Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

I may have mentioned the mice, I say may, I know I did, earlier on. For the past two weeks we've seen no sign of them. No scurrying along so fast they make us shriek (not because we're afraid of mice, they're so tiny and cute, but because they're so bloody fast). No shrieks from squabling vermin. No fresh mouse **** detected. No evidence of things having been raided. We've been taking precautions to remove their food sources and the "Squeaker Seekers" as I call them (they give a sound that mice can hear but we can't, so they should be driven away from the noise), remove places for them to hide (still ongoing because there's a lot of crap in our kitchen) and giving everything they may have come into contact with a bloody good scrubbing (I stocked us up on various cleaning agents a few weeks ago (Apple Dettol of all things, and pink grapefruit )). I guessed thet they were somehow dead. Anyway, today, while getting myself some cheap, Tesco Value cheese slices, which I really love for some reason I stumbled upon and nearly stepped on a little mouse, right in the middle of the doorway, staggering around. I grabbed the dish we've been using for the humane mousetrap (look it up, it's really good, just google humane mousetrap and you'l find it quickly) I dumped it over the mouse like a spider, then I had to hunt for something to pick it up with, while screaming to mum that I'd found one. The way he was stumbling around I guessed something was seriously wrong with him, mice don't just get caught like that. Reminded me of the Mixy rabbit that Tom and I found once, he picked it up and took it home, we tried to take it to a vet so it could be put down (because it can't be cured and it kills them horribly), but none were open, so he had to call the RSPCA to come and take him and get him put down. I insisted ti should have a name, something we could call it while it was there and so we could remember it later, Tom didn't like the idea because naming it meant getting attatched. Eventually we decided on Scratch (not a human name so less attachable than giving it a human name) because of the furious scratching it did with it's hind legs when he picked it up (he used his coat so it wouldn't scratch his hands). The mouse reminded me of Scratch becase Scratch hopped out right in front of us, not being able to see us because his eyes had swolen up and sealed shut (that's how Tom knew what was wrong wiith him) the mouse did very much the same as Scratch, so I knew something was seriously wrong. Now and then I made him move a bit under the glass, determined not to have him die. I eventually found a shoebox lid big enough to slide under the glass and dropped him into a bucked and stuck on the lid. A healthy moust would have jumped out of the bucket straight away. I took him up to see mum (she was in the bath) and we cooed about how sweet he was, I named him Stanley because it seemed to fit, I named all of the mice I caught. However, I think Stanley was actually a girl but I figured it didn't matter because, really, any name can be a unisex name if you really want, so that's what I decided the name Stanley would be. I gave him some quavers to nibble and tore up a kitchen roll to nest with, or just hide under, we didn't want to release him straight away like hte others because of the way he stumbled around, we figured he was ill. I even gave him some water in a jam jar lid (i read that mice don't really drink water because they get what they need from their food, but ours gorged themselves on crisps and bird food so I figured I'd put it in anyway.) i soon became aware that Stanley was dying, he showed similar traits to Henry. I too him back up to mum to confirm it. She said he was deffinately dying and that I should let him be outside where he belonged while he still had some life. As I went outside Stanled had another writhing fit like Henry and fell into the lid of water and couldn't get out, so I had to gently tip him out. I found a covered spot to put him and, seeing as he was little threat to me, I took him gently by the tail and put him there. More writing and I was worried he might not like the light while he died so I covered him with a few leaves but another Writhing fit shook them off. I told Henry about it (it was by his grave) I knew mum was upset but I told Henry that I wouldn't cry, not for a mouse I hardly knew, I was sad, but I wouldn't cry. I left Stanley for a moment and went back up to mum, telling her the situation and asking if she thought I should kill him myself, and spare him the hour long bouts of writing fits that Henry suffered. She thought it woukd be kinder, so I doubled up two sheets of kitchen roll and picked Stanley up again, gently placing him in my tissued palms. I wasn't sure how to kill him, his neck was so small I couldn't strangle him, mum suggested I dould smak him with a brick. It'd be pretty quick, sure, but I doubted my ability to do such a brutal thing and I hate seeing splattered animals. In the end I decided to suffocate the little thing between my palms (through the tissue of course) by that time he was barely aware of his surroundings so I closed my palms around him. He moved violently, I'm not sure if he was actually struggling or if he was just having another fit, I squeezed a little harder, gently increasing the preassure until my hands shook. In the end I couldn't be sure if the trembling in my hands was Stanley still moving of just me trembling. I didn't want to open my hands with the job only half done and Stanely still half alive (if you can call how I found him alive) I tried to get mum's judgment but there was nothing she could do. Eventualy I gave Stanely a good last squeeze in case he was still alive and carefully opened my hands. He was dead. I looked for breathing or a heart beat but he was so small it was hard to do. I was sure he was dead though and so I put him in the animal grave (not Henry's but a patch of thorns where I put all of the wild dead animals so they can't be eaten, though I think that they have been got at at some point, but I conclude that it's nature. They were nature's creatures, we didn't tame them, and so they were not ours, they were natures and so nature had the final say in what happened to them. If nature decided a cat would uncover them and eat them then that was it. I just placed them there to let nature do with them what it would.) In al that time of killing the helpless little thing (though he was already dying anyway) i didn't cry, because I told Henry that I wouldn't and because mum cried for him.
So there it is, my first blood. I wish I could've done the same for Henry, put him out of his misery, he took so long to die, hours, growing cold, meowong a heart wrenching meow now and then that made me rush to him and in the end writhing in agony, bending his back as far as it would go and stretching right out instead of being able to curl up and die in his sleep like I wanted him to. I held him, at the end, as his heart stopped and I curled his limp body up, like how i'd wanted him to be when he died. i think Herny hardened me towards what i did to Stanley. i don't regret it, but I wonder if there was a better way to have done it. i didnt' want to shed Stanley's blood, I prefer bloodless deaths, they seem more natural to me.

Bluebiird the murderess out.