Attachment

I miss you, my mousy. Where are you?

It all started one night at 1AM when one of the daughters knocked on our door and said: “I just saw a huge rat in the living room!”

My wife wants to move to a hotel immediately, but I have to behave like a man. So I get ready for war. I close all the doors in the house; I grab the biggest weapon I have, a broomstick; I put on sandals, turn on the lights and go for a noisy walk around the house, poking carefully with the stick in all corners. I have no wish to meet the rat, I just want to chase him away. — I find nothing and we all return to bed.

In the following days and nights, I repeat this routine many times. I buy a trap in the form of a cage. I put cheese in it and check often if I caught anything. I didn’t.

Several days pass. We calm down. Maybe there was no mouse after all. Maybe it was all a mistake… And then my wife goes to get something from the pantry closet and sees a bag of rice that is torn and some mouse droppings…

Panic again. The enemy is in the house! My wife wants to move to a hotel again. I ask the other daughter, the brave one, the officer in the Israeli army who carries an M-16 rifle, to help me with the trap. But she suddenly needs to visit a friend in Kiryat Shmona… — I set the trap again.

Everybody is jumpy. My wife doesn’t want to leave our bedroom. When someone steps on some water, they jump — is this rat piss? When my wife touches my hand at night, I jump. Is the rat in our bed?

And then one night, as we are getting ready for bed, we hear a clank. I run to look at the trap, broomstick in hand, and lo and behold, there is a mouse running around inside the cage! And I don’t know what I feel more — joy that I finally caught him or disgust at this annoying creature…

But what do I do now? I made no plans beyond this point!

I pick up the cage by its handle while he is jumping inside. I carry it down the stairs, hoping not to meet any neighbors on the way down. I go to an empty field next to our house, open the cage and let the creature run out.

Will he return, I wonder? Does he know the way back? Should I have killed him? How do you do that???

I set the trap again but no more mice came that night. Or the next. I buy salami for bait. The smell is so strong that any mouse could smell it even from Kiriat Shmona. But no one comes.

And I start to miss you, my pet. Why don’t you come back to me? I won’t hurt you, like I didn’t hurt you last time. I just want to play with you. Like a fisherman who catches a fish for fun and then returns it to the water!

If only you were white, I could adopt you. White mice are allowed as pets. But you are black. And we do discriminate.

I put different food on your plate every night. Yellow cheese. Salami. Garlic. Vegetarian. Maybe you prefer Chinese? But you don’t show up…

Please come back to me, my mousy. I lost a doggy once. His name was Bambi. You don’t have a name yet but I don’t want to lose you too. I’ve grown attached to you…