The April night of 2013 when a young security guard was shot and killed in front of the MIT campus, Jazz was worried because their two cats were after a mouse in the basement. Jane was glued to the TV, preoccupied with the news. Also, perhaps because of her rural European background, she was prone to a fatalistic attitude about cats and mice, and did not move immediately to rescue the small rodent. Later, her six-year-old daughter called on her again: “Mom, they got him, but he is still alive.”

Jazz held the mouse in her hand on top of a paper towel. The little critter was not moving yet still breathing and apparently intact. Relenting to her child’s pleading eyes, Jane picked up a container. She added two pieces of cereal and punched holes in the lid with a fork. After gently placing the mouse inside, she hid it away from the cats on the top of the fridge. “I hope he will be okay, sweetheart,” she said.

She wished she could do something to reassure her little girl and bring a smile to her round face. Five years ago she had brought her home from a Chinese orphanage and called her Jasmine. Within a year, the lively baby named after a fragrant flower had become Jazz.

The massive hunt for a wounded mass murderer on the move continued on the following morning. When she checked on the mouse, Jane found that he was dead and, following the lockdown, did not dare to venture outside of their house to bury him in the backyard.

For the whole day mother and daughter were stuck inside with a dead mouse and the TV streaming the same announcements over and over again. Restless, bewildered, aimless, unable to focus on domestic chores, Jane, while checking on Jazz and feeding the cats dead food, checked the mouse’s description on the web: white belly, gray, round body.

According to the description, the little critter was defined as cute but deadly as a possible transmitter of a serious respiratory disease. Ouch! Jane hoped that his presence in the basement was just a rare, individual occurrence.

By nighttime, the fate of that poor little thing made her think of young Dzhokhar, the surviving Marathon bomber. She even felt a short-lived surge of tenderness and compassion toward the sweet-looking, puppy-eyed young man who, after causing such a deployment of armed police forces, lay hidden a few blocks away, bleeding to death inside a white boat.

“Yes,” Jane told herself after turning off the TV, “cute but deadly.”

Anne-Marie Delaunay-Danizio has a B.A. in English Literature from Emmanuel College; a master’s in Art History and a master’s in Museum Studies from Harvard Extension School; and an MFA in Visual Arts from the Institute of Art and Design at New England College. A visual artist, her artwork was accepted in the SEE|ME Winter 2020–2021 Exhibition at the Yard, Flatiron North, New York. Her writing is published in Atherton Review. Anne-Marie enjoys sculpting, painting, and practicing Reiki.

The birds swarmed high overhead. The lovers held their hands, clasped tightly together, “Have I ever told you before,” the boy raised his eyebrows in wonder, as the girl’s attention was called to the low warm hum in his throat, “that all the computers in all the world, all wired together, could not send the same number of signals in one-second as just one human brain?” The birds continued to the place some of them had never been but all of them knew.

            “No,” she said, “but I believe it.” The clouds swirled above the birds gently. It rocked the lovers’ hands back and forth, not by force, but as the rhythm it inspired. Their hands were still swinging to the tune as they paced the sidewalk back to their vehicle. The melody still fluttered in her heart as she sat on the couch, waiting and clutching the flimsy plastic in her hand, until it showed the blue line.

            She couldn’t remember what she said to him. She cried in fear and excitement, all muddled together. Her stomach sank, weighed down with cherry pits. And it all burst into a warm winter’s fire when he hugged and brushed her hair and snapped her back into the moment.

            “I have faith in you,” the words spiralled in her ear canal like a feather, tickling and warming her. It was just what she needed to hear. It was nice beyond the pleasantries. “Faith?” her tear-stained eyes pointed in confusion, faked somewhat for she already felt what he meant, just wanted to hear it explained. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” his eyes gazed cool and calm as water, dripping, melting her away in a cool spring, “I don’t know how this works.” He smiled sheepishly, “But I know that I don’t. And just because you don’t know how something works, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.”

            “It’s just our best guess,” he laughed. And he shared the tickling laugh with the voodoo priests and the witch- and wish- doctors of centuries before.

            He patted her tummy. It was warm and soft and it radiated even through the raggedy shirt. “I feel it,” she said. And she did.

Cole Webber is an average human being and aspiring ‘comprehensivist’ (as opposed to a specialist). He tries to think about lots of different topics or ideas, and translate those thoughts into things that are somewhat useful. He enjoys writing, drawing, painting and design.