I Too Am Slain

Tonight, my dog found a mouse.

Well, I don't actually know who found it. It could have been the cats. It could have been the dog. All I know is that Koa was standing there guarding this poor little mouse from the cats, wagging her tail, looking at me like she'd just accomplished something incredible.

She was very proud of herself.

The mouse, on the other hand, was having a considerably worse evening.

It was soaking wet, presumably from being carried around in my dog's mouth. I noticed what looked like a small puncture wound on its back, but there wasn't any blood. Just a little red spot. I couldn't tell whether it was seriously injured or simply terrified.

My first thought was that I needed to put it out of its misery.

But then I picked it up.

It let out a couple of tiny squeaks. When I tried to get it off my glove, it wouldn't let go. It was gripping me with all four of its little paws.

And then it looked right at me, wiggling its little nose, whiskers twitching.

What the fuck.

Suddenly, I couldn't do it.

Here's the thing: I don't want mice in my house. I wish my pets had just finished the job. Mice are pests, and living out in rural Michigan, they're a fact of life.

My dad just killed several in their trailer. Nobody around here would think twice about killing a mouse. If I told people I was having some kind of moral crisis over one, I'd probably get made fun of for the rest of my life.

And yet, there I was, holding this tiny creature that clearly wanted to live.

Or at least that's what it felt like.

I couldn't tell whether it was dying. It could move all four legs, it was responsive, and it was holding onto my glove. Maybe it was badly injured internally. Maybe it was just stunned. I had absolutely no idea.

And I couldn't bring myself to make that decision for it.

So I put it in my shed.

Mice come and go from there all the time. It's sheltered, relatively safe, and it can leave whenever it wants.

I figured I'd let nature take its course.

Which might be the most humane inhumane thing I've ever done.

Because now I'm sitting here wondering whether I actually did the right thing. Maybe the mouse is going to recover and live another day. Or maybe it's going to suffer for hours or days before dying.

Maybe I should have killed it. Maybe I should have tried to rehabilitate it.

Instead, I did neither.

And if I'm being critical of myself, maybe I just took the easy way out.

There's some history behind this.

A while back, I killed a bat that I believed was seriously injured. I thought I was doing the compassionate thing by ending its suffering.

Later, I realized it might not have been injured at all.

I might have killed a perfectly healthy animal for absolutely no reason.

That has bothered me ever since.

I don't like killing things. Not even bugs.

I do it, of course. I kill hornets and wasps. I stomp on ants. Occasionally spiders. I recently killed a stink bug, although in my defense, I've probably got a hundred of the little bastards invading my house right now.

I also eat meat.

I'm not pretending to be some enlightened pacifist who refuses to harm another living creature. I'm full of contradictions, just like everyone else.

But killing something has always bothered me.

It feels like it taints my soul a little.

That's probably an overly dramatic way of describing it, but it's the most accurate one I can come up with.

It's not that I believe killing is always wrong. If that mouse were clearly dying and suffering, I'd have killed it without hesitation. I wouldn't enjoy it, but I would do it.

What bothers me is the possibility of taking a life unnecessarily.

Once you've done it, there's no taking it back.

And tonight, looking at that mouse holding onto my glove, I simply couldn't justify it.

There's another element to this evening that probably deserves mentioning.

Earlier, I had a brutal workout followed by a long sauna session. Afterward, I was in this almost euphoric state of mind. One of those moods where everything feels a little more vivid, and I feel unusually connected to the world around me.

It's not that I'm suddenly more compassionate. I've always been compassionate toward animals. But tonight, that compassion felt different.

More immediate. More personal.

Looking at that mouse, I felt like I was that mouse.

Not literally, obviously. I haven't completely lost my mind.

But its vulnerability felt like my own. Here's this tiny creature, scared out of its mind, potentially injured, with absolutely no control over what happens next.

And there's me, this enormous animal holding its entire existence in my hands.

What makes my life inherently more deserving than its?

I'm not suggesting that a mouse and a human have equal moral value. I'm not even sure what I believe about that. But we're both alive. We're both trying to stay that way. And neither of us asked to be here.

It reminded me of something I read years ago in The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran.

"I too am slain."

That passage has always resonated with me.

It's about recognizing that we are part of the same cycle of life as the things we consume and kill. That the distinction between the creature taking a life and the creature losing it isn't nearly as absolute as we like to imagine.

Someday, I'll be the vulnerable one.

Someday, something beyond my control will decide my fate, whether that's another living thing, disease, or simply time.

I think there's value in remembering that.

I'm still not sure I made the right decision tonight.

Maybe putting the mouse in the shed was an act of compassion. Maybe it was cowardice dressed up as compassion. Maybe it was a little of both.

I don't know.

And I think that's the part I struggle with most. I want there to be a correct answer. I want to know whether I'm alleviating suffering or prolonging it.

But sometimes I simply don't have enough information to know.

I guess the best I can do is make a decision I can live with, while accepting that I might be wrong.

I don't want to become someone who's indifferent to taking a life, even when that life belongs to a mouse.

I also don't want to become someone who agonizes over every insect I accidentally step on.

Somewhere between those two extremes is probably where I belong.

Anyway, there's a mouse in my shed tonight.

I have no idea whether it'll survive.

But I hope the little bastard makes it.

And I hope he stays the fuck out of my house.