Gus

Inside the poorly lit cabin, a man sits by himself. The rain has recently stopped, and drops can still be heard from the large maple leaves outside. There is a fire in the fireplace in dire need of two more pieces of chopped alder, but the man isn't going to get up. Not because he doesn't want to, but because he isn't able. The man is old, and he is currently asleep. If the man had a family, he would just be "resting his eyes." Not in deep sleep, for he is only sleeping because he has nothing better to do.

The bottle of red wine beside the old man's chair is three-quarters full (or one-quarter empty, depending on the day). A year ago, he would have been drinking out of a glass, but last summer his last wine glass broke shortly after teetering on the railing of the cabin's back patio overlooking the creek. He thought about replacing the wine glass, but came to the conclusion that there was really no need. He didn't have much time left, and anyways, he had always preferred to drink straight from the bottle.

The fire grows dimmer and the time between rain drops lengthens, lulling the old man into a deeper sleep.

A mouse scurries across the floor along the opposite wall from the fireplace. It can smell both the old man's red wine and Ritz crackers, but it is far more interested in the block of cheese left unprotected. The mouse zips along the wall behind the old man's chair, closing in on its prize.

Unfortunately for the mouse, the old man has a cat. From the mouse's first step in the room, the old man's cat had one eye open and following the mouse's every move. When the mouse disappeared behind the old man's chair, the cat slinked its way down from its resting place in the chair opposite the old man, and the cat moved in behind the clueless mouse.

While close to falling deep asleep, the old man wasn't quite there yet. He sleeps with his eyes open a slit, and although his eyes now aren't sharp enough to detect a mouse across the room, he can detect a 22lb cat moving just a few feet in front of him, and although the cat's movements were quite stealthy for a 22lb cat, it is a difficult task for the cat to hide its excess.

The old man stirs.

"Hmm... Gus. What you after?"

The old man's voice panics the mouse, who tries to retreat, but the hefty cat has blocked his escape route. The panicked mouse races past the cheese, with 22lbs of cat in chase behind him.

"Gus! Git out from behin..."

The mouse darts out in front of the old man, while Gus the hefty cat crashes through the cheese, crackers, and most notably--the three-quarters full bottle of red wine. Gus remains in hot pursuit of the mouse, hardly noticing the objects he has knocked over, as the tiny rodent races out of sight towards the bathroom and eludes Gus in the safety of the cabin's insulated walls. The old man moves the quickest he has in years to save as much of the red wine still pouring out of his bottle.

"Dag gummit, Gus!!"

Only a quarter of the red wine remains, with half of the bottle freshly covering the light brown carpet around the old man's chair. Gus lays in wait by the hole in the wall where the mouse entered. Gus tunes out the shouts of the old man, instead staring intently at the hole, hoping to catch a glimpse of movement, anything, a mouse whisker, a tail... when suddenly, Gus is grabbed by his scruff and held five feet in the air, at eye-level with the old man.

"You cost me a bottle of wine! You're sleeping outside tonight!"