Just the Right Bullets by Tom Waits, from The Black Rider

The trap is supposed to kill the mouse instantly, but the rodent is evidently a tragic victim of false advertising, because half an hour has passed and its shrill death throes still rise over the sound of Squadron B going over the top on the television screen.

He must have seen this movie a dozen times, and it wasn't particularly good when he first saw it. But it takes his mind off the other three tasks that await him, so he tries to put the mouse's squeals out of his mind.

He turns up the volume. Reaches for a cigarette.

He is good at what he does. That is why he is still alive. For fifty years, he has carried out orders, sometimes with an ulterior motive, less frequently with the most honest of intentions. Somewhere along the line he has started giving the orders, but that hasn't changed very much.

He has three things to do within the next hour. The first involves a petty dictator in a Third World country, and a sharp command to cease and desist or risk American involvement. It does not particularly concern him, and six months ago there would have been someone else to carry out the orders, but circumstances being what they were, complications have arisen.

The second is to call Teena Mulder, a number he has dialed once in the past twenty-five years, and tell her that her daughter has been found wandering naked in Central Park, and is at the moment in restraints at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He has to do it soon, because otherwise Mulder himself will make the call. And then there will be further complications.

The third, and the most immediate, is to walk to the other side of the room and end the agony of the mouse that is, at the moment, scratching desperately at the cheap wood of the trap. Recent developments have made him once again the most powerful man in America, but the tiny creature's noises remind him that, titles aside, that doesn't mean much in the greater scheme of things.

He finishes the cigarette. The ashtray is overflowing, but it can wait. His steps are heavy as he crosses the floor.

One hand pinches the mouse's tail as the other springs the trap. There is another squeak. Its small leg is crushed, blood staining the gray fur, but it still struggles pitifully, tries to bite him. His own scars ache in sympathy.

He wonders if it will live if he releases it. Probably not. He imagines, for a moment, approaching one of the Visitors with the bizarre request to heal it.

The realization that this is actually an option makes him smile. He glances at the telephone.

The mice have been active for days, driven to madness inside his apartment by the first snow. On some nights, they have kept him awake.

With careful precision, he snaps its neck. Tosses the limp body into the garbage.

He resets the trap.

And then he picks up the phone.

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