These mice have no vanity left, is the problem. They don't look in
mirrors or ogle each other, so I have no clientele. I think this fad has
hit them hardest. That's my opinion as a professional.
     By now a whole generation of mouse kids have been raised on sound-
boxes. It hurts to walk into a village and always see a big machine in the
center with wires running in every direction, not because it's a surprise,
which it isn't anymore, but because of the damn sameness of it. At this
time of day every single mouse under middle age will be alone in its "lab"
twisting knobs and poking buttons to control a neverending stream of music.
At least, it seems like being alone to me.
     I'm here, though, and I need to eat, so I find the real residences
and start knocking on doors.
     "Hello, sir! I have a variety of pigments for sale if you'd like to
look at--" He has always turned around and beckoned me inside.
     "I couldn't wear something like that," he says. "I don't show off any-
more. Don't believe in it."
     "Something for your mate, then, or to decorate your home?" He laughs
'no', then goes deeper in to get us both water. Mice used to be damn kinky!
Even without making a sale, though, I could use the rest.
     "Any kids?" I ask from habit.
     My host gestures toward several archways leading out of the room. "I
do have, or did have, a few. The three eldest got boxes downtown." He
hummed by way of explanation, but I nodded quickly. "The first one, we took
to a kind of clinic when it started. A big silkworm paraded in fron of all
the kids--not just kids, now I think about it, but mostly--showing them
everything it had spun. I can't say I was inspired either, but I suppose
it made the worm happy. None of my kids visits. Of course."
     I'd like just as much to not talk about this or anything else, but I
am a guest, after all.
     "The fourth ran off. I don't know where. She had a vision of The Horse
right here in her home, all luminous and gleaming. A week later she went to
find it herself. Do you believe in horses, my friend?"
     I do not, and say as much.
     "Well, I wouldn't have anything to do with them if there were. You see
what I mean?" At this point, tired and desperate, I simple ask if he can
spare any food. He earnestly pads away.
     I am then offered a very generous portion. "Do you need a spoon?" he
says, "Or is your type... does..." I am not paying much attention.

     I'm pretty optimistic while leaving. Then all of a sudden I stumble
into the wrong kind of plant and get scratched up and down the lower part
of my legs. Damn it! I make it as far as the center of town and curl up to
sleep and heal. I'm lying right up against the side of a box. Hopefully the
constant thumping from inside will keep hungry squirrels away while I'm
out. Have to get on the road early tomorrow. Will the damn moles take me
in? I guess maybe.

written for Jonathan Druy in my room 7/9/02

Pretty clumsily written; jumps around too much. I wonder how much long periods of not writing affect my rhythm. The very-short story, it seems, is a slightly unnatural form; even with practice, the size of a seemingly-indivisible idea is somewhat longer than one page, and when I'm feeling brusque I don't always give as much thought as I should to how I go about miniaturizing it.

As always, animals are sad. I also seem to have gotten more and more accustomed to leaving significant details about protagonists until the end. In this case, I meant to imply that the narrator is not just a different species from his host (I think you get that from the intro... maybe? If I'm lucky?) but that he's somewhat alien. And, well, I've gotten solidly enough into the habit of not specifying gender unless necessary that the salesperson could have been female. I thought of him as male, though. I wanted the whole thing to seem weary. Culture often involves turning the young against the old, but what would happen if all those sassy youngsters just left? I'm sure Jonathan's choice to name nine hip bands from a very specific cultural milieu (half of which -- don't get me wrong -- I follow avidly) as his words got me started on this line of thinking.

I've got a pretty clear memory of screwing up the tenses once while writing this, but now, ten days later, I can't find it. I suppose that's the disadvantage of suddenly writing two stories hours before leaving for a vacation.

You know, that mid-story soliloquy is also a bad habit. I've been reading Jim Crace's _The Devil's Larder_, a set of 64 short-shorts involving food, and while it doesn't always grab me (Crace seems bent on deriving all the benefits of maudlinism from his pointedly anti-maudlin style), he's clearly got his licks down. So I'm torn about whether to study him more closely. The point is, when Crace uses a first-person narrator, that narrator shamelessly hogs the spotlight for the whole vignette, thereby avoiding what I'm starting to think are painful shifts of focus.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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