Love that moves the mice and other dirty souls by Annapaola Paparo
Love that moves the mice and other dirty souls
Some of them came through the fireplace. One night, I heard the metallic noise of their tiny claws as they ran up and down the pipes. How gruesome, to lie in bed, knowing they are so close. They couldn’t harm us, we knew that; still, a part of us squirmed at the thought of them. Like a residue of ancient fear imprinted on a fragment of our DNA.
It started with just one: I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and then it was running on the carpet. I could feel that the little thing was aware of me too. It moved very fast – would I be able to keep the same pace if I were that little? – until it was absorbed by a hole in the wall, which we promptly plastered. But then, several other cracks like little mouths started to show everywhere, even on the tiles in the bathroom.
My husband Lorenz named them with the name we both remembered. Although, after being named, the hideous things wouldn’t leave us alone. Not even for five minutes. Soon there weren’t just a few but many of them fretting around – in awe of us like we were of them.
We found the Pest Control number in the Phone Book, but when Lorenz phoned they put him through to an automated message:
‘There are no pests in this reality. There can’t be.’ Said the seraphic voice, as matter-of-fact as my dentist’s answering machine over the weekend, one lifetime ago.
The pretend phone number did not surprise me. Pretending was the lifestyle there. There were pretend restaurants, with pretend tables, chairs, silver cutlery and candles. Pretend bars, where some got drunk at the mere sight of a label on a bottle. There were pretend beaches and pretend swimming pools with pretend water. Without mentioning all the pretending between us, inside and outside the households.
I felt Lorenz becoming tense next to me. I could picture him standing there, the phone receiver pressed against his ear.
‘Are you ok, love?’ I asked.
He gave me the phone receiver.
‘The mice you see are inside yourself, not outside,’ went on the automated voice.
I felt myself blushing at the remark, and I knew - when you love someone, you know all about them - that Lorenz was feeling the same.
At that very moment, Ronald showed up at the door. He didn’t look good: his supposed head was wrapped in a white bandage.
‘Can’t you knock?’ asked Lorenz.
‘Sorry, I always forget,’ the neighbour answered. ‘Guess what? The hospital number is a pretend number.’
Lorenz stood in front of him, arms crossed. ‘Why would you need to phone the hospital, Ronald?’
‘Because I’ve hurt my head badly, can’t you see?’
‘Yes of course,’ Lorenz sighed. ‘But you don’t have a head. You can’t crack your head open if you don’t have one.’
‘If that’s the case,’ said Roland, ‘I guess you, Liza, don’t have those flamingo legs either, and you, Lorenz, those wild locks.’
We already had enough on our plate without getting drawn into a ‘tit-for-tat’ conversation. But Roland had no intention of letting it go. As we were all standing on our beautiful carpet, a few furry spots sprinted from one corner to another. I held my breath, whilst Roland went on:
‘If I don’t have a head,’ he carried on, pointing to our feet, ‘then it’s not a Persian carpet, the one we’re standing on, and there isn’t any Japanese print stack all over the walls.’ Roland was so pleased with himself, that proceeded to take his shoes and socks off. This was quite the norm, since he’d come to us every day with one excuse or the other, and would not leave for hours.
Lorenz and I were proud of our home, or what we imagined it to be like. We were harmless in our fantasy of an elegant and refined love nest. And it wasn’t as though we were going around pestering people, crying over a broken head that couldn’t be.
‘Who are you phoning?’ asked Ronald.
Lorenz made the phone disappear promptly.
‘We’re in the middle of something,’ I said, almost gasping. By now, there were hundreds of those things on the carpet. They were running in organised lines, like ants, and aimlessly, like flies. ‘Actually, you may want to leave.’
Roland smiled. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Can’t you see them?’ I said exasperated, pointing towards the carpet. ‘There are mice everywhere. Our house is infested.’
As an immediate reaction, Roland stood on the tip of his toes for half a second, scanning the floor with his eyes.
‘Were you trying to phone the Pest Control, Lorenz?’ He said, before bursting into a laugh. ‘How silly you are, both of you! Everyone knows there aren’t rodents in Purgatory.’
Once we were alone again, I wrapped myself around my husband. I needed to melt into him for a while. He was the only one I’d melt into, for lack of better ways, and I was the only one he’d melt into. It was wonderful, calming and comforting. All around us, tiny feet were kept thumping on the floor.
