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Writer's pictureVomit

Mice in Heaven

By Billy Loomis




The impending death of a classmate provokes Simon, a young boy, to question his relationship with God.

 

Mice in Heaven


Simon was hiding in his room. He dared not venture downstairs for the fear of the endless pinching of cheeks and “look-how-big-you’ve-grown”s that surely awaited him. There was nothing down there for him, Simon decided. Even the potato salad had halved grapes in it-- the height of sacrilege, as far as he was concerned. It was not just potato salad and sore cheeks he was hiding from, however. There was the other thing, the reason for this gathering in the first place. The reason for the potato salad, and the hushed asides, and the unfamiliar expressions of sentiment that seemed so awkward to Simon. God had invited Amelia up to heaven. She was going in about a month.

At least, that’s how Simon’s mother had explained it to him. He’d found her crying on the phone last week when he’d walked into the kitchen. He had come for his usual

post-Tom-&-Jerry Sunday sacrament- orange juice and 9 chocolate chips (the agreed upon number after much debate)- and instead found his mother wiping away tears. This sight made him uneasy.

“It’s so early, dear, why are you awake? Don’t you want to sleep in today?” Simon found her smile unconvincing. “Who was that?”

“That was- that was Father Iverson, love. Remember him?”

Simon nodded, watching his mother’s hands nervously turning over and over. Like she was washing them, but with no sink and no soap. Simon had not seen Father Iverson in several months. He had in fact been avoiding church religiously after an argument he’d gotten into with the Father’s daughter Amelia. It had been about what great sin the

dinosaurs must have committed to have earned the old giant-meteor treatment, and how God really should’ve at least picked a Dinosaur Noah. On the last part, though, Simon had reasoned, there was probably no boat or anything that could help with a meteor, and if there was, it would probably be too big to build, since dinosaurs were supposed to have been very large and all. And besides, Simon figured there probably were no dinosaurs named Noah in the first place, so God had no candidates to pick from.

He didn’t see much of Amelia after that, and had chalked it up to their irreconcilable theosophical differences about dinosaur sin. Learning the truth was uncomfortable for Simon. Last night, before today’s potluck, he had hardly been able to sleep. All through the deepest parts of the night, Simon was consumed by his thoughts. Worry, grief, guilty gratitude for his own health. And confusion. What does He want her for? Can’t God make all the Amelias He wants? He tried to picture Jesus up there, bent over his carpenter’s workbench, churning out little girls. He found the image disturbing. Whatever He wants her for, He really should’ve just made another. Or taken some other girl, one he didn’t know. Simon felt shame at this last thought. He felt it was wrong. But then he pictured Father Iverson in his little office amidst all those towers of books. He pictured the Father getting the phone call from God, asking for Amelia. That wasn’t nice, Jesus, God, whatever your name is. Father Iverson says that you’re supposed to treat people how you want to be treated. His confusion turned to anger. How would you like it if someone came and took your kid? Not very much, I would imagine! These thoughts carried him through the small hours of the morning.

No one woke him. Simon emerged, totally disoriented, from fitful dreams full of cat-burglar

Christs and giggling angel-thieves making off with bags of little girls. Rubbing his eyes, he wandered to the potty (he had gotten over his fear of the toilet snakes some years ago) and got as far as the top of the stairwell before he remembered the news. He felt ill, like

Tom had finally caught Jerry. He started downstairs with questions for his mother, but was intercepted in the foyer.

“Oh my goodness, is that who I think it is? Come here darling, you precious sweet child. Oh dear. Oh dear,” she cooed, stroking his hair. Mrs. Botlich was one of the closer congregation acquaintances of Simon’s mother. A substantial woman, the kind of person who you are quite sure, just by looking at them, grew up eating hot-dog-and-olive aspic and watching their mothers spend entire afternoons in the orgone chamber. There was a fair deal of makeup on Simon’s pajamas when he was finally released from her grip. He squirmed away to hide back in his room, resolving to find his mother later.

