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Wednesday, March 2, 1977, 8:00 pm - Day 400, Part 1
I am not sure what has come over me, but I feel like a changed person at the moment. I feel super!!, better than ever, and more than I would have ever hoped for. Just right now I feel that my shyness is gone. Gone completely! Without a trace, even. I don't know if it will last forever, or if I will slip back into my old self, whom I have been for so long. I would never have believed it possible, and for sure would have never thought it would come so easily. I've always thought that my shyness was just me, and that I could overcome it if I tried really really hard. To me, it looked like a terrific effort, an impossible effort, was needed, and I thought that there was no way in the world that I was going to change. "I am what I am, and that's all what I am, and there ain't no more" - Popeye (I think). That's the way I always thought. There wasn't any way in the world that I was going to change. I felt that psychiatrists telling me that I hated my father and loved my mother sure wouldn't do anything to help me. I knew that if it was ever going to happen, which it wasn't, then it would have to come from someplace deep inside me, and that place just wasn't there.
I think that this last page pretty well sums up my belief about my shyness situation. It was written just as I thought, almost, because I can't write as fast as I think, although I am trying very, very hard. I have to try to hold my mind back so that I don't miss anything, because I want to get it all down in the book. If this is the greatest moment in my life so far, which I think it is, then I want to get it all down on paper, even if it takes a million pages. It will be something to look back on after I relapse back to my old self, if it happens. I am not saying that I will relapse, but I sure don't want to say that "this is it" and that I will never revert back to my old self, because that will jinx it. I do believe that if I get all of these thoughts down on paper, then if I start to sink back, I could pull them out and read them, and they would put me back to the same emotional state which I am at right now.
This is tiring, writing without stopping, this fast and for so long. Putting in this last sentence and this one also show that I have finally lost my train of thought. It is probably just as well, because I might possibly write until my arm falls off, otherwise. I am forcing myself to take a small break, because I will burn myself out, otherwise.
- This is about 15 minutes later. I want to tell all of what I can remember of what I've been doing and thinking these past few days, back to the time of my fever, which I think was where the symptoms of my cure seemed to start happening, and also a little from before that time to set the stage.
I am going to start at the most recent past and work my way backwards because that is the way they will be coming out of my memory. If I start at the beginning and work my way forwards I will be sure to leave out something, because I will be trying to sort things out in my head, but I don't want to do that. I want to just put them down as they come.
I am forcing myself to write more relaxed and slowly, because this is going to take a long time, and I am not looking forward to the mental drain from it, but I've got to write!
The first thing, or that is, the last thing that happened came just immediately after I had dotted the period, at the end of where I said I was going to take a break. I still had the pen in my hand and was thinking about writing more, when all of a sudden, I heard a shot directly behind me in my room, with the door and windows closed. Before you wonder why I am not now dead from the bullet wound, the shot came from a mouse trap that I had set under my bed. When I realized what it was, and what it means, it really sent my emotional state even higher than it was, which I had just finished telling you was already super-high. I could hardly keep myself within myself. I am pretty sure now that the way I feel now won't completely wear off later on. It can't.
Anyway, the mouse trap going off signified my first actual bite from my very elusive opponent. This mouse moved into my room and into my mattress on my bed just a few weeks after I, myself, moved in. He was just a little fellow then and super fast. There was no way that I could catch him then, because it was about 2 weeks more before I was able to find a mouse trap. I would hardly ever see the little bugger during the day, but at night I always knew where he was. It upset me the first few nights, hearing him munching away in my mattress under my pillow, but I finally got used to it. This mattress is a set of springs on the inside and then built up with padding on the top and covered over on the bottom and sides. There was a big hole in the bottom covering, but the top and sides were intact, so I finally convinced myself that the mouse wasn't going to start crawling around on my body while I slept.
He was still a nuisance, though, him running up and down inside the mattress, making the springs sing. When I bought the trap, I thought for sure his reign was through, because he has stirred up my fighting spirit and I was ready for a little sport. No luck. He just wouldn't bite. For two weeks I had that trap set, changing locations and trying different bait. I could still hear him in my bed every night, but I never once saw him outside it during all that time. "This mouse was smarter than I thought", I thought. I think it was about this time I left for Saiama and when I came back I don't think I noticed him. I left for Saiama again, and this time when I came back, he was also back, back in my bed.
This brings us up to my current stay in Kamiendor. The next morning, maybe 10 or 11 am, I was standing up in my room in the process of doing something, I forget what, when who should scurry into my room through my door but my little friend, back from some shopping, I suppose. I noticed right away that he had grown up some since I first met him. He seemed big and fat (1-1/4"diameter, 4" long) and was a whole sight slower than before. I was almost able to get hold of him right then and there, but I couldn't bring myself to grab him with my bare hands or stomp him with only my sandels on, and couldn't bring myself to actually kill him like that anyway.
I got out the trap again and shook all of the dust off, set it, loaded it with cheese, and put it under the bed.
I forgot to say that when I came back from Saiama this last time, I found the trap sprung and turned upside down, when it had been set when I left. Knowing this, and seeing the mouse's slowness, I knew that I had a good chance of catching him this time.
No bite. Until this morning, that is. I didn't see it, but the trap was sprung, but the cheese was still there. It was solid as a rock by now. That might be why he didn't take it, but probably it was because he got snapped at the last time that he tried. I reset the trap, this time with a nice big juicy homemade cookie, of which I have a store. He went for it back when I had finished writing. I took the lantern to look, but I knew the trap had missed, because I thought I heard him go back up inside the bed. I rest the trap and was sliding it back under, when it went off, and I pulled back so quick that I knocked the lantern over and it went out. It didn't break or spill either.
At this time I heard the mouse. He was still alive, but he sounded injured. I went out and hauled in one of the house-kids to help me, because I didn't want any injured mouse up and dieing in my bed. I was about ready to pull the sheets off the bed to get at the mattress, when the kid noticed my mouse lying under the bed, sort of out of the way, where he had probably been thrown from the explosion. It wasn't dead yet. The kid picked it up by the tail and took it out. Just then the father showed up and took over from there. He took the mouse by the tail and beat it against the wall and then the floor, until he was sure it was dead, and then took a mighty swing with it, and it went sailing far out the back door. I was sorry to see it die, but it was probably best that way.
That's the end of Episode #1. It might be the longest because not only was it the most recent and therefore most fresh in my mind, but it had its roots planted deep in time.
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