1:00
The little bastard disappeared from my mind as I scoured over the pages of fresh information. Nothing feels better than the smooth pages of a magazine on Saturday afternoons. I organized them by date, then by topic, then moved the new collectables to their rightful piles found throughout my humble abode.
My favorite to slowly go through was Cosmopolitan. The pretty girls that lined the pages where I couldn’t hear their judgement on my appearance or my hobby. Perfume samples stuck between the pages that I only imagined was what real girls smelled like all the time. Tips on how to be a better kisser, lover, or boyfriend. Tips I would catalogue in my mind to use one day.
A close second was People. The lives of the rich and famous strewn across beautifully inked pages, detailing their every move, making people admire when they take out their own trash, people wanting to be just like them. I ponder if people ever want to be like me as much as I want to be like them.
I take my time with my precious magazines. Sunday papers will be here tomorrow, so I must take the time now to admire the beautiful, smooth print pages of my magazine orders before I must make room for my beloved black ink, stained fingers, thin pages. Every day is a new delivery. Every day I tick away the clock with my meticulous organizing, hoping mother doesn’t bother me too much with her phone calls making sure I was doing just fine. She couldn’t stand having to put her baby in his own apartment, but she couldn’t stand my collection more.
The little bastard’s squeak from the pile snaps me back from my trance. As we make eye contact for the second time in these few hours of temptation, the phone rings.
2:00
We kept our eyes locked on one another as I slowly scooted myself across the carpet of the living room, generating electricity, to the crunchy linoleum surface. As I went to touch the ringing phone, a slight shock ran from my fingertips through my body. My eyes still never left the little bastard.
“Thank goodness you answered, Hun,” she said.
“It’s Saturday, mother. You know I get my favorite magazines on Saturday’s,” I said.
“Oh, well, Hun, I just thought I’d try you really quick because this is so important. I’m sorry I had to go and disrupt your special time, but this is…”
“Go on with it,” I said.
“Do you want me to bring mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise, or just mustard and ketchup? I couldn’t quite remember what your favorites were and I’d be stricken to hell if I, your mother, couldn’t remember this sim…”
“Bring whatever you’d like,” I said, my teeth grinding, the agony of this feeling zapping through my nerves.
“So, you do like all three, I knew it! Alright dear, well I’ll be leaving here in just a moment, I know you won’t mind your mother getting there early. See you in a jiffy.”
I dropped the phone instead of connecting it back into the receiver. The plastic slapping the linoleum before snapping back up by the curly string. The anger bubbled up inside of me because that little bastard just stared at me the entire time I spoke with mother. He didn’t understand the initial annoyance he put on me on top of the annoyance of mother, the same woman who swore every weekend that I liked ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. The same woman who called for any stupid question just to make sure I hadn’t drowned in my collectables. The same woman who made me into what I am because of her constant coddling. The same woman who trapped me in this home with my favorite things only to be ruined by the little bastard staring back at me with those beady, black eyes.
I picked up the hardened oatmeal bowl we both had made a meal over this early afternoon, never unlocking my grey eyes. I traveled over the linoleum onto the carpet, moving my precious deliveries without a worry, not wondering if their beautiful pages had been crinkled. The little bastard didn’t even move, just sat there.
I made it in front of him and he stayed frozen, eyes locked to mine. With one rapid movement, I threw my arms into the air with the bowl gripped tight. I let out a huge groan as I started to slam it down on top of the little bastard.
“My mom did the same thing,” he said.
The bowl dropped from my hands instead of crashing down on the little bastard. I stared at him, fury in my bones, as I tried to piece together what I had heard.
“I said my mom did the same thing. It was more when I was home with her before I left on my own. You just gotta be honest with her, man,” he said.
This was a joke, a sick joke meant to make me seem like I wasn’t okay like mother always told me.
“I know what you’re thinking, ‘whoa, talking mouse this is a trick,’ but I promise it’s not. You and I have a special connection, you see. I was trying to talk to you sooner to ask if I could stay, but you couldn’t understand me just yet,” he said.
“What kind of connection?” I asked.
“Oh, you know, the one all the misfits have. The kind of connection that brings together all sorts of people into their own group so that they don’t feel alone,” he said.
“What do we have in common?” I asked.
“We like to collect things. I had to leave my collection back home since I just left. Different types of string are really my cup of tea. I found a few in-between your collection that are very good quality. Brown strings, damp strings, colored strings, you name it and I’ve found it. Are these piles your collection, I’m assuming?” He asked.
“Yes,” was all I could muster.
“Well, my collection was never this extravagant. Hey, since I intruded on your home without asking, why don’t you show me some of your collection and we can talk over it. You know, get to know each other, make you not hate my guts and want to kill me with an oatmeal bowl, the usual friend-to-friend adventure,” he said.
“I…I’ve never had a friend,” I said.
“Well, sure you have. All these magazines are your friend. They speak to you in some way that others don’t understand. String speaks to me. We can also speak to each other. Share stories, complain about our mothers, eat hard oatmeal,” he went on.
I stared back in amazement as he continued to list off things that friends do. I couldn’t listen to the rambling. I couldn’t handle the incessant need to want him to go away.
Before I had a moment to rationalize, I rolled up the new People magazine I had gotten just a few hours prior and slammed my arm down on the little bastard. I never heard such a terrible crunch beneath the weight of paper. I couldn’t lift the magazine, I just left it where it fell.
There was a knock at the front door, a knock signaling that mother had arrived.
I slowly stood up and dragged my feet to the front door to open it. Undoing every latch slowly as if to delay my impending annoyance, as if it could make the situation any better.
“Gosh, Hun, just leave me out there. I’m just kiddin’ you. Let’s go eat. I know you must be starving,” she said as I barely opened the door a crack to not let the light get in and damage my collection.
As I turned around to follow mother into the kitchen where we would eat and she would talk insistently about her fear for me, all the magazines, newspapers, comics, and books sparked into talking with such a volume that my mind started to become crazed. Everything in the rooms were talking, even the splattered, dead little bastard squeaking.
