Meet Mortimer Mouse

Mortimer Mouse comes from a distinguished family of literary rodents which includes Terence Ratagain and Mousehole Proust. He lives in South-East London with Richard Heller, the distinguished man of letters, and kafkaa, the poetic cockroach, cousin of the famous archy.

Mortimer Mouse has gained a global public for his uplifting homilies and has supplied them to distinguished clients under his business name of Don O’Vanewera. His personal favourites were collected in his book Keep Squeaking Through. But from now on he is writing only for [the Daily Planet.]

Richard Heller writes: In a long literary career, nothing has given me more pride than being the landlord of Mortimer Mouse. We were both at a low ebb when I first saw him in my front room three years ago. He was actually selling The Big Issue. It made me realize how shabby my flat had become that not even a mouse would choose to live there. But inspired by Mortimer’s daily thoughts, we both rose from our respective ebbs and started to go with the flow. We have transformed our home: once bleak and lonely, it is now filled with London’s most fashionable rodents at Mortimer’s regular salons.

The elegant simplicity of Mortimer’s work leads many to assume that it is effortless. But I have been privileged to see the Master – or rather, the Mouseter – at work day after day, night after night. The frenzied creativity followed by the hours of toilsome cutting and polishing of each gem often leave him limper than a politician’s excuses.

Shirley Temple was rightly fêted by Franklin Roosevelt at the White House for her role in lifting the American economy during the Great Depression. If Britain bounces back from Covid, Boris Johnson will give a similar invitation to Mortimer Mouse for restoring optimism to the business cycle.

Motivational Maxims by Mortimer Mouse

Life is just the bread in your sandwich of dreams.

Lies are like lilies. The sweeter they smell, the faster they wither. But the truth is a cactus.

When the milk of life goes sour, be patient. Before you know, it will be cheese.

Your life is a long flowing river. Don’t let it be dammed, or be damned.

When life becomes a joke, try to beat it to the punchline.

A thing worth doing is worth failing at.

To you it’s a bog but to a bug it’s an infinity pool.

Might is not always right, but might have been is always wrong.

When you can’t see the wood for the trees, would you rather be in a desert?

Without rain there would be no rainbows.

Without the blues there would be no bluebirds.

Happy places need no visas. Your mind can just walk right in.

Your past is nothing more than the first rushes of an unfinished movie. Edit it and insist on director’s cut.

Somewhere in this world, a nightingale is singing to an elephant in a moonlit stream and a child is reunited with a lost puppy.

Why expect the worst and get bad news twice over?

There is no lockdown tougher than a mind’s.

Have you taken your vitamins today?

Vitamin A-ce it!

Vitamin B1 with the universe.

Vitamin B2 others as you wish them to you.

Vitamin B12 noon not 12 midnight.

Vitamin C-elebration!

Vitamin D-ependable.

Vitamin E-asygoing.

Richard Heller

[email protected]


Categories: belles-lettres