The frail old man was very sick.
He had been in this same bed for more than a year, with visitors coming and going; friends and relations, doctors and nurses. Sometimes, just people he didn’t even know. He was old, very sick, and very, very tired of life. He felt he had run his race and shouldn’t have to hang about with no good reason to do so, but he had no agreement on that from anybody. In fact, he had been soundly reprimanded by both staff and family alike for airing such thoughts.
Meanwhile, his old house was being looked after by his kindly neighbour. She said she would go in every week, keep it clean and ready for him when he returned. But, as the months went by it became obvious to both of them that this wouldn’t happen. At the same time she noticed that the noises in the loft were getting worse and she knew that she had a plague of mice to deal with.
As time went on the old man was allowed fewer visitors. The doctors considered that his condition was such that it would not allow too much exertion on his part; they wanted him to take it as easy as possible.
One day the lady climbed up into the old man’s attic and scattered around a few bits of biscuit she had poisoned. She would give it a week to see how it was going.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about fewer people around him. He felt sad that people who cared for him were having to plan their visits more carefully; but on the other hand would have been happy to have none, or more specifically, would have preferred it if he slipped away quietly with no more need for people to make any arrangements at all.
The house keeper went back to the house a few days later, and after having cleaned and dusted sat listening to sounds coming through the ceiling. It was certainly a lot quieter and she was happy that her treatment was working.
He felt that he had become even more of a burden with visitors being restricted on when they were allowed to come and see him. A couple of times a week he went into a wheelchair and was pushed around the wards for a while, supposedly to keep him in touch with other people and give him a change from his usual four walls.
The noises grew louder again on her next visit. She had been sure that some of them had died, but now wondered if they had got wary and were avoiding the food. There certainly seemed to be more of them moving about up there.
When the old man was very young he had become very ill, in fact he had come quite close to death. It was then at a tender age that he found out about his allergy. His system could not tolerate peanuts, and a strict eye was kept on the contents of all his food by his mother.
On her next visit to the house it was plain that her plan had not worked. She realised that she would have to introduce a cat. This would surely do the job.
The constant worries and careful preparations required during the following weeks after the diagnosis of his peanut allergy caused a major disruption to his home life. However, it quickly became less of a burden as those around him accepted the situation. It soon became a regular and quite natural thing to cope with.
From the moment the cat entered the loft the squeaking and squealing began. The animal was definitely a good mouser and she was happy that she had done the right thing.
On the old man’s next tour in the wheelchair, he asked if he could look at the magazines in the shop. With his attendant chatting, the bag of peanuts going beneath his dressing-gown wasn’t noticed.
The cat continued to hunt and kill mice at an alarming rate and the oldest mouse in the attic’s community could see that if nothing was done they would all be wiped out. He searched around and found the largest piece of broken biscuit and dragged it out of sight.
That night, when all residents had been settled down for the night and the night nurse had finished her last rounds, the lights were turned down and the ward became silent.
When all was quiet in the attic, the old mouse nudged the biscuit into a clearing, nibbled it away to nothing, and then squeaked as loud as he was able.
Beneath the covers, the old man nibbled away at the peanuts, one by one.
Of mice and men, sometimes sacrifice can be good.