There were three. Now there are two. Two blind mice with un-seeing eyes and wooden canes, like the third. Two who lived, unlike the third. From the table he was snatched, but the other two just panicked and fled.

Their fear is secret. They weep and huddle in their burrow. They hop up and they hop down and grab their canes between their little, pink toes and flail in agony and never quit their grief. This is how they cope.

Let one little mouse forget his reason for pressing on, every mouse would give up hope and mourn and cry, each with their arms around another. No, no, no, mice say in their sleep. They writhe.

When a little mouse is too hopeless and too distraught to keep trying, when they are so tiny a thing against all the dangers of the world, then it is that they’d turn the pupils of their minute eyes to the three blind heroes. Three who pressed on despite a disadvantage. Three who lived and did not forget to live. Three who are now two.