It was no easy task locating one like Bowie. Thomas, on the other hand, thrashed around in the marsh like some great gothic beast in the most rococo opera, all wrath and bloodthirstiness and self-loathing. You might almost have mistaken him for Bogomil.
Anabin, in a peacoat he’d owned for more than fifty years now, made his way along the snowy boardwalk. As he walked, he hummed softly. It was a very old song, and he did not always remember exactly how it went. But he got it close enough, and in not too long a time a mouse darted onto the walkway and into his path. It was trembling, the way small things did when they fell into the wake of larger events. But it carried a weapon of great power in its jaws.
Anabin held out the cup of his hand and the mouse jumped in. It shook itself, neat and shining and inconsequential as a coin, then ran down the sleeve of his coat. There was a pocket in the lining, and soon Anabin could feel the small adjustments as the mouse made itself at home there.
He said, “I have some sympathy for him, you know. It is hard to live for so very long with the lack of the only thing you know how to desire. And she has made him dance all this time lightly. As if he knew no want at all.”
The mouse said nothing to this. Mice do not care about the suffering of cats.