I’d just gotten off work and was making my way to the subway station. It was pleasant enough weather— a noticeable enough reprieve from the cold bite of winter of the last few days. I was a bit in my own world, enjoying the weather and giving audience to the thoughts in my head. So it took an extended moment to fully click back into consciousness when I registered something also traveling on foot in my periphery.
A teeny, tiny mouse.
He, or, perhaps, she, had a light grey coat of fur, and seemed to be moving tentatively, yet steadily, into the street—- specifically, in the direction that, once the traffic lights gave permission, was about to be peopled with cars.
“He’s not going to make it,” said the lady who’d passed by him, with several feet of space between them, and joined me on the sidewalk.
“I hope he does,” I replied as I watched his journey. And I really did. He was such a little thing. And something about him up here, street side, traveling by himself, crossing with the masses, and something about his physicality— that tentative yet steady gait, and something about his light grey coat of fur, all made me think he could easily be someone’s pet, someone’s little friend.
Now, truth be told, I was likely more open to entertaining these thoughts because we weren’t indoors somewhere. There, on that great expanse of landscape called the street, he and I could easily go about our business— could easily go our separate ways.
When the pedestrian light changed, allowing us to continue our journey, the lady took the lead, but momentarily paused to look back at me. “Fingers crossed,” she said referring to my earlier response about the mouse making it safely across the street.
I smiled in agreement, following a few steps behind her, holding on to that hope while at the same time unable to bring myself to look over at the mouse because of the cars now heading in his direction.