Fairy Tale Spotlight: A Thoughtful Mouse

"Fairy Tale Spotlight: A Thoughtful Mouse" by T.K. Wade

My name is Carl. I am a mouse. I am a thoughtful mouse, who does thoughtful things. On that note, I have chosen to live inside of a library. It is not one of those new libraries. I saw a new library, and I found that it was not conducive to my primary living concerns. What I found was, at best, a very old library. The kind that was built like a small palace, back in days far before I was born. In those days, a library was more of a dignified place, I think. The structure of this classic building is better for me.

I read the books when I can. Yes, I can do that. Any mouse can read a book, but I think I am likely the only one doing it. They are not in my native language, so I am forced to translate everything I read into extremely precise squeaks. I did, at first, have the annoying habit of squeaking what I was reading out loud. This caused me some trouble, but I have learned now that I must think my squeaks rather than speak them as I read through these texts.

Food has not been a problem. As I like reading these books and filling my brain with their translated squeaks, I have found that some squeaks are not as interesting as other squeaks. The books where the bad squeaks come from have been my main source of food. Indeed, eating paper was not my very first idea, but I found another book about a mouse who ate paper and thought to try it myself. It sates me well enough, I suppose. As eating is merely a primary concern for survival--and survival is not as interesting to me as a topic--simply do it, and carry on with my English-to-Squeak conversions.

A somewhat embarrassing thing, and one that I am shy to admit, is how long it took me to understand the concept of fiction. For the first of my reading and translation adventures, I thought that every book I read was telling of a real thing that happened. I began to see the world as a very exciting and interesting place. The notion broke apart when I began to notice inconsistencies between books. Inconsistencies can be used to prove a falsehood when major incidents in one book do not get acknowledged in another.

I saw the word "Fiction" in the area where I obtained these books, but I had not figured out its translation for longer than I would prefer to admit. I mistook it for something having to do with the overall pattern of writing, or some such cerebral machination of which I likely should have given more than two looks at in the beginning. I am very careful about such things now.

History seems to be where the true stuff is, but I did not like much of that. I turned many of those books into my food sources. I still read them though, and found that the human imagination is far more interesting than the actual activities of the same species. They dream bigger than often they accomplish in this world.

In fiction, humans are brave, courageous, and sometimes even powerful. In history, humans seem more dull, easy to push around, and more reactive rather than active. Weak. Powerful people find it easy to control them, and they often are too lazy to do anything about it. Their ideas of heroes are not attributed to the dashing fighters who save them from evil villains, but to very weak dying people who struggle with disease, or to those innocents who are killed by terrible people. In fact, I am unsure where the heroes, as portrayed in fiction, actually are in the real world. It is extremely rare that I read about anyone who meets the proper criteria.

I have come to understand that fiction is likely where the best of humanity lies. It may not be real, but it is often very good. I have found myself pouring through it with satisfaction, and I have only turned a small percentage of them into my food supply. Life within fiction is far more exciting, and if it is not exciting, it tends to be, at the very least, more dramatic and interesting. There is also enough of it so that I shall be satisfied for my entire lifespan, however long that may be.

I do wish to say that this work of which you are reading now is the first and only thing I am going to write. Translating from Squeak to English is more difficult that I thought it would be. I am only doing it as an exercise to better myself. Truth be told, my eyes have been blurring badly the whole time I have been working on it. It is a taxing experience. I intend for it to be found after I have passed on. I shall make sure someone finds it and does what they wish with it. All in all, I think I have lived a better life than most mice, and I accredit my happiness primarily to fiction. With that, I shall conclude this writing.

Respectfully yours,

Carl

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This blog was written on November 19, 2022.

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