mysteries

oday on the way back from class I came across a mouse flattened on the sidewalk. It wasn't a dramatic, unpleasant flattening, not like a mouse was just sitting and got a piano dropped on it. It had remained mouselike, but been shrunk down heightwise to a few millimeters, like somebody was projecting the image of a mouse onto the sidewalk. It looked vaguely mummified. And this was baffling for several reasons.

1. How does a mouse get flattened on a sidewalk? By an extremely wide bicycle? By the cumulative force of hundreds of pedestrians? Readers: have you ever stepped on a mouse? I haven't. I wouldn't expect a lot of people to step on a mouse. How many people have to step on a mouse before it is reduced to paper? I lot, I bet.

2. What happened to the other 90% of its mass? I will accept that it was probably about 70% water, which is gone now, hence the mummification. But what about the rest of it? I mean, if you mummify a human it's still pretty big, even (I assume) if you flatten it out after the fact.

Anyway, long story short, I saw a flat mouse. It was pretty interesting.