Author: Jess Boctor

It was a quiet evening when Jessica found herself sitting on the couch with Paul. They were watching a movie, but it was a boring war movie where men fight too much and there are hardly any sensible conversations. Jessica stretched and yawned when out of the corner of her eye she saw a mouse scurry across her living room floor. The mouse itself was not very startling, as Jessica and Paul lived in an old house and always had a variety of interesting creatures as guests. The thing which made Jessica curious was the way in which the mouse paused and pulled from its skinny jeans a small cell phone. 

“I’m so dreadfully late!” the mouse called and tucked the phone back into their jeans pocket. Jessica was intrigued as she had never seen a mouse with a cell phone, and in fact, has never seen a mouse in skinny jeans. 

Before she knew quite what she was doing, Jessica was chasing after the mouse which ran into the dinning room and disappeared down the floor vent. Jessica kneeled down and removed the vent so she may have a better view of where the mouse may have disappeared to. As she peered in, she felt her balance escape her and before she had a chance to catch herself Jessica fell into the vent. 

“It was a wonder that I fit in here at all” thought Jessica, “Every other day I would have been too big! Much like the mouse and her skinny jeans. I wonder if it shall be a very long…” Jessica’s thought was interrupted by her impact on the bottom of the vent, which echoed along the duct. Jessica gave a very loud sneeze and stood up. “This is a very dusty place, I do wish I had swept more often” Jessica said as she shook the dust from her clothes. Just as she was righting herself she saw the mouse scurry along out of the corner of her eye.

“They have started the party without me! They twit away and I have nothing to say!” The mouse declared.

“Excuse me mouse, do you mean to say your friends are tweeting?” Jessica asked.

The mouse looked up startled and nearly tore the seams of her skinny jeans with fright, “Oh, my! You should not sneak up on someone. You have scared me so I have forgotten your questions, what did you ask?”

Jessica came a little nearer and asked again, “Do you mean to say your friends are tweeting?”

The mouse looked bewildered, “Whoever heard of such a thing as tweeting! No, the people at the party are twitting, as it is proper to say. And whoever said they were my friends?”

“Well,” Jessica paused and thought, “You said you were going to the party, and they will all be there, and you are reading all of their Twits, so I would assume you are friends…”

“Assumptions only makes an ass and an umption. It takes much more to be a friend than to be a twit. But I have delayed enough and must hurry to the party” with this the mouse tucked the phone into her pocket and turned away.

“May I come with you?” Jessica asked, and as the mouse did not say no Jessica followed her along the great duct which seemed to be a large hall until they turned a corner and arrived, Jessica guessed, at what was the party.

The party did not look much like a party, at least not to Jessica. There was one long table at which all the guests sat. There was a lizard which Jessica remembered shooing out of the living room earlier that week, another mouse in addition to the one in skinny jeans, a sparrow and an assortment of of other small creatures. All had a cell phone sitting in front of them and were staring into the screen. Occasionally, one creature would type away for a moment, which would start a ripple of typing down the long table, which would be immediately followed by a ripple of stifled giggles.

Jessica took a seat next to a small man in a bowlers cap and watched the strange proceedings. “What are you all doing?” she finally asked in a whisper.

The man leaned in very close and showed her the screen, “It is a party, it is begun when the queen begins her twit, and then we all follow.”

Jessica read very quickly through the lists of what had been said and it went something like this:

“Pie is equal to approximately 3.14”

“Birds often fly south during the winter months”

“The gravitational pull of the moon causes waves”

“There are only 24 hours in a day”

“The area of a triangle equals the base times the height times 1/2”

Jessica leaned back in shock, “Why! They are all facts! Every single one of them.” 

“Of course they are!” the man in the bowlers hat replied, “You can never twit something which is not true.”

Jessica thought in amazement for a moment, watching the ebb and flow of the twits, when something new bothered her, “Why is no one talking?” she asked her neighbor.

“hmm?” he replied, Jessica could see he was not paying attention.

“Why does no one talk? You are all sitting very near each other, but no one will talk to one another.”

“That would be rude and out of the question.” The man replied, “How can you carry a conversation with only one person, the very thought! It is not polite to talk to one another.”

“Not polite!” Jessica stood up without thinking and spoke much louder than she had meant. Immediately, all sounds of typing and the ripples of twits stopped. Jessica could hear a chair scraping across the floor as a very small bunched up old women came near her. It took some time, so that that the effect was beginning to be lost when the lady arrived. Jessica recognized her as the Queen Mother and had a slight moment to wonder how she had arrived in her duct work.

“Who are you?” The queen asked as she brandished her phone.

“I don’t know entirely,” Jessica answered.

“Your face is dirty!” The queen exclaimed, “Off with her face! Scrub it right off lads!”

Jessica stepped back in a moment of panic. She tried to ward off the attackers and their scrubbers but she felt their roughness on her face. She was shaken as the jostled her about.

Soon though, Jessica realized the scrubbing was only the happy licks of her small dog, and the jostling was only Paul’s hand on her shoulder.

“Babe, get up.” Paul smiled down, ” You fell asleep during the movie. It’s time for bed.”