White Noise



In the town where you grew up, there were no mice. At least, you never saw them, and you never heard of anybody else seeing one. They were just wee things from cartoons and nursery rhymes, like bears, like wolves.

Nowadays, there are mice in your flat – in all the houses here. To begin with it was frightening, to have living things scuttling in your rooms, seeing movement, seeing glimpses, when you were watching tv or eating dinner. Lying awake in the dark because you could hear them.

But then while you were decorating, you flicked white paint off your brush and it spattered all over the furry brown back of one of them as it bolted towards a crack in the tiles.

During the night when you listen to the scratching in the walls, you know the wee white one is there. You hope the others are being nice to him. You will see him again tomorrow. ●