The Hyperion Chronicles

[Written during the Time of Exile]

Not sure how much longer I will continue to abode at the Outlaw Camp. There has been talk of something going down 36 hours from now, and I have been making plans for such to occur. In case my Internet access is cut off for good, I have set up Friday and next Monday at least for your reading pleasure.

I wanted to tell a little bit about life here at the camp. For one, the bathroom is at least 10 minutes away from the cabin; and it’s a long walk, and it’s very cold up here in the Frozen North. When you have to go at 3 in the morning you think long and hard about it, willing your body to stop up, as it were.

It’s gotten so bad that I’ve begun to change my diet towards the hopes of handling things on the other end. You know; lots of salty foods, things of that nature. I know that’s way more than you wanted to know, but hey: it’s a rough life out here, and I don’t want anyone thinking I’m luxuriating.

Another “adventure” has been the mice. “Ortiz,” one of the men who live here, has made it his personal crusade to get rid of the mice. It’s understandable why there are so many. Even poorly instituted, our cabin is the warmest thing around here. So there are mice.

For the most part you just take precautions. All food must be in sealed Tupperware. Mabel (another camp denizen) learned that to her consternation when a mouse chewed through a bread bag to get into some hamburger buns. She was not happy.

You’d think an Outlaw would be tougher about such matters, but she’s a City Outlaw, I guess. I spent the better part of a day making up crazy stories about what the mice might do.

“They like to hide under the toilet seat, and then bite your thighs when you sit down.” Was one favorite. I had her on top of the couch for many hours, and to this day all the women say “Rawr!” when they enter the bathrooms (as I told them mice are scared of sound).

Ortiz promised everyone he could get rid of the mice, and the first night, he delivered. A spring-loaded trap in the kitchen yielded results. (Ortiz used peanut-butter, as apparently the old stereotype of mice and cheese is inaccurate. Mice, it seems, are lactose intolerant.

Since then Ortiz has not been so lucky. The second round of spring-loaded traps did not a mouse catch, and worse than that, several times the mouse (or mice) managed to remove the peanut-butter without setting off the trap!

We all kept faces way too smooth, as Ortiz explained the problem was the cheap traps. (Which probably was a factor. They really suck. They set poorly and once used they are ruined.)

However, a new round of traps also failed to rid us of the house of mouse.

Then Ortiz got jiggy with technology.

Somewhere he found a mousetrap that was a rectangle box. The box has two doors, and the idea is the mouse gets in but can’t get out. Poison inside the box completes the deal.

The reason for this latest round is that not only was a pretty big mouse found in the ladies’ bathroom (which is not a 10 minute walk away, and how far is that, I ask?), but mouse droppings were found in a carton of food that was thought to be mouse-impervious.

For those who don’t know, mouse droppings are the real danger mice pose. Unlike rats, I don’t think mice go around biting people, but inhaling their droppings (which are very small, and seem to aerate at will) can make a person sick. Come to think of it, many of the outlaws have been quite sick up here, so that might be what’s going on.

Well, yesterday was the first time Ortiz used his Mouse box, and success!

Sort of.

When Ortiz checked the box, he proudly proclaimed a mouse, only to discover a few minutes later that the mouse was not in fact dead yet. Ortiz gave the little guy a few more minutes to eat the poison, but he was still ticking. Finally Ortiz took him up to the top of the hill and opened the box, resigned to letting the guy go free. By this time we all had a sort of grudging respect for the mouse. Clearly this was the same rodent smart enough to snag late-night peanut butter treats without peril.

Ortiz told me that when he opened the box, the mouse hid in the recesses, apparently not keen on getting our yet. When finally shaken free he took off like…a mouse out of hell.

Any mouse that can resist traps and poison is pretty special. Now I’m almost hoping that the mouse has a homing sense like the animals in THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY, and can make it half a mile back here.

After all, he was probably here before we were, and I say: if he makes it back, we learn to live with him.

I wonder how he’d feel about Graitch?