Mickey Mouse, My Hero: A Hamster's Diary

February 29, Year of the Rat

Dear Diary,

I don't remember when I first saw Mickey Mouse. But I can't forget how this hamster heart of mine went boom that day I saw him on TV. So what if he is a mouse, rich and famous and all. So what if I'm just a plain domesticated and caged female hamster. And I don't give a damn if he has those prominent large ears. I think that makes him look smarter and taller.

When I first saw him on TV, he was being chased by this ugly cat who happened to be a member of a mob. The gangster cat was riding on a bike while firing his automatic at Mickey. A hundred rounds were fired but none of them hurt Mickey because he was such a prolific hero. Eventually, Mickey, bruised and sweating, rescued Minnie and they hugged each other and she gave him a smooch. If I were Minnie, I would have given Mickey as many kisses as the shots fired by the wretched cat. All of it hitting every square inch of Mickey's handsome face.

I don't know when I will see Mickey again. My keeper has been watching reality shows lately and I still don't know when I could lay my feet on the remote. Thinking about Mickey has become a daily past time for me. When I'm not munching pellets I'm thinking of him. Every night I imagine Mickey wearing an all-black leather suit topped with night vision goggles jumping off a plane and diving straight to my lonely cage. And then he'll bend two of the vertical bars to make an opening just wide enough to pull me out. I'll give him a French kiss, and then we'll creep out of the house and run without ever looking back until we are short of breath.

We will look for a nice place near a wheat field and start a family. Every morning before the day gets too hot, we'll collect grains for breakfast and store up the rest. On afternoons, we'll take a walk in the woods, look for berries and chase insects not just for food but for fun as well. Before the sun goes down, we'll scamper back to our place before it gets too dark, otherwise, we'll end up as supper for cats and werewolves. Before we go to sleep, he'll survey my fur and pluck away ticks and fleas and I'll do the same for him; after which I'll listen to his reminiscing about his Walt Disney past until we doze off. On weekends, we'll go to the city and sneak into movie houses and we'll gather pop corn crumbs and watch only the trailers.

But I don't think he'll like me, he is a star. I'm just a mere hamster and I don't have the prominent cheekbones of Minnie. Will he come to rescue me? Or will he stay in this cage with me?

It's the Year of the Rat, I hope it brings Mickey to me, and I to him.

Lately, I've been trying to stand using my two hind legs just like what Mickey does on TV. This will surprise Mickey and my keeper as well. My keeper, by the way, doesn't know how to smile and is always wearing some kind of a white gown and wears gloves each time he feeds me or injects blue and purple fluids into my chest. The needles hurt, I hope my standing-on-two-legs trick make him smile and keep him from giving me those awful fluids again. But it seems I'm running out of strength each day, my limbs went numb after I received the first dose.

I don't think I'll ever get to see my Mickey in flesh and blood. But I'll always remember him fighting the mob, bruised and all but triumphant.

I have a hundred and one kisses reserved for him, just in case he crash through the door to rescue me and take me to a wheat field far away.

Love,

Hamelia

EPILOGUE:

Hamelia died due to multiple organ failure three days after she wrote her first and last entry in her diary. Her "keeper" was assigned to another laboratory and was replaced by a Mickey Mouse fan as deduced from his wristwatch.

The song "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" from Starship is lovingly dedicated to Hamelia and to all laboratory animals.