A Walk In The Park

The carriage is as small as a match box, a real match box, Guitar brand. It has a pair of small black wheels, one on each side. A small mouse pulls the bewheeled match box. The mouse has loose leash tied around its neck. A black string connects the leash and my thumb and forefinger which clasp it.

I and the mouse treads on a wet concrete walkway in a park. Darkness surrounds the park. Everything in the park is wet. The small beast, small burden dragging behind it, is at least a foot in front of me skittering forward. The noise the friction the carriage and the concrete makes blends well with the cold and wet darkness. At one point, I and the mouse an obstruction comes our way. A rotting tree trunk lies cutting the walkway. The trunk is so black and gleaming in wetness. It has holes scattered throughout that small animals can use as burrows. I see a snail with a batik-painted cone crawling into one of the holes. Curious, the mouse runs into one of the holes. It sniffs and examines the hole but hesitates to enter. When it seems to finally decide to satisfy its curiosity, it disengages itself from the match box carriage but not from the string that extends to my fingers. Now, without dilly-dallying the small mouse enters the hole. After a short while, I feel something pulling the string. Like being prompted when a fish gets hooked after biting the bait at the end of the line, I pulled the string only to find out that the mouse is gone. I drop the string and stoop to reach for the match box. Then I hear a shrill cry of death coming from the dead trunk. The surroundings becomes darker. I starts to rain. As I ran for shelter, I wake up.