welcome dear friend

Hello! Please come. I am very glad to see you. Make yourself at home. Make it your own ... I'll tell you stories, some of which have occurred with me, others - with my friends.There is a collective image ... Some of the stories took place in my inner space, but  the heroes are asked to tell about them. Dear Friend, If you can see the extraordinary in the ordinary, or want to learn it, then these stories for you.So, just imagine: I pour you a cup of brewed coffee or good tea as desired, and
start my first story …



MOUSIK
He appeared in Larissa’s life all of a sudden, immediately after she changed the windows and the doors. Her son, Valery, who had lost the last hope to get a “bald cat” because everybody was allergic to fluffy ones, brought a white rat into the house. His buddy who bred rats for sale wanted to get rid of it. In his words, that rat was a loner, and was making all the others’ lives miserable. Valera decided to take it in. Opening a portable cage — a lock-up cell of the type the friend kept all his inhabitants in — Larissa saw the red bleary eyes of an unfortunate creature that was hiding in the far corner. White whiskers were broken off in some places, weak-sighted eyes looked past her; the toilet smell could be felt even at a distance. Ten minutes later, the rat finally decided to leave the open cage. Moving slowly, like a tightrope walker on failing legs, moving the remains of its whiskers, it crawled to the middle of the newspaper, peed on it and huddled under it. “Yet another miserable creature in the house,” Larissa thought. Taking the creature together with the newspaper in her hands, she peered into the dim eyes. The snout suddenly came to life and reached out to her; the whiskers moved in different directions; the pink nose as if made of plasticine moving drawing the air in. The funny curious snout continued to move out; then, an elongated body and a stretched out pink tail covered with white bristles appeared from under the newspaper. “Why, so you are Mousik,” Larissa said. Mousik, startled by the voice, remembered that he had to be afraid, and raced back into the cage.
A short time passed. The creature was gradually getting used to a larger space that he had for life, to a clean dry bedding, to the fact that he could eat and go to the toilet in different places. For example, Mousik immediately noticed that as soon as he pushed a wet peed-on newspaper out with his snout, a dry one appeared in its place; that he could come out of his house and drink water any time, and it was always there, it was not necessary to fight for it; that the space with stairs, decks and swings was, his territory, too. Mousik took a long time to get used to the hands of people who didn’t mean to take anything from him, but to give, or to stroke him. It was hard for him. Emitting heart-rendering squeaks at the first Valery’s attempt to pick him up, clawing and grasping at everything with sharp claws, Mousik thought every time that his death hour had come. But that hour wasn’t coming. He was scratched and stroked so that Mousik was feeling as if his mom licked him; he was given something even tastier than before, and then released to run around his territory. When they poured water over him and smeared him with something cool and smelly, Mousik didn’t hope to survive, but he was dried out with a soft furry cloth, and when he dried he realized that his fur began to smell of human beings. And he became like them.
The human beings, those big two-legged rats, took him into their flock. When Mousik hurt his tail one of “big rats” anointed his wound with something bitter, and the tail stopped aching. He had only to squeak or to ask for a run, standing on his hind legs near the door and sticking his nose through the crack, and someone would certainly come up, stroke him and release him to explore a new space: the room. Mousik came to love people, “those big two-legged rats;” he was no longer afraid of them and began to differentiate. He almost forgot about his past; it bothered him only in dreams.
While sleeping, he moved his pink paws, twitching all over, sometimes squeaked and covered his left ear where Larissa had noticed an old scar with a paw. If she woke him up he would wake up with a jolt and look at her for a few seconds with a haunted look, then he would sigh with relief and begin to lick himself all over.
