the big rock.  It was awful, actually.  Awful, and everything silent now, except, of course, for the side-splitting, pealing laughter of the old mouse as he watched the dazed and starry-eyed, once mighty eagle struggling to raise itself and stand on wobbly legs.  Between rolls of laughter, the old mouse pointed at the eagle and uttered a few vulgar expletives, but mostly he just laughed so long and hard the tears flowed down his chubby cheeks.

            Finally the old mouse managed a final taunt: “See ya – wouldn’t wanna be ya!” he said to the eagle -- and still laughing and shaking his head, the mouse walked slowly away and went down his tunnel to his lair beneath the surface of the earth.  The eagle, dazed and wobbly could still hear the laughter below the earth, and actually, he was sure it was the vibrating laughter that was making the ground unsteady beneath him.

            The old fearless mouse laughed all through the night, drank beer, had his female bring his supper, and generally savored the memory of what he had done to the eagle.  He kept the vision of it all fresh and real and alive as again and again he related to his female each minor detail of the event he now called “the great crash.”  He talked and laughed and the tears of ecstasy flowed freely as he describes it all – especially the look on the eagle’s face just before impact.

            After supper, the mouse smoked a fine cigar as his joy and contentment continued into the evening.  It is a wonderful cigar, Dominican, strong and rich, flavorful and mellow.  He drank his whiskey as he smoked.  The whiskey was the finest Canadian blend.

            It was warm and cozy in the burrow of the fearless old mouse.  A small fire glowed in the hearth, mouse laughter rang throughout the walls and hollows, and the old mouse laughed and joked, mused, and enjoyed the evening.  He called his wife to sit on his lap, and she giggled as he gave her a squeeze.  He farted, she farted, and they continued laughing long into the evening, and later they made love beneath the blankets and had great sex together and then lay nestled warm against each other through the night.

            The next morning, the cowardly mouse was dead.  He had drunk himself to death during the night.  But that morning, the fearless mouse rose hungry and happy and smacked his female playfully on her butt so she’d get out of bed and make him breakfast.  His smack was a little too hard, she thought, but she was happy to receive it, and she smiled warmly and kissed him and padded off to the kitchen to get breakfast going.  The old mouse dozed off briefly, but awoke to the smell of the coffee perking.  Warm beneath the blankets, he farted and smiled to himself.  It was a great morning.

            The eagle never again hunted the rocky side of the farm field.  Forever after that day, he suffered recurring migraines – for his head had been permanently flattened on one side.  And so the fearless mouse was safe from the fearsome eagle.  At least until the day he decided to cross the field to visit his brother’s widow, being she was cute and chubby – and lonely, obviously.  Besides, she had beer.  Well, that’s when the fearsome eagle finally got the fearless old mouse, as he was crossing the field – the mouse being so much older and slower now – and fatter, too, if the truth be told.

            In giddy exhilaration – albeit with a nagging remembrance of an earlier, ill-fated episode -- the eagle swooped down from the sky and snatched the fearless mouse high above the bonds of earth and carried him to his death.  But from the eagle’s talons, for a brief moment, the fearless mouse stole a glimpse across the wide horizon.  And even from the eagle’s talons, he smiled to himself remembering the glorious day the eagle smashed himself against the side of the boulder.  It was as good a thought as any to carry into a far forever.