I had a rather striking dream last night.

Among other things, it involved a mouse.

While it wasn't clear exactly when or where this took place, everything I saw was written in English.

I was one of many, living in terrible conditions, of the sort one generally associates with a 1930’s-era Jewish ghetto, or USSR-era peasantry. Resources were scarce, and there was little for all: food and water were, naturally, the most contested for, and I watched those of us living in these horrible conditions fighting -- even to the death -- for even the smallest bits of our rations.

And our food and water WAS rationed: from a heavily armed military who kept their distance from us; to approach them, I knew, with that logic peculiar to dreams, meant death: to near their deployments would mean being shot to death. So, they would leave rations, and once they withdrew, we could approach...and then, the appalling fights would begin.

People scrabbling over the barest essentials was a terrible sight to behold, and no distribution incident passed without casualties, sometimes fatalities. There was never quite enough to go around...and this was, I knew, by design.

One day, huddled in what I can only describe as a decrepit room in a decrepit building, I chanced to see a tiny little mouse: eyes wide, ears alert, tiny and emaciated, I saw it, and, tearing off a bit of a bread-like substance and the mush which our rations consisted of, I offered it a tiny bit.

It was initially fearful, yet hunger soon overcame fear, and it darted out and took the food.

Over a period of days, it learned some amount of trust, to the point where I could feed it by hand, even. Some time later, it would even get onto my hand to take food, and finally, would permit me to pet it.

I knew if anyone else discovered I was giving away precious drops of water & valuable food to this creature, not only would it be immediately killed, I would be punished, as well: I certainly wouldn't be permitted to continue to receive rations, as I was "wasting" them, so even if the mouse was only crushed underfoot and I was left alone, I'd eventually starve.

And this -- THIS -- was from my fellow peasants: not the soldiers, nor anyone above them, but my fellow man. THEY would be the ones who shunned me, who would stomp the mouse to death (and presumably consume its remains): the intervention of armed guards was unnecessary for maintaining that order.

This continued. Despite the risk to myself, I kept feeding it, and I kept it alive.

Until, one day, soldiers came along and forced us to relocate. They began ordering us into buses, at gunpoint.

And it was then, I realized, I had to make a choice.

Go with all the others, to an unknown (yet, to judge by the force which was used, likely a far worse) fate; or remain, and starve to death (at best) with the mouse.

Even before, I had tried to tame it enough to conceal it within my clothing (we were all of us, save the soldiers, clad in rags, mere tattered remnants of former garments) yet I could not: it was, after all, still a feral creature, and was too fearful of things around it to obey the dictates of silence and stillness; even up to the last moment, as I was being herded into line, I was trying to do so, to no avail, and it fled, escaping back into what it believed to be the relative safety of where it had previously hidden itself.

It was then that I decided.

My choice was to no longer obey those doling out rations in deliberately inadequate amounts: those who had forced us all into a state of not just subjugation, but forced us into conditions where otherwise once-civilized people turned on each other like savage animals, and fought amongst themselves, turning our combined force against each other, presumably out of fear we would, eventually, all unite and turn against our captors.

So, I turned away from the line, and followed the mouse. Back into the hovel I'd been living in; where WE had been living -- all of us -- in this nightmarish ghetto.

I heard the shouting of the others, the urging, almost pleading, sounds of my fellow rabble, yet I chose to ignore it.

I then heard the shouted orders of those armed, and I chose to ignore it.

I next heard the sounds of gunfire, and was unable to ignore my body falling to the ground, and I fell, barely able to turn my head so as not to hit the ground face-first before dying.

As I died, I fancied -- just for the briefest of moments -- I could see the small yet wide eyes of that mouse, staring at me from beneath some hiding place.

Whether its eyes held compassion, fear, disappointment, or pride, I cannot say: merely that it beheld me as I died.

Then, I awoke.