 “It looks like life was hard on you, buddy,” — Larissa would say and take Mousik in her hands. She stroked him and gently rubbed the places that Mousik learned to regularly move up for rubbing. Sometimes he sprawled on her warm palm, let his paws hang down, closed his eyes and began to emit a high-pitched sound similar to a cat’s purring only of a much higher frequency. Sometimes he climbed on her shoulder and began to play with Larissa’s red ponytail, fingering her hair with paws; then he would get to the hair tie, pull it off helping himself with his teeth, and bolt away with it to its burrow. “Mousik, give it back to me, you have already two of them there,” — Larissa shouted. In the morning, while changing his bedding, she would choose one of the three multi-colored hair bands stored at Mousik’s house-burrow. When Mousik was bored and wanted to draw attention to himself, or just to play, he would bring one of the hair bands to Larissa and put it at her feet. The doors of the large three-story cage where he lived then, were no longer an obstacle for him. He learned how to open them without any problems. When Mousik was hiding people looked for him, called his name; they worried about him, they were glad to be with him, and they thought about him. Mousik felt happy and needed. They loved him; he knew it for a fact. When Larissa came home from work, he waited for her to do all she had to and to sit in a chair. Then he came out of a shelter, ran up to her, stood on its hind legs, and put the small pink front ones on Larissa foot, asking her to take him in her hands. If she had no time to pick him up, then he started to climb up her pants with an expression on his face saying: “Well, when at last are you going to pick me up?” He would get to her knees, carefully taking in the surroundings. If Larissa was reading a book or talking on the phone, he took the best place on her knees under her hand, pushing it with his nose. If he felt that she was not in the mood, then he either went back, or lied down on a coffee table next to her, as if he accidentally dropped by and didn’t mean to be intrusive. He would clean and scratch himself, lie down, then he would go “to attend to his business,” with no hard feelings.  If Larissa came back from her world of imagination and illusions, and took a notice of Mousik reached out to him, he immediately responded: he sweetly stretched himself, yawned and stretched out one or two paws to her. Larissa could not help but appreciate such good manners. The more she watched him, the more she admired and respected him.
Mousik never took an offense. One day sores appeared on his skin, and Larissa thought they were caused by sweet stuff. So she stopped giving him a cherry bun that he loved so much that he would come running from any remote location of the apartment as soon as she got it out of the package. Mousik looked at her puzzled with a question in his eyes: “But you know how much I love it? Give me some, please.” Larissa explained to him honestly, why she didn’t. Then Mousik understood it all, and turning his back to Larissa lied down next to her anyway while she was eating that bun with her tea. Then he would lick himself all over and take his leave. He needed time to go through it and accept it. But he would be back in fifteen or thirty minutes and there was never anger or resentment in his eyes. Of all the friends that she met in her life, Larissa was hardly able to remember of only one person who could act and feel that way. Mousik had a very good memory. When Larissa brought him to the veterinary center Mousik immediately remembered that it was there where an abscess behind his ear was cut. He began to worry even on the way to the center, standing on hind legs and looking carefully into Larissa’s eye. She was calming him down the way she could. She knew: Mousik trusted her. No matter how it hurt while she was holding him, he just squeaked loudly, but he never bit her nor the doctor. Although Mousik knew something about biting, too. He had bitten two of her friends.
It took Larissa a long time to understand, why. Then she realized, and began to observe him even more carefully. Mousik was a courageous and a self-sufficient rat. He always defended his life, his freedom, his home. He would fight even with those who were bigger and stronger than him, if he considered their actions an attack. The people were to blame for that. Mousik was curious. He was always interested in new things and new people coming into the house. When he dag the ground in a large rubber plant pot and bit sweet violets’ flowers off, Larissa was angry at Mousik, and began to loudly explain him that he was wrong. However, she didn’t last long, because he listened so sincerely, stretching out his snout and making big eyes, moving closer and closer, trying to understand everything up to the smallest detail that it was impossible to be angry at him. There was no reason either: Mousik never did anything “out of spite” or “just to bother somebody.” He simply loved earth and sweets.
Musik was capable of tolerance, forgiving and waiting. He was bold, intelligent and knew how to be a friend. He was honest: he never pretended to be someone else but was always himself. Neither Larissa nor her friends had that set. One could learn a lot from Mousik.
Larissa hadn’t even noticed how she suddenly started “seeing Mousik” in people around her. Once on night duty at the hospital, while visiting the babies, her heart suddenly sank: she “saw Mousik” in one of the twenty she examined. Another time it happened with her in the public transport: she immediately recognized him in an old man that just got in. That’s was all! No matter how much Larissa tried to stare at people, in several years she only saw two persons with that set of qualities, or rather she felt them with her heart. Besides, Mousik could see in the space something that Larissa couldn’t.