She was occupied by the time he found her in the lawn. Simon had slept into the early afternoon, and the congregation members had already been arriving for some time. From the deck, he watched her. She flitted from family to family, giving and being given comforting shoulder touches, brief embraces, and quiet words. She kept not-washing her hands again. People passed Simon on their way into the house, people he recognized from Sundays past. Some ruffled his hair, some spoke to him as they passed. He hardly noticed. What bothered him were the people who would look at him for just too long, the people with that unspeakable pity in their eyes. Save it for Amelia. Save it for the dinosaurs, he wanted to tell them. His anger was coming back to him. Save it for Father Iverson, who’s only ever been nice to God. He keeps His house clean, and sounds so friendly when he’s talking up at the front. He’s good. He’s Good! To Simon, neither Amelia nor her father

seemed like people deserving of God’s inconvenient impositions. Why then? Simon remembered something Father Iverson had said one Sunday months ago, when talking about the Catlicks, about how God is on the fence about us because of Adam. Drop it, will ya? That was so long ago, You’re probably the only one who remembers it now. Amelia didn’t have anything to do with any of that business. Simon looked at all the people in the yard. “God forgives you,” Father Iverson was always saying. Who forgives God?

Simon broke away from his thought when he heard a car door. All heads snapped quickly towards it, then quickly away. Tall, thin, thaumaturgical, Father Iverson stepped out of the car. The obviously sleep-deprived cleric made his very slow way through the mass of people (whos’ attitudes towards him alternated between conspicuous silence and conspicuous verbosity) towards Simon’s mother. She received him with a balance of warmth and solemnity appropriate for the circumstance. They exchanged quiet words, and Simon saw the Father’s narrow shoulders shake as he began to weep. Simon could stand it no longer. But he felt he was at an impasse- the one man that could answer his theological inquiries was one of the only people who he could not ask. He stood up and walked towards them anyway, without a plan. He could not sit and watch that dignified, usually-upright, ecclesiastical back all stooped and shaking with tears.

His mother made eyes at him as he approached, and gave an indicative flick of her hand. Simon hesitated, but pressed on. “Father?” He gave a soft tug on the clergyman’s trousers. There was a wet sniffle before the man turned around. “Hello my boy.” He met Simon’s upturned eyes and gave Simon’s hand a little squeeze. “What is it?”

“I just wanted…” The words wilted. There was nothing he could say. Another question bubbled up, one he had spent several long Sunday masses distracting himself with. It felt right somehow. “Do you think there’s mice in heaven?” Simon’s mother practically winced. “Mice?” The Father almost smiled. “What do you mean, Simon?”

“It’s just, the mice, in the church. Sometimes the wafers make crumbs. Not me, I’m very careful. But others, with the wafers sometimes. At communion, the yook-wrist. There’s all these little crumbs of Jesus, and I’ve seen the mice nibbling at them. Do they go too? Has heaven got mice? Who does God call to get rid of the mice?” Question begot question, and he found he could not stop.

“Simon! Please! Father Iverson doesn’t want to talk about the mice right now, sweetheart.” “It’s fine, Margaret, really. Nothing at the seminary was half as interesting as the questions I get from this one.” Father Iverson squatted to look into Simon’s face.

He looks tired, they both thought.

“That’s a good question, Simon. You’d make a good priest. I can’t say for sure, but, yes, I imagine. There’s mice.” The Father cast his eyes down, genuinely pontificating. “Simon… do you remember that day last April you came over to see Amy? When you two asked me about the tree?” Simon nodded, he remembered well. He and Amy had sat beneath the oak in the yard and puzzled for the better part of an afternoon, looking at acorns and wondering how a whole tree could fit into one. They had decided to ask her father, who said it was like heaven. He said that Heaven is like that big tree, that whole tree, contained in our little acorn hearts. That stuck with Simon for a long time. “That tree has room for all the birds who want to make nests. Room for all the leaves to come back each year. Heaven’s got room for mice, I think.” He was quiet for a moment. When he

turned his eyes back to meet Simon’s, they were shining with tears. “Simon, Amy’s been asking about you. Would you like to come and see her soon?” He choked on the last word.

“Father?” He was going to say it.

“What is it, Simon?”

“Did he ask nicely, at least? God?”

Simon’s mother’s eyes shot open in mortal embarrassment. The Father began to weep, and he did not stop.


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