I am not sure it is being housebound or my brain fog, but when the days all look the same I often cannot remember what day it is or when something happened. And then there are incidents that I cannot recall if I did or didn’t do something specific. On top of that, thinking I was hearing sounds (imaginative or not) I got really uncomfortable. And that was when Bob turned up.
Noises, very weird noises
We only turn on the boiler in the kitchen cupboard when we need hot water. One morning I saw the light was on and I asked my partner if he still needed warm water from the boiler. He said he had not used it. I did, but I was certain I had turned it off. I am no longer the control freak I used to be, but I felt silly for wasting energy like that.
The next morning I heard a weird noise when I walked into the kitchen. It seemed to come from near the oven. Almost immediately I heard the neighbor rummaging around her kitchen and I told myself that was what I was hearing. Even though it did sound a bit like scratching. A quarter of an hour later I was back at the sink and yes, the same sound was this time coming from the washing machine.
Surely, an animal could have been the only explanation, so I started moving the bins. Not thinking to uncover the source of the sounds, but expecting to hear the creature move again. When it stayed completely silent I started to feel unsure. Perhaps there had been no sounds in the first place… Was I imagining things?
Not on my own
At the and of that morning I was in the comfy chair reading a book. Through the window I could see the kitchen with the door opened because of the warm weather. While reading I spotted something moving from the corner of my eye and the biggest mouse I have ever seen came walking out the house.
Undisturbed it made its way into the garden, sniffing around with lovely, beady, big, black eyes and a long tail. I wasn’t losing my marbles: I found a new friend instead, one that I decide to call Bob. What a relief, thanks to Bob – my newly BeFriended Mouse – the scratching sounds finally made sense. Bob is also known as my Brain Fog Mouse, the one who keeps using the boiler, but forgets to turn it off.
If you enjoyed this story, you might want to read The patter of tiny feet.
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This post is also available in: Dutch