Often he would lie on the sofa, lower his face and look down on the floor the way a person looks at water or fire. Mousik was able to lie that way for hours. What was he seeing there? Once he walked out of his cage thinking to go about his business, but then he suddenly jumped up high, stood blocking the entrance into the cage, took a threatening posture, and began pounding its tail, looking towards one particular place at the level of his eyes. Mousik obviously saw someone and wanted to fight with him. Larissa saw nothing but an empty space, but suddenly she felt in her heart: it was his old enemy who died, and came to say goodbye. He was the one who left him that scar on his ear. The confrontation lasted no more than ten or fifteen seconds, then Musik merrily jumped on the carpet as if nothing had happened. The second time it happened early in the morning during breakfast. Larissa changed Mousik’s water and bedding, he ate, and she let him out. Mousik scurried to the corner of the corridor, then, obviously frightened, he recoiled and went back, and, hiding behind the corner of the door, peeked out. Her bold Mousik was trembling. Larissa got cold shivers down her spine, too, when she followed Mousik’s stare. He looked out into the corridor at the level of the human eye. Larissa said a prayer and tried to pull herself together. She addressed right where Mousik was staring, and said that she did not know who he was, but she did not invite him to her house. It was not his place, therefore he should not be here, and she asked him to leave. Immediately after that, Mousik, as if nothing had happened, galloped like a mustang down the hall from the kitchen into the room. The fear was gone. A usual day was beginning. It nearly became the last day in Larissa’s life. Who could tell? Maybe Death itself came to have a look at those whom it will have to deal with a few hours later.
That weekend Larissa finally set out for a visit to her auntie who lived near the center. She decided to spend the night there, so she took Mousik with her as there was no one to leave him with. Valera went to “dig potatoes” with his college. They were good friends with the auntie, so they had a lot to talk about. They went to bed late. Larissa was not able to sleep for a long while... She awoke from a sudden inner impulse a few minutes before the explosion. Having decided that she had insomnia and wouldn’t get any more sleep, she got up, tied her hair in a ponytail and went to the kitchen. Mousik, who was sleeping at her feet, leaped out of bed and trotted after her. Then the nightmare began. Like in any nightmare, one could not understand anything; it was just a feeling of horror and despair growing ever stronger. First, there was a terrible explosion somewhere below, an increasing vibration of the trembling walls, the sound of smashing windows, a sickening fear born of wonder and growing into the horror following a sudden insight.
A flight into the abyss of despair, a feeling of pity for herself and the near and dear, a hope for a miracle, then snatches of memories from her childhood... pain. Emptiness.
Larissa came around with pain in her leg. She saw a plate above her, a metal rod next to her head; a strong draft was coming from somewhere; somebody close to her was moaning. That’s all that she took in before the darkness loomed before her again. The second time she regained consciousness because someone was pulling the hair band off her head. Mousik was licking her ear and poking her lips with his wet nose. The last time she came to her senses because of a terrible shrieking sound right above her. But Larissa’s consciousness was already failing. She thought that they would cut her into pieces; the nightmare continued.
Larissa was lucky that her aunt lived on the eighth floor. She was hearing the sound of the cut concrete slab that was lying above her. At the top people were clearing the debris: in some places the job was done manually, in some, with spades, crowbars and jacks, yet in others with more modern technology. Excavators would come later. It was the first day after the explosion.
As always, rescuers with dogs were at work. Later they told that they had seen a lot of dogs and cats that survived and were in shock just like people who were rescued. But fancy a white tame rat that ran to the people without fear, then went to a big dog that could easily bite it in two halves, brought it a piece of cloth, and even stood on its hind legs looking into the dog’s eyes for some time! That had never happened before. And right after that, their well-bred and trained dog began to tear off the leash after the rat, whining and howling, as if it found a person. Her master had plenty in his life and trusted his dog, so he went after it. The dog led the rescuers right to the spot where Larissa lied under the rubble. When they got her out, previously having cut the concrete conglomerate, she was unconscious. Mousik was sitting on her chest. The dog’s owner put the heroic rat in his bosom, and Larissa was taken to intensive care.
With the exception of a concussion, the compression syndrome, and the rod that pierced her left leg throughout but fortunately without damaging the bone and major blood vessels, we could say that Larissa got off with nothing more than a bit fright. Her aunt’s luck was different. She died...
While Larissa was in the hospital Mousik missed her a lot, although he made friends with Bim the dog, Anatoly Stepanovich his master, and his family. Bim licked Mousik and allowed him to take the best bits out of his bowl. They slept together and, as Anatoly Stepanovich said, even spoke about something. But at first, Mousik who apparently considered himself a senior bit Bim’s nose a couple of times, although without hurting him. Probably, he meant to keep a distance. But then, when priorities had been respected, he approached the dog himself and offered his friendship.
Unfortunately, rats do not live more than two years, but Larissa had the time to leave the hospital and to live with Mousik all the remaining months of his life, during which she
tried to learn from him love to life and courage with which he resisted the disease. Mousik really wanted to live; he was dying slowly and fought for every breath. He never closed his eyes...
Larissa said that she never had such a friendship and relationship with anyone ever. Do you not believe me?
What about you? Are you ready to take a closer look at the living beings which we haughtily call ‘our younger brothers’?