To the lands of milk and honey
A flash fiction story about a mice clan and their way of life. This is featured in Episode 10 of Tales under the cat tree podcast about managers and leaders
This story can be heard on Episode 10 of the Tales under the cat tree Podcast.
Every summer, the three families of the mice clan would hold their election. These days, it was a formality. Meeya's uncles, Jin and Arjun, always debated in front of the nest. Meeya's own mother and father never ran. This year, as every year, Uncle Jin would win. You'd think he'd never held the position before in how he sniffed and rubbed everyone's noses in thanks.
Well, everyone was thanked except Arjun, of course.
Arjun always complained that the clan was playing it too safe. The clan, he said, would have had grandchildren, even great-grandchildren by now if only they could follow him and see what he had seen.
For Meeya, though, the election meant the start of the summer foraging season. The mice clan had two properties and two seasons. Every summer, they lived under the garden house, way, way down at the edge of the property, right by the lake. The fruit trees were plentiful, and their well-built secret tunnels took them away from anything that could possibly hurt them, especially the foxes and the cats.
Every autumn, the mice families would start the long and dangerous trek from their summer paradise. Tunnels were cleaned and food was readied for transport to survive the lean winter months. As the snows arrived and the ground hardened with the early frost, Meeya and her family would make the multi-day trek from the summer house to the abandoned hut further into the property. Life was slim pickings during the winter; the mice spent it largely hibernating and eating sparsely from their food stores.
This is where Arjun and Jin did not see eye to eye. Every winter, against Jin's wishes, Arjun was fueled by his sense of adventure and exploration. He delved farther and deeper into the property. He discovered cellars laden with dried fruit, nuts, and more. But Jin forbade him time and time again, no matter how much Arjun argued.
The family, Jin said, was happy. It might not be the best they could be, and yes, no births had happened in quite a while, and yes, maybe things could be better, but it was better to work slowly with what you had. Under the hut, he said, no matter how hard the foxes dug and taunted them, they could not get through. Arjun would open his paws and show the riches of the cellars beyond. New ways of living, he said, new ways of thinking.
Then came the winter of change. Meeya had noticed and complained that the abandoned hut had fallen apart a bit more this last summer. In the dead of winter, when the winds were howling and the snow was drifting, and the food was running low, it was the smell that alerted the mice. A fox had managed to break through some tunnel, and the fervent scratching sent the mice against the far walls of the hut. Meeya could feel her heart thumping; her mother and father huddled together, whimpering and shivering.
It was Arjun who saved them all.
Uncle Jin had no answer when Arjun led them towards the cellars that only he had explored and knew how to find in the mazes of tunnels.
Indeed, just as Arjun had said, this was the promised land. Warmth and food for all the winter. The families grew. By the time the next summer came, Meeya was shepherding four young cousins and a new brother born in that bountiful cellar that spring.
That summer, for the first time, Uncle Arjun was elected as the leader, and Jin sat back.
And so the years passed. Arjun expanded the mice clan to new greatness as the mice feasted on the riches of those cellars that he and his lieutenants uncovered and expanded upon during the following years. Soon Arjun had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Even Jin had forgotten the old ways of doing things. The clan now numbered ten families strong, and the summer and winter duality was relegated to history.
Meeya also grew her whiskers long and raised a brood in the cellar. In the third year in that glorious cellar, she was the first to notice something was wrong. There was a smell in the air unlike any she had known. A smell that she could taste. A smell that came from all around her, from the very food she had been eating. A smell that rang in her ears and caught in her mouth. A smell that worked its way to the bones. She scurried to turn around, though feeling had already left her. She watched Uncle Jin fall in his tracks. Her mother died with her whiskers in tainted rice.
Meeya was the last to go. She watched, frozen to the ground, unable to lift a limb or squeak a sound, as gas canisters fell and boots shook the cellar floor.