horrors beyond reading comprehension

My parent's house is the median age of a US senator, and every year about this time, the local mice start experimenting with sneaking into the house for warmth and snacks.

At 11:14 PM, I noticed a single gray mouse had entered, and was exploring the far side of the living room, which is fully accessible to the dogs, but not in their immediate line of sight.

About a minute in, Charleston notices, but his sole reaction is to look at it, then make very pointed eye contact with me as if to say "Are You Seeing This Shit? Disrespectful." and then curl deeper into his couch nest. Arwen is very asleep, snoring and farting.

Shortly after that, Herschel noticed The Mouse, mostly because it had meandered into the main part of the living room, possibly lured in by the kibble-heavy scent of Dog Farts. It had, actually, wandered to within two feet of where Herschel was splooted on the floor, dozing, directly in front of his nose.

Now, I don't now much about Mouse vision, but on average, Herschel is very nearly the same color as my parent's carpet, and does very much resemble a faux-fur throw pillow in shape and texture. Perhaps he is well-camoflaged. Perhaps it is full of tiny rodent hubris.

It is very quiet- quiet as a mouse, even- but it must still smell of one, because the first thing I see is Herschel's nose twitch. His eyes slowly crack open Cross to focus Then very quickly open as he recognizes the shape as A Potential New Friend!

His Nubbin begins to wag One hind foot goes up The the other and he slowly rises to a mere half inch above his previous elevation, and begins to slowly play-stock the mouse.

This is not the subtle maneuver of a camouflaged predator, but the hyper-visible way that Corgi and other herding dogs go "I'm Gonna Getchya! I'm Gonna Getchya!" at sheep and cattle and birthday parties full of toddlers in an attempt to get thin to break into a run so The Chasey Game can begin.

The Mouse noticed that it had been Noticed (TM) but to it's credit, it did not run, but instead was very casually search-ambling back to whence it came, it's ears pointed directly behind it, listening to The Find Out. Props to the mouse, even though Herschel had significantly closed the distance between them, it was maintaining it's facade well.

...but it has now made the peculiar descision to shelter inside the Wobbler Kong, a hard plastic and heavy toy that is in fact exceptionally bite-proof and may have kibbles in it.

The reason there may be Kibbles in it is that I feed Herschel all his meals in the Wobbler to keep him from bolting his food and/or choking himself, because in order the get the kibbles back out, he must do smack the shit out of the wobbler like so:

Eventually, Herschel got distracted and paused to get a drink, and I started to get up to rescue the mouse, but before I could walk over to the far side of the Living Room, the mouse made the first move, and stuck it's face out of the treat hole to see if the coast was clear.

...in full view of Charleston, and in the following millisecond, I watched his body and Soul become possessed with the millennia-old instincts of his sighthound ancestors, and the more recent instruction of the cats who raised him, and in a beautifully fluid motion that inspired the poets of old, launched himself out of his decadent nest of couch pillows and quilts, up over the coffee table and about 15 feet across the living room to POUNCE on the Wobble and Mouse.

Fortunately, for the mouse, the Wobble isn't the easiest thing to grab, even if you have opposable thumbs, and instead of acquiring a late-night snack, Charlie instead pressure-launched the wobble across the living room and into the kitchen, where it proceeded to pinball around between the cabinets and dinner table.

Herschel, who loves activities and is also a jealous little brat who hates it when Charlie so much as looks at his toys, retaliated by taking a flying leap onto Charlie's face and the two began to wrassle aggressively while Knocking the wobble and everything else in the kitchen around, including me as I tried to grab the wobble from between them.

Charlie broke away from his brother via the complex tactical strategy of "Use limb superiority to smack him repeatedly in the face", and sprinted out of the kitchen across the house with the look of an animal In Hot Pursuit, Herschel and myself on his heels. When Charlie came to a halt at the back door, there was no mouse to be found, much to everyone's bafflement.

I hear jingling back in the living room. I return to find Arwen has gotten up, walked the seven and a half feet to where the Wobble is in the hall now, and laid back down, both big Puppy Crime paws on either of the Wobble.

I am walking back, because usually she just wants to lick kibble dust and the occasional forgotten green bean out of it, and am fairly sure the Wobble is Devoid of Mouse, who has escaped to relay news of the modern wolf pack inside the house.

Instead, Arwen opens her mouth wide, turns her entire head sideways, clamps onto the top of the wobble, and twists her neck.

She's learned how to unscrew it.

I sprint back and manage to grab the wobble from her and the other two canines now Baying for Rodent Blood at my feet, and carefully peek inside.

The Mouse is still within the Wobble, plastered to the far side of the container, extraordinarily flat, as though trying to become one with the hard plastic walls. Deciding that it was Traumatized Enough, I taped a paper towel over the opening to trap it but not create an airtight seal and took it out to the yard.

I was about to release it when I looked back to see all three dogs at the door, watching every motion with a laser focus, and realized that they'd scent-trail it back to the main colony. I decided I didn't really feel like dealing with the consequences of Arwen and Charlie teaching Herschel that pinkie mice are made of meat, and opted instead to take the mouse to my car, and drive it a few miles up the road to the nearest meadow for release.

It's a lovely October Night. Temperature in the low 50's, full moon, and the wind blowing through the turning leaves when I get to the meadow, and I take my time going down the embankment from the gravel parking lot of the city park, a bit into the tall grass near the creek that cuts through the meadow, and carefully unscrew the wobble. The mouse is still braced to the inside, so I set the pieces down and wait for it to cautiously start sniffing and delicately step out of the toy, stare up at me for a moment, and then scamper off into the grass.

I look up at the big yellow moon, and for a moment, all is well with the universe.

then there is not quite a noise, and not quite a motion but more of a Disturbance In The Force on the edge of my peripheral vision, and I slowly turn to look.

Also enjoying the Lovely October Night and the associated seasonal changes to its anatomy is one of the last true Megafauna of the Ice Age, which have been making a big comeback in Colorado of late, but I had not realized they'd come out of the mountains and into city limits:

The Bull Moose is maybe 60 feet away from me, and still making up its mind about how it's going to respond to this invasion of it's personal space.

Slowly, I back up the way I came.

The Moose chooses violence, as is it's right, and charges.

I am possessed by ancient instincts much like Charlie was and scramble back up the embankment, into the parking lot, and sprint for the car, which has already endured one moose attack and lived.

Unfortunately, just before I get to the car, I eat shit on the loose gravel, roll, ans slam my ankle into a granite boulder at the edge of the lot with considerable force.

Adrenaline carries me through, and I get back up, run the remaining five very painful steps to the car, and get inside. I start it up, through the brights on to dazzle the moose, and prepare to make a very inadvisable reversal out of the lot.

The moose is only halfway up the embankment, staring with a dull disappointment into my brights, having concluded from my spectacular lack of coordination that I am no threat to it, and it turns back down the small hill.

It's my left ankle, so I can still drive, but I still spend two hours in the Urgent Care to get it looked at and braced, because there are people having Much Worse nights ahead of me, and decide to be grateful that for all my other problems, I am not having their problems, even if there is no Wifi.

I get home, all three dogs stomp as hard as they can on my boot to make sure it's good and sturdy, and I pass out in the recliner like my Dad for a solid five hours, and then got woken up again because Herschel and Arwen were having an argument about who was going to sleep on my leg to fix it next.

Charlie has won.

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