The Mouse in the Maze

Let’s see, hands in the air for how many of you start your next mission in this way? OK, good.

This is how it starts.

There’s no warning or preparation, there’s just the mouse in the maze.

I only get something of a cinematic view of the mouse, sometimes from above, but also sometimes from eye level. The camera work is really quite extraordinary–hats off to the team. Whoever “the team” is. I’m just saying that here to make it sound like this is no big deal, as if I’m comfortable with what’s really going on here. The truth is, well, forget the truth for now, let’s just roll with it.

I see the mouse in the maze and it doesn’t seem to be in a particular hurry or have any specific destination in mind. But then again, I’m just a spectator here and I can see the mouse just as you can, well, if you can. I see the big screen. Although it’s somehow in my head and not exactly on Pay Per View. In fact, I don’t know when it’s going to come on or even how long it lasts. OK, I’ll stop with the analysis and get back to our friend, the mouse.

He (or she?) sniffs and looks as if this wall looks any different from the last wall. But maybe their sense of smell is like a dog. Can’t they smell 1,000 times better than humans? I don’t know where their noses lie on that scale, but I’m betting they’re better than we are.

I’m going to call it a she. Don’t know why. Then again, I also don’t really know why I have a mouse movie in a maze going on in my imagination either, so there’s that. So, she moves along doing her thing, makes turns, might go back a little. Might even turn around and take another path. I’d love to know why she chooses to do what she’s doing, but I have a feeling she doesn’t know either. I think it’s along the same lines as pigeons knowing how to find their home–they just know.

At some point, she seems to make a decision. She’s close and she knows it. Around some next turn or down this last path and she’s there. It’s a hole in a corner and she just goes in. There’s no checking down there and seeing if it’s safe or looking around to, I don’t know, see if there are other mice who might see what she’s doing (I really need to try to stop getting in the tiny mouse brain). Nope, she waltzes up to the hole and goes right in.

That’s when my next mission begins.