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The mouse koan
 Bruno once told me that in Germany you could walk for days and never leave civilisation - the opposite from Australia. We, however, live in the middle of a farm. At first glance it is really special: a dirt track through the trees, over the lake filled with water birds, past the horse stables, not a house in site. Then Liana pointed out it is the perfect setting for a horror movie, with the lake being perfect for body disposal. A walk one night through the neighbouring woods did feel suspiciously like the Blair Witch Project.The shock of mice Of course that is all idle fantasy. The mice were another thing altogether. A true shock to a civilised lifestyle. There are a number of other students who live here, four live downstairs and seven others live upstairs with us. Most are German but there are a couple of Bulgarian exchange students. We share a bathroom and kitchen with Ivanka, who has retained the temperamental spirit of her Yugoslavian forbears. Depths of courage I was lying on the bed peacefully reading my book when I heard a terrifying scream coming from the kitchen (and I rather fancy a similar noise might be elicited from somebody being hacked apart with a chainsaw). Naturally, when faced with a potential serial killer in the next room, my first reaction was to lie there and play dead. But, dear Reader, when faced with the death of a loved one (well, a hypersensitive, domineering housemate), it is true: I found courage within me I did not know I had. As the noise did not subside, and not wanting to leave Ivanka to face death alone, I gathered my resolve and went to her rescue. On entering the kitchen I found her standing on a chair, whimpering, while two girls held her hand and tried to soothe her. The offending mouse, having most likely long since died of shock, was now nowhere to be seen. I have to say I shamefully found the whole situation rather amusing. Agonising over beliefs For the next few weeks Ivanka agonised over reconciling her belief that she is a Buddhist, love-everything, left-wing, vegetarian pinko and her huge desire to see all mice blown to smithereens and rotting in hell. This stress-inducing conundrum was antagonised by the numerous unanswerable questions that the appearance of mice had raised. Why were they here? Where had they come from? Are mice not dirty? And yet the house is German-clean! My suggestion, that every house without a cat has to deal with mice at some stage, was taken as a sign of my naivety. It was conceded that perhaps this was the case in Australia. The landlord's responsibility Her torturous reveries were regularly broken by yelling down the phone at the landlord. Apparently in Germany the elimination of mice is the landlord's responsibility. However the landlord, being an unorganised, un-German sod, never quite got around to it. When threatened with rent being withheld, the landlord got off his sorry arse and sent around a pest exterminator. There were numerous household meetings in the hallway where various legal options were discussed. These meetings went unattended by the eastern Europeans. Someone said they had heard that Nora 'did not care about the mice'. In hushed tones it was unanimously agreed that the Bulgarians must in fact 'care about the mice' but growing up in a police state they did not know their rights. Or if they did, they were too afraid to use them. That made sense. A true professional When threatened with rent being withheld, the landlord got off his sorry arse and sent around a pest exterminator: a large man who set poison everywhere. A true professional, he took great pride in his trade, gleefully explaining "the mice think it is coconut, mice love coconut, and it burns them from the inside."Ivanka translated this for me whilst trying to keep the huge relieved smirk off her face (think Buddhism, think Zen, everything deserves life, it is just unfortunate that the mice are disgusting vermin that must die etc. etc.) Ah, the agony of reconciling who we want to be with what we can stand. Posted by: Seafarious 2006-01-19 |
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