text: There once was a mouse. A little yellow mouse. There once was a man. A red man. Angry, but a silent man. The yellow mouse dreamed of sailing The Big Sea. He wanted to sail to the end of the Sea and touch the setting Sun. The red man wanted to scream. But whenever he opened his mouth, nothing would come out. The yellow mouse was a glass half full kind of mouse. Life treated him all right, and he treated life the same way. Not a lot of ups, but not a lot of downs either for this little mouse. The red man had a big head, which kept getting bigger and bigger. He wanted to paint but didn’t know how to. He tried learning it, but it made his head swale up. The yellow mouse saw a fairy once. She told him the secret to life. The red man saw a doctor. The doctor ran tests and told the red man about a new experimental treatment for head reduction. The red man applied for the treatment. The yellow mouse worked at a restaurant, near his house, for as long as he could remember. He was good at the job, and he got great tips. The red man couldn’t keep a job. Every job made his head bigger, and his skin redder. The yellow mouse was a single dad. His wife left him some time after giving birth to their twin boys. He loved them very much, and they loved him very much as well. The red man had two ex-wives and no children. Relationships made his head inflate like a birthday balloon. The yellow mouse had a friend, who was a doctor. The doctor was also a Big Sea enthusiast, and they would talk about it for hours on end. The red man started the therapy. The doctor would hook up tubes, going from the red man’s head to a machine. The machine would then transform thoughts into shapes, patterns, and colors on the monitor. For the first couple of sessions, there was only random big black lines and awful color. The yellow mouse was saving for a boat all his life. Even though being a single dad, and getting his kids through school and college, every month he would put money into the savings account. The red man’s head kept getting smaller as the treatment went on. After a while, the lines made shapes, and color started to fit those shapes. The yellow mouse had four more years until retirement. By then, he would have saved enough money to buy the boat and sail The Big Sea until he touched the setting Sun. The red man didn’t feel like screaming anymore. He marveled at the objects being painted by the machine. He sometimes even cried. His head shrunk to an almost normal-sized one and even his redness started to go away. The yellow mouse became yellower as the years went by. But, in a short amount of time, he rapidly became very yellow, almost orange. So, he called his friend, the doctor. The doctor ran tests and got the results. Sadly, there was no cure for the yellow mouse’s disease. The now regular-sized head and a fair-skinned man was done with the therapy. He thanked the doctor and went directly to the art shop. He bought himself a painting kit, and after coming home, immediately started to paint. The now pale-orange mouse kept getting weaker. After a while, he couldn’t do his job anymore. He stayed at home, watching television and sleeping a lot. And he dreamed about The Big Sea and the Sun. The ex-red man saw a fairy. She told him the secret to life, but he already knew that. When he finished the painting, he went and gifted it to the doctor. The mouse was now bedridden. All the money he saved up went to the medical bills. His sons would take turns taking care of their old man. Sometimes, their wives and kids would come and help as well. Seeing all of them made the mouse happy. One evening, there was a knock on the door. It was the doctor. He went upstairs to see the mouse. The mouse noticed that his friend, the doctor, had a strange look on his face. The doctor was holding a painting. The doctor talked with the mouse for a while, and then, tore the wrapper and showed the painting to the mouse. The mouse cried, and the doctor cried too. The room was filled with all possible emotions. It was the most beautiful painting of The Big Sea the mouse had ever seen. There was a boat at the end of the Sea, and there was a small, black mouse, stretching his arms and legs, touching the setting Sun. The mouse finally stopped crying and smiled, as his soul reached the Sun.