Not-So-Quiet Quitting

by Amy Marques

I can’t do this job anymore, Sara. That’s why I’m writing...

I close my laptop and pick up the silly putty that’s lived on the edge of my desk for years. Outside, the storm pulls tree branches. And then I think of the mouse. After all these years I think about it again, about the day I heard it in the kitchen bin, and the distaste is excruciatingly fresh. I had just ground my coffee beans, then the skirmish swishing the trash bag interrupted the quiet of my early morning. It was drowning, deep in chicken skin, sliding on the plastic edges of the bag, tail whipping against banana peels and apple rinds. There are always mice in any city, but I’d been so careful for so long that the realization that they could make their way into my home was astonishing. The mouse was so inept at climbing the bag, I could have closed the bag and trapped it. It seemed monstruous, heralding a profound intrusion despite its focus on discarded scraps. Squeeks, scrambling in slops. But above all what I remember is how the mouse looked when I caught it in a trap. Delicate and soft, perfectly still with light whiskers bathing in a crown of blood.

Amy Marques grew up between languages and learned, from an early age, the multiplicity of narratives. She is editor & artist of Duets anthologies, contributor to collective Pride Roars, author & artist of Are You Willing? (chapbook) and found poetry book PARTS. More at https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.