The manicou of my discontent

How has it come to pass that my greatest wish is for a life with fewer manicous?

Growing up in the noise and peopleness of St James, what I wanted was a quiet place in which to raise a modest family of fur babies.

Now I have both a quiet place and fur babies.

I was not prepared for the possibility that children with paws might want something human children want, to wit, pets.

It all started when the cats’ father – that marvel of calm and equanimity – woke screaming in the middle of the night. As a cat romped violently on his bed, the man in the bed stirred, his eyes slid to the I’m-not-really-awake level and alighted upon a tiny manicou delicately arranged – and alive – upon his person.

So begins the hysteria. Man mummifies himself in all the bedsheets within arm’s reach (which can’t be more than two, but it seemed like a lot at the time) as though the creature was an affront to his modesty.

The manicou leaps from the bed and begins to careen about the room. I stumble into awake mode and go in search of sturdy gloves.

And that’s when I realise that something is very, deeply wrong here. The manicou is not playing dead. It appears to be running, jumping, climbing and hiding all at the same time. What it's not doing is lying motionless on the floor. This makes me want to lie motionless on the floor.

I think: “God, it’s small.”

Gloves found, marsupial and I race around the room. I am blinded by my hair – bed hair, remember – that has become a force for evil. I’m now running and shouting: “Hair! Hair! Hair!” By which I mean to convey that someone must trap my hair while I chase an increasingly malodorous little beast.

Is this small thing so young it was not yet taught the trick of survival that has served its people for so long? Is flight a stronger instinct than feigned death?

After far too long, I finally get the better of tiny manicou. Front hands are gripping the arm of a chair; the other half (the tail half) is trying to cling to a door handle. Truly impressive.

Then, because I forgot that I was actually awake and not dreaming this, I just stood there, for, I don’t know, dozens of seconds, just holding a manicou.

The cats’ father unravelled himself and came to my senses: “You should probably take it outside,” he said with more energy than I thought he had.

Outside, I opened my cupped hands. The little one paused (and I swear looked back at me), then threw itself from the great height of the tool cupboard into the bamboo patch and disappeared into the night forever.

By which I mean all the way until the next day, when it reappeared.

And the next night. And the next.

And then came the fateful day (day, I tell you) when it tried to get into a small bookcase. It’s not bad enough my blood-cats want to keep it as a pet, now it wants access to my library? How? Why? How? What is it reading now?

Today the tiny manicou arrived in the company of a cat, who set it in the middle of the floor, glared at us and walked away.

“My pet,” says cat. “He stays.”

We try to tell her he does not stay. Except now he’s under a complicated piece of furniture. So stay he does.

But the original surprise at the manicou’s very energetic behaviour has not waned. It doesn’t play dead. It won’t. In the long run – in a run of any length – this may not work out well for it. But I’m still a little in awe.

Two reasons for this. The first is the instinct to run as fast as it can from harm. This is not a metaphor. We should all learn to do that. Run. Run from what will hurt us. Run from danger of any kind.

The second thing is, for whatever reason, this manicou is going its own way. It doesn’t know how or doesn’t want to do what others do.

And that difference is the fight to survive. Small, vulnerable things can figure out how to survive. Well done, little one.

PS: References to the manicou as “it” are the unfortunate result of not knowing if this was a girl manicou or a boy manicou. I would never think of any animal as an it.

Remember to talk to your doctor or therapist if you want to know more about what you read here. In many cases, there’s no single solution or diagnosis to a mental health concern. Many people suffer from more than one condition.