by Laura Bernardeschi Nelson
In the deepest, dimmest corridors of the Grey Kingdom, Friday afternoon had finally expired. The protocol-worshipping desk-dwellers had survived another long, exhausting week of doing absolutely nothing. Now they faced a weekend of restless, anxious non-repose, though they could hardly claim to be tired from all the work they had never done.
The crowning achievement of their week had been the compilation of a hundred-page official report about a single missing screw in a broken wooden chair. It had required three committees, four signatures, and five hours of intense, perfectly hollow debate. The ink-lickers were delighted. They knew that by Monday neither the short-sighted Rhinoceros, the trembling Praying Mantis, the breathless Pug, nor Madame Bulk herself would ever notice the missing screw anyway.
To celebrate this monumental triumph of inefficiency, the mice crawled out of the dusty cracks and stopped at the House of Cheese. They searched for the stalest, mouldiest block they could find—something foul enough to awaken their narrow appetites and remind them of the damp, stagnant smell of their beloved stone corridors.
A proper mouldy dinner required a proper pairing. Alongside the cheese, they bought a dusty bottle of cheap, bitter local liqueur called Greatfungus.
Slow, heavy, and utterly without direction, the mice queued silently at the cash register to pay for the only two luxuries they had allowed themselves. Then, with their usual graceless shuffle, the paper-pushers began the slow march toward their residential burrows. Their eyes remained fixed on the pavement, so absorbed in their routine that they completely forgot about their long, clumsy tails, which were promptly stepped on by agile Vixens hurrying past, eager to spend the weekend pursuing bold ideas and joyful adventures.
Back inside their damp little homes, the desk-dwellers peeled off their stiff grey uniforms and collapsed onto worn plastic sofas, ready to consume their depressing Friday feast.
Meanwhile, in the deserted Grand Stone Burrow, Madame Bulk—the immovable monument of grey polyester—remained frozen behind her massive desk. She had no intention of going home. She simply sat there in the darkness, guarding her great secret.
Deep inside her left cheek, within her famous Dental Garage, a tiny, bewildered pigeon remained trapped, cooing softly in the darkness. Madame Bulk paid it no attention. She continued chewing the stale crumbs of her own malice and envy, which slowly devoured her from within, while in the neighbouring room the praying mantis whispered endless prayers of doom.
Unaccustomed to the powerful fumes of Greatfungus, the mice suddenly felt strangely light-headed. Their tiny heads spun with a sensation they had never experienced while sitting rigidly inside the Grand Stone Burrow. The unfamiliar dizziness filled them with an astonishing courage.
Daring the impossible, they opened a hidden window and clicked on a forbidden page called OnlyRats.
Instantly the screen filled with glamorous lady-mice dancing in tiny mini-bikinis, radiant enough to make even the most famous cartoon mouse in the Disney universe green with envy.
“But alas, we cannot afford this,” the hopeless mice sighed into their teacups. “Our world begins and ends within the Grey Kingdom, and Madame Bulk would never authorise us to spend time with cheerful, carefree mice.”
Their greatest pleasure would forever remain rancid cheese and bitter fungus liqueur.
Defeated by reality, they closed their glowing screens. For one brief moment they disconnected from the system. Behind their tightly shut, weary eyes, they dreamt of vast green meadows, graceful lady-mice, leaping foxes, courageous birds, and croaking frogs.
But it was only a dream.
When morning came, the permanent, unyielding greyness of their routine was waiting for them once again—
without a single error.
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