Clean Kill - Nov 7 2023

 

Clean Kill

Nov 7 2023

Even through the closed cupboard door

the short emphatic thwap

startles me.

Another mouse,

another kill.

But that one time

I found her crawling away

frantically dragging the trap;

back broken,

one badly angled leg

quivering weakly

in the hammer's steel grip.

The bright red beads

of precious blood

that look the same as mine.

The high-pitched yelps

I can't unhear;

a sound so unnatural

for a prey animal

who depends on stealth to live.

A better trap

would be instant

humane

infallible.

Build it, and they will come.

But still

there is no life without suffering,

no death

without consequence;

the mate

left wondering,

the blind and naked pups

who will starve.

Too much like us, I think,

unable to forget

those plaintive cries,

or deny

my God-like presumption.

A clean kill

I can only hope,

crouching down reluctantly

and peering under the sink.

There is a reason why mice are the preferred lab animal: we share 97.5% of our DNA. (They also reproduce quickly. And we know their genome well enough to either select for uniformity or engineer certain traits.) Before branching off into humans and mice approximately 80 million years ago (I've read various numbers, so this is roughly correct), we had a common ancestor.

It's hard to forget our shared inheritance when something like this happens. It may be necessary to kill mice (one has illusions of Malthusian reproduction, if left unchecked!), but only easy for a person of conscience to abide if they are clean kills. And sadly, they aren't always clean.