The distance from the Castle of Baking and Confectionery to the hermitage was not as great as that from the water supply store on Arayat Street. All the sugar mouse had to do was descend into the narrow gutter on P. Tuazon Boulevard and work its way upstream. In the rainy season there were garden frogs rowing paper boat ferries that anyone could take, upstream being more expensive than downstream. Since the rains were not yet on, the gutter streams were still placid and shallow. The sugar mouse trekked along with its rubber boots cut from two fingertips of a baker's glove, its mousepack sewn from empty teabags, and its walking stick fashioned from a chef's pencil stub.
The sugar mouse, of course, was familiar to the gnome couple that ran the Nest & Breakfast inside the small loggia, for it was, so to speak, a regular and valued client. The gnomes prepared its favorite room with a saucer of wild berries and an ylang-ylang petal at its headboard. It was having a thimbleful of black coffee on the small balcony of the N&B when the water mouse walked in. They had not previously met before, and so were delighted to make each other's acquaintance. The water mouse, however, was not interested in pilgrimages because, secretly, it was an atheist, and merely, politely listened to the story behind the sugar mouse's annual mission. After a thimbleful of green tea it excused itself, promising the sugar mouse that it would join it for dinner, and then flopped on its bed for forty mouse winks.
The sun was just setting when the sugar mouse commenced the steep ascent to the Cage of The Cosmic Birds, encountering processions of black ants on its way. It first paid obeisance to the two opalines that dwelt inside the cage and that maintained the revolving Cosmic Ball. It presented its offerings, which it knew were their favorites: diced vanilla marshmallow and chocolate crumbs. When everything was ready, the opalines took the sugar mouse into the ball. The mouse took deep breaths, shut its eyes, relaxed--and the ball gently spun in a clockwise direction.
As though in a dream, the sugar mouse felt the cosmic ball rising through the ceilings of the cage and of the small loggia that contained the enchanted aviary. It seemed that the ball joined up with other cosmic balls hovering high up in the sky, each ball piloted by rodents of different colors from different planets. The extraterrestrial rodents imparted to the sugar mouse information about amazing galaxies in which the supreme creatures were not human beings but animals. When the ball stopped revolving, the opalines instructed the sugar mouse to open its eyes, and they were all once again inside the cage. After taking a few minutes to recover from its numinous experience, the sugar mouse thanked the opalines and rappelled its way back to the N&B.
The gnomes were already lighting paraffin oil lamps inside the hut, signaling dinner. The sugar mouse and the water mouse sat at a table under a window. The sugar mouse proceeded to tell its companion about its recent visit. There is more to a mouse's life than what we were made to think, the sugar mouse said, and it is up to each and every one of us to go out of our way to discover that. The water mouse was appreciative but remained skeptical. Its mundane joy was to frolic on the loft of the water supply store with its fellow mice on Arayat Street and take occasional rides through the neighborhood. I might give it some thought someday, the water mouse said, and yawned.
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