A MOUSE IN CILAOS

by Ángeles Aragón López (Spain)

I didn't expect to find Reunion

“Boom, squiiii, troooom…!” I jum up from the couch. My heart leaves my chest and gets stuck in my throat. The ominous noise comes again and again. I am positive that somebody is trying to break the glass door of the mountain lodge in Cilaos, Réunion Island, where I am all alone tonight. It is February the 13th, 2020, the low season in the Indian Ocean, the rainy season, time of cyclones and tropical storms, so there are not many tourists in Cilaos at the moment and I am here because this year I am a digital nomad and I have to spend these couple of months somewhere, and the beautiful Réunion Island seemed a good place to rest and enjoy the views before venture myself to Madagascar at the end of March. Until yesterday, there was another lodger here. Lisa, a French girl, who spent the days sleeping and listening to hip hop music and the nights drinking in the villa. But the owner asked her to leave today, I don’t know if because she arrived completely drunk at 6:00 am or because, after waking up, she spent a couple of hours locked in a toilet shouting and singing. That frightened the owner, who thought she was crazy, when maybe she was only trying to practice the music she listen to all day in her computer. The thing is Lisa has gone and I am all alone with my heart stuck in my throat trying to make any sense of the noise. When the minutes pass and nothing seem to happen, I proceed cautiously to the door, where, after a while, the fear diminishes enough to allow me to see the palm’s branches that the wind moves wildly against the glass. I sit again in the kitchen’s couch and I breathe slowly for a few minutes before going to bed. I lock the door to my room, I say goodnight to the big spider that keeps guard high up in the wall and I read in bed for a little while before putting the light out. As soon as I have my ear plugs on, I stop hearing any noise and I fall asleep fast. At some point during the night, I wake up feeling tiny feet over my face. I move my hand wildly and the feet go away. I think it must be the spider, whose life I keep sparing night after night, and I go back to sleep… Until I feel again the tiny feet, this time on my head, and then I jump from the bed and I put the light on and I see a little country mouse running desperately from my bed. Its fur is dark brown and it has a very long tail. It would be difficult to tell which of us is more shocked. I run to open the door and I chase it away. After he is gone, I bring a doormat from the bathroom and put it under my door, to close any potential gap. For some reason I can’t fathom, when I go back to bed, I feel a bit like a hero. The tropics are full of life. I am getting used to that.