The mice show me their feet. Look, they say. We have clever mice feet. We will build temples for you. A wave of frothy mud fills my floor and the mice use their clever little feet to sculpt it into miniature Roman structures; a replica Colosseum, a small-scale Pantheon, a petite aqueduct. They hum ballads while they work and I wonder where they studied architecture.

The mice pat the frothy mud into a bust of a scowling emperor. Not Caracalla, I say. He looks so angry. They resculpt it into a waterfall that tastes like sanctuary and cotton candy, and they create rosebud roads and starshine bridges and parks filled with velvet pillows, and they sing me disco songs that make my not-so-clever feet tap light, so I tell them it's not the wrong place for them after all, they can live in my desk drawer, if they want, forever, if they want, as long as they don't mind the stray paper clips.