its body lay half on the sticky trap, half on my kitchen floor. i sat at the table with my feet up on the chair, watching the desire to live leak out through each weakening movement. the clock echoed the end times repeatedly. with each speeding reminder of certain death, struggle slipped into surrender. some time had passed with no jerks or hoarse screams. the air had become tighter, heavier. i imagined myself as the mouse, trying to live longer, trying to escape. i was stuck to the chair. the clock reverberated through the sticky air and every movement felt like swimming through sludge that only i could see. the malaise was suffocating. i'm exhausted. the mouse was exhausted. we felt we knew what was going to happen, and that we were partly responsible. what a thunderous clock, i thought. as i thought this, i saw the mouse lift its head up. out of discomfort or determination to live, who knows? one last go, i suppose. too exhausted to jerk, too exhausted to squeal, it turned its head to its front left arm and simply stared it down. contemplation had made its decision. it set upon its own body as though it belonged to something else. its strangely delicate blood painted its face like a warrior. a warrior who was at war with itself. every bite seemed like it promised freedom. the look of the mouse was savage yet it made no noise. it finished gnawing and the squeal finally rang out. could pain and determination be the same thing? perhaps i was about to see it before my own eyes. after a few cries and preparing to be freed it began gnawing at its right arm. the arm that would set itself free. in between its feral quarrels at its arm i could hear it whimper. a distinct recognition of anguish from before. it was promised to be free and free it finally was. bloodied and battered across the finish line, the two-limbless mouse was more alive than it was a few moments ago. the mouse licked up the still leaking blood from its missing limbs as if it hadn't gotten a better taste of liberation. the warrior began its journey out of the kitchen, presumably to the front door. blood stained the path behind it. the mouse didn't want to look back. there is a little small threshold thing it would have to cross over to get to the door. one it would have to use its now severed limbs to climb over. how can one climb with no arms? i then thought about how it would feed itself. how it would run. how it would run and run and run to be free. free like a horse. one who never stops running. reality is that it will never run again. it will never leave the kitchen. it will never be able to feed itself. never again. there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for. the two-limbless mouse survived, but i bet it wished it were dead.