Illustration by OwlPoo
One morning, Tha was making toast for breakfast. As soon as she turned on the toaster, the sulfuric smell of burned hair or fur filled the kitchen.
A thought of a mouse in a toaster ran through her head. Tha shared her home with a family of little mice, and she knew something like this could happen to one of their babies.
Immediately, she turned off the toaster and tossed out the slice of bread. Sure enough, there was a little mouse squeezed on the far side inside the toaster.
Tha naively thought that the mouse would jump out of the toaster as soon as it cooled off. But the mouse was stuck and could not move.
In panic, Tha unplugged the toaster, pulled out a bag with some tools and started taking the toaster apart, all the time mindful of the welbeing of the little mouse.
She had to release the mouse without further harm.
After twenty minutes or so of wrestling with the toaster, it was totally disassembled and beyond a chance of ever being put back together.
Tha did what she could, and now it was up to the little mouse to decide to come out. She left some bread crumbs and water on the table and pulled herself away, waiting.
When the mouse came out, Tha saw it was a baby – a tiniest, cutest little thing with large ears. Despite its heavy limp, the baby mouse quickly slid down an electric cord and disappeared.
Tha was happy that the little baby mouse was not hurt much and could recover. Still, she cried her soul out feeling so sad for the little mouse. Taking apart the toaster to save the the little mouse was heroic indeed.
A few days later, walking up a laneway behind the house where she lived, Tha came across a brand new toaster oven. Needing a toaster, she decided to pick it up and bring it home.
She marveled at how fast her old toaster was replaced with a much more useful new toaster oven. Oh how impossible it was that she would find the new toaster oven in the laneway behind her home! But there it was, waiting for Tha.
Needless to say, the toaster oven has lasted for years ever since Tha found it abandoned in the laneway. Not only has it toasted slices of bread, but it baked many loaves of bread, pies and vegetables, never failing, never giving up.
Tha knew the toaster oven was a gift she had received from the Mouse family after saving their baby mouse. It became a memorable example of the magic world of giving and receiving; receiving and giving in the gracious way of Creator.
Since then, Tha has moved to a new place without mice, but the magic oven remains the special deep bond with the Mouse Spirit. She can never forget that it was the Mouse family who gave her this gift. Tha can never forget the mice and their cute little baby.
She calls her new toaster oven a Mouse Oven.
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