Liebestot

I found them lying side by side, dead, heads firmly clamped to the base of the trap. Liebestot, Wagner calls it, love in death. I hope their deaths were instantaneous, that these “wee, cowrin’, timorous beasties” had no chance for a “panic in [their] breasties.” Notice how tenderly the little hand caresses the partner's head--love in death.
The trap had been set the day before, after my wife, coming in from the garage, surprised one of them in the entryway. We assumed they had gained entrance through the garage door which had been left open frequently during the past week by the carpenter doing some remodeling in our kitchen.
I imagine them as mates, drawn to the warmth of an open door and, later, to a midnight snack of peanut butter. And then, death! The romantic in me wants to find a silver lining in the fact that they died together, lovers. Neither of them will have to grieve. But if I can believe Bobby Burns, and I do on this point, mice—and most animals—live in a kind of constant present so that they are never bothered by worries about the past or the future:
“Still thou art blest compared wi’ me,
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear.
An forward, though I guess and fear,
I canna see.”

Quite apart from any little momentary surge of sympathy, my overwhelming emotion was triumph. I had slain my enemy the mouse—and in my first attempt. A few years back when mice got into our house, they kept licking the peanut butter off my trap without engaging it. I felt terrible. But here I had slain not one but two—and in one fell swoop.

How little it takes to make one’s day.