Jack Balas, 2023; IT'S MIDNIGHT AND I'M DRIVING A MOUSE OUT OF TOWN (#2416);
India ink & acrylic on paper, 30x22 inches

Text:
It's midnight and I'm driving a mouse out of town. I'd been hunting it in the house for days, ever since it poked its nose out from behind a pile of books, and tonight it's midnight and I'm reading and I hear scritch scratch coming from under the kitchen sink. Aha! I open the door and there it is in the garbage bag, trying to climb up the paper walls but I just fold it over and now the bag is on the front seat and I pick it up a few times and shake it to keep the little guy quiet.
I've read that if you want to let a mouse go, you have to take it at least two miles away or else it will find its way back, so here we are on County 10 headed east, and when I get to a good spot I turn the car around and get out with the bag and stand in the headlights, scenes going through my head of movies where the hostage is forced to stand in the lights before his demise, but I simply open the bag and the mouse high-tails it into the nearest ditch.
On my drive home I ponder how insane it all seems- to own a car and pay for insurance and maintenance and now gas to drive a mouse two miles out, but as the lights of town approach and vie for the warm coziness of my front seat on this otherwise cold October night, I consider too the sight of some particular stars rising huge and glorious over the horizon, Orion the Hunter, the giant with arm raised, poised to catch- or maybe poised to let go.