‘Why are we seeing so many of them?’ I whispered, when we separated. Lorenz shrugged; he never spoke much after melting.
The doorbell went off, as pleasant as a bomb. This was surprising. Neither of us had ever thought of a doorbell.
When we opened it, there was no shape, or even any idea of shape, or colour. The street and its houses had all disappeared. An intense white engulfed us. White, the only colour allowed in Purgatory.
‘Hi sir, hi madam, I hear you have a rodent issue.’ Someone said, giggling.
It was the same automated voice from the phone, although we knew instantly it wasn’t Pest Control. In retrospect, the sight of the mice was nothing compared to the white light: the flat dense light that makes all of us dissolve into one.
I felt ashamed, and I knew Lorenz did too. Like everyone else, we knew the rules, but we bended them.
‘You two were supposed to mingle with the other souls, not to play husband and wife.’ This time, the voice sounded deep and serious, but not angry. Nevertheless, it made me weep. I could still feel Lorenz close to me, but I could no longer see him.
‘Don’t worry,’ the voice continued. ‘You are going to see each other in the flesh very soon. You’re both being sent to Hell.’
If we’d been standing on actual ground, it would have cracked open under our feet, and we would have fallen to the depths of desperation. But there we were, hovering in the stillness.
‘We sent you the mice,’ explained the voice, ‘as a symbol of your mundane conduct, which was gnawing at any chance of redemption you had left.’ The voice sighed deeply. ‘But no, you didn’t get it. ‘
We heard someone screaming at once. ‘I’ve told them,’ it was Roland. He sounded agitated, as if trying to free himself from something or someone restraining him. ‘I’ve told them that there couldn’t be any mice, but they wouldn’t listen.’
‘You shut up,’ the voice thundered.
‘I don’t understand why I’m being taken away with them,’ cried Roland.
‘Because you’re no better than them. We’ve seen you, all day long lusting after Liza and the imaginary house! Acting like the sexy neighbour who gets it all in the end! What a dirty fantasy to have, over here and in general as well.’
That was shocking to hear, in the sense that we’d always just pictured Roland as a nuisance, as a nosy friend; never as a real threat to our happiness.
‘This is so unfair, you’re unfair, God is unfair,’ Roland kept screaming. ‘You know, there’s actually plenty of us over here enacting fantasies from the past.’
There was a long pause. We all held our breaths.
‘As far we can see,’ started the voice again, ‘it’s all nice and white. Everyone has nicely melted into another, into the oneness.’
Yes, sure, all of us three thought. Immaculate and pure souls, all the others. They can’t wait for us to leave, and get on with the best they can imagine. Even in the flat white stillness, I could hear someone scratching their head, or holding a sneeze. It was clear, even in Purgatory: some were better than others at getting away with things.
At the gate of Hell, we could not stop staring at each other. We were wearing our real, terrestrial bodies - in which they’d made us enter again to feel as much pain as possible. Lorenz was bold, and had a round belly. He was the farthest thing from sexy you could ever imagine.
‘You’re not a top model either,’ he hissed, looking at my chubby thighs. To our surprise, Roland was tall and lean, with a chiselled body and wavy hair. He stood next to us, covering his body parts with his hands, his big hazelnut eyes looking downwards.
‘Roland, we would have never imagined you were so handsome,’ said Lorenz, his eyes sparkling.
‘Am I?’ muttered Roland, to himself more than us. ‘I don’t know, it’s not something that I’ve heard a lot when I was alive.’
It took us some time to get ready. Both Lorenz and I now wanted to hold Roland’s hands, but Roland didn’t much like the idea of being in the middle. The new rules were clear though, and this time we were to live by them: hands clasped all the time. A chain that was never to be broken.
As Roland complained of our sweaty hands, we entered the gate. The stench was horrendous, and we struggled to walk through mounds of rubbish. Finally we saw them, because to the rubbish they will always belong. Not one or two, but hordes of them. Each one, as big as a cat. Not in awe of us, just the opposite.
‘I don’t think these are soul mice,’ Lorenz whispered. ‘These are proper ones.’ Hand in hand, we started our race.
Producers
Amelia Smits
Executive Producers
Hayley Scrivenor
