The Mouse and the Bourbon

The winter had arrived early and stayed out of spite.

Snow pressed against the cabin, as if it meant to get in eventually. The lake was frozen hard enough to hold regret. The trees stood stiff and silent, as if they had learned long ago not to complain.

The old man sat at the small table with a bottle of bourbon he did not particularly like. He drank it because it was cheap and because it did what was asked of it. The label had once promised warmth. It had lied, but he forgave it.

The mouse came out from under the stove around dusk. It always did. Small, gray, unafraid in a way that suggested either courage or very poor judgment. The old man watched it cross the floor and stop near the table leg.

“Well,” the old man said, “you’re back.”

The mouse twitched its nose. It did not answer, which the old man appreciated. He had known plenty of people who talked too much.

He poured another finger of bourbon and considered offering some to the mouse, then remembered the last time he had shared anything and how that had gone. He decided against it.

Outside, the wind leaned into the cabin. The walls creaked. The stove popped, as if it were considering giving up. The old man drank.

“You know,” he told the mouse, “this isn’t how I pictured it.”

The mouse shifted its weight and waited.

He had pictured warmth. A wife who hummed while she worked. Maybe a dog that knew his name. Instead, there was the cabin, the snow, the lake, and a mouse who did not pay rent.

“I suppose it could be worse,” he said. “You could talk.”

The mouse’s tail flicked. The old man nodded. Agreement.

The bourbon was doing its quiet work now. It loosened things but did not fix them. He liked that about it. He had never trusted anything that promised too much.

He told the mouse about his life in pieces. Jobs he quit before they could fire him. A marriage that ended politely and stayed ended. Children he had loved from a distance, the way you love a town you no longer live in.

“I wasn’t a bad man,” he said, squinting at the bottle. “I just wasn’t good enough often enough.”

The mouse sniffed the air near the table. The old man watched it, then laughed softly.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Nothing good left down here. I drank it already.”

The fire crackled. The cabin sighed. The mouse cleaned its face with its paws like it had somewhere better to be.

He took another drink and felt the familiar warmth reach his chest and stop there, unwilling to go any further.

“People think being alone is the hard part,” he said. “It’s not. It’s remembering you used to be someone else.”

The mouse paused, as if considering that, then continued on its way.

The old man raised his glass in a small, unsteady salute.

“To poor decisions,” he said. “And surviving them.”

The mouse disappeared back under the stove. The winter stayed. The bourbon lowered itself another inch.

The old man sat in the quiet, not unhappy, not exactly content, but awake and warm enough for now.

Which, he decided, was plenty.