Gerald
There once was a mouse named Gerald. I don’t know why his name was Gerald - most mice don’t have names.
Gerald lives in a small hole in a house where the wall meets the floorboard. His little home is on the second floor of this house. That’s actually quite unfortunate for Gerald because Gerald is not particularly fond of heights, and the second floor is quite high for a mouse. Most mice live exclusively on the first floor of their homes. But then again Gerald is not like most other mice.
For starters, Gerald is rather cermudgeony. He doesn’t really like talking with other people, and on the off chance that he is talking to someone he’s using feeling a mixture between frustration and hopelessness. Gerald is not good company.
Gerald spends most of his time painting portraits of things he sees when he’s out foraging for food at night. The walls of his hole are adorned with masterful representations of the floor, the wall, and a myriad of types of cheese. Like most mice, Gerald is quite fond of cheese.
One day Gerald was out scrounging for food on the second floor of the house when he ran into a small squirrel. Gerald had met a squirrel once before and he was horrified to hear that that particular squirrel loved climbing up trees and had never been to the first floor of…well really anything.
The squirrel hadn’t noticed Gerald. Mice are quite small and while squirrels are also small they’re a fair bit larger than mice, so you can understand why the squirrel may have missed Gerald entirely.
Gerald puffed his chest up to try and seem bigger than he was and bellowed the following at the squirrel:
“Excuse me SIR. You are an unwelcomed visitor in the home of Gerald R. Bronskyavich and I would kindly ask you to leave. This is a private residence and I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
The squirrel spun around, trying to locate the source of the extraordinarily low pitched voice he heard. That’s right, low pitched. Most mice have very high squeeky voices, but Gerald happened to have a low, baritone voice.
The squirrel finally found Gerald and studied him for a moment. There was a fairly severe disconnect in the squirrels mind between whatever creature made the sound and this small mouse standing before him. After a moment the squirrel came to realize that the sound had indeed come from this small mouse.
“What do you mean private residence?” replied the squirrel.
“I mean a residence wherein there is only ONE occupant. Namely, me” responded Gerald.
“One occupant? What do you mean. I’ve been living in this here house for three years!”
Gerald was taken aback. Surely this squirrel was mistaken.
“You must be confusing this house with a tree. You do not live here. I would have seen you.” said Gerald.
“Not if you hang around here all day! I live in the first floor. As a matter of fact there’s about 12 of us who live on the first floor. We’re not too fond of heights. I don’t know how you do it living up here.” said the squirrel.
Gerald was overwhelmed by this news. Not only were 13 squirrels living below him, but it turns out not all squirrels liked heights.
Thus ended Geralds peaceful existence. While he never saw the squirrel again, he was never again at ease in his own home, and his understanding of his universe was thoroughly undermined.