on mice and earthquakes

We have mice, a roommate announced as I left for work, beginning another spring-loaded day across the city where everything pangs at me with regret or urgency, then panic when I don’t know why. I have 200 mg caffeine 3 mg nicotine 600 mg ibuprofen 1 breakfast sandwich on board all shouting me in different directions. I am able to instantly identify anyone who was allowed a TV in their room growing up, and they are all on this train hurtling through morning like everything in my veins. I see something amusing and take a picture that I’ll send to no one, never look at again, and that will be automatically deleted from my phone 457 days from now. At the sixth stop I lock eyes with someone on the platform, and we seem to agree on something and so we hold our gaze for the eight seconds the train takes to depart. At the office, I take out my moleskine and make out a quick list that I’ll find incomprehensible in 72 hours. There is an earthquake around 11:30am. I feel it like a passing truck, then like the screaming collapse of the earth, then a passing truck. To be truthful, I already knew about the mice. I have for some time. I hear them screwing in the walls at night. I didn’t want to say anything. I have a lot going on right now. The train that hurtles towards evening is like the morning train’s weird cousin. When I get in, the roommates look insane, Earthquake? I ask, but no, they’d caught the mice and had been busy stamping them to death in the yard, and hadn’t felt a thing.