Hello, Tumblr Nation

Hello, Tumblr nation

I wrote and illustrated a simple story for my class (instead of doing a presentation about shopping), so now I'm going to share it with all of you: Ehem, it is called

'Molly's miserable life'

Molly was just your average mouse. Well, maybe not exactly average, since she was way too fluffy for a mouse, had dappled fur, and her tail was too long.

Molly, a dark blue mouse with fluffy dappled white fur. We can only see her back. In the background is a homly blurry room.

Her personality didn’t match a regular mouse either. She was way too inquisitive, irrational, rebellious and her sleep cycle was off. Or so thought her parents.

Still the same background. There're various overexaggerated silhouettes of Molly. One is of her twisting her head in curiousity; a question mark above her. The other one is of Molly's head with an X in the middle of the forehead. The third one is of her screaming angrily. The last one shows her sleeping during the daytime.

Her life was as average as she was. She could never find a place for herself in her own house. It seemed to Molly that her parents made it their goal to make her as ashamed of herself, as it was possible. She thought of cutting off her fluff, but she could never bring herself to truly do it, so instead she opted to wear a cloak.

Same background. it's a silhouette of Molly with a cloak covering her full body, except for the end of the muzzle, ears and tail. The cloak is light grey-ish.

Molly’s life wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t miserable either. After all, she was fed and had a roof over her head. That had to count for something, right?

But one day, her life turned truly miserable. That was when her parents finally had had enough with her.

“You wretched child! I wish to see you no longer!” her mother screamed, “Go and live your own miserable life, let us be no part of it!”

Her father threw Molly’s pouch at her, “And take this waste with you!”

Molly in a cloak is bending down with shame. Her parents, drawn as simple silhouettes, are screaming at her. One is standing on all fours, back rising. The other is pointing its paw at her. The background is an image of a little triangular house with small doors. There's a lot of greenery around.

They shut the door in front of Molly, as she stood there, dumbfounded; screams still ringing in her ears. It took her a moment to compose herself, but eventually she did.

Same background, but the door and windows are shut now. Molly is still bent down, but now she is crying.

Everything is the same, but Molly is wiping her tear away with one paw.

Same background. Molly now stands tall, holding her black pouch in her paws.

“I’ll need a new home,” she thought, “and for that I’ll need many things. But first, I’ll have to think of a shopping list.”

She decided to think of it on her way downtown, to the market, but her thoughts immediately went in the other direction. She had never been to the market, but she heard stories of it. Going there was her best bet, even though it would be tiring, as it was a long way from here. But she had no other choice. Going to the nearest kiosk wouldn’t provide Molly with anything of use, unless she wanted to get lung cancer or pick up crossword puzzles. And that wasn’t something she planned on doing in the near future. Besides, she wouldn’t even be able to get into the kiosk.

Molly is holding her pouch and running to the right, her hind legs now visible from under the cloak. A blurry image of a street is the background.

An indoor shopping centre, which was just a few streets down, was also off the table. Shopping centres, more often than not, are awfully pristine. Molly would be spotted in seconds on those white floors. And people don’t react well to rodents being found in their spaces, so in the best case scenario she would be instantly thrown out. She didn’t want to think of the other scenarios, as she had already experienced enough trauma for the day.

At that point, Molly had walked quite the distance, and her paws ached, but she wasn’t keen on giving up just because she felt a little pain. She was stubborn like that. Or perhaps she wanted to prove her parents wrong. Maybe it was both.

Suddenly a loud, almost hysterical, barking rang out from behind Molly. Startled out of her musings, she jumped around.

Silhouettes of a scrawny person holding a leash of a big dog. The dog is leaping, trying to tug the owner with it. The owner is holding one hand with the other, and has their feet firmly planted into the ground. The background is a blurry image of some street with an air dancer in it.

She saw a big king shepherd dog trying to run away from a huge air dancer; the dog’s scrawny owner was holding it back, miraculously not falling over. Molly instantly felt at ease. She knew them. Those two always went to the market to sell food there.

“Oh, oh,” she realised she could hitch a ride to the market. Her parents always warned her not to hitchhike, but they weren’t there now.

Grabbing the pouch with her mouth, Molly darted towards the dog on all fours. She jumped and grabbed onto its big tufts of fur, climbing into the undercoat jungle. After she had settled herself in the pelt, she released the pouch and relaxed.

Molly is on all fours running at the camera. Her black pouch is in her mouth. We can see her pink nose, legs and tail. The background is yet another blurry picture of a random street.

“That was amazing. Best thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t even have to pay a fare,” she whispered to herself. Molly lied down and with a foreign feeling of proudness, she continued thinking about various shops.

Molly is lying flat on her stomach, her paws stretched out in front of her. We can only see a bit of her muzzle. Her pouch is lying on the left side of the picture. The background is a a bunch of big brown fur tufts.

“Living in a supermarket would be perfect. Hiding in the storage room, eating different food every day, watching people come and go from the top of the shelves. Heaven come to earth”. Sadly that was only wishful thinking of Molly’s. Surprisingly, there weren’t any supermarkets nearby in that area, even though it was a big city.

Molly then pondered about the market she was heading to. What would it look like? What would she do once she got there? She heard it was always crowded, so she would need to avoid being stepped on. She also knew that there was everything, though it was hard to comprehend how that was possible, but if that was, indeed, true, then she would be living a royal life.

Or just a good mouse’s life because to be a royal you probably needed to be rich, and Molly was hard up, especially for the human currency. But was it possible that ‘rich’ didn’t exactly imply cash? Molly decided not to continue that tangent of thoughts, and instead let herself drift off.

In about 30 minutes she woke up from a harsh landing onto the hard ground. The dog shook itself off, which sent Molly flying. Dazed, she urgently looked around to see if there was any danger nearby. Thankfully, she fell close to a metal pole of some kind, which all the people walked around. She groggily reached out to her pouch and brought it close to her fluffy chest. She then sat there for a moment to compose herself. For the second time that day. She felt awfully free. Molly inspected herself and to her horror there was no cloak.

Molly is sitting in front of a pole. She isn't in a cloak anymore. She is looking at her paws. Her legs are brought closely together. Molly's tail is curled around her. Her fluff that reminises hair is white. The white spots spread under her head and on her sides. Her eyes are blue, pupils small to show the emotion of horror. She has small eyelashes. Her brows are small round blobs of white. There are also three white dots under her eyes. She has white whiskers.

“Where has it gone?!” Not thinking clearly, she ran from the safety of the pole’s proximity into the open area, filled with people. Scurrying around left and right, trying to avoid being stepped on and searching for her clothing, Molly wandered into the butcher’s stall.

That took her out of her trance, as she saw dead animals and their meat hanging off the massive iron hooks. Her hackles rose, she forgot about her coat; her mind was empty. She stood still, chained by fear. Seconds seemed to last infinitely long. Never in her life had Molly experienced such a terror.

A close up of Molly's face. She is scared. Her fur is spiky. The background is a blur of brown and red colours.

And suddenly she was lifted into the air and, with confidence in the abductor’s steps, being carried away from the stall. Still speechless from what she had experienced a mere moment ago, she silently struggled to free herself from the unknown’s grasp.

“Stop wriggling or I’ll drop you,” muffledly said to her the creature.

Feeling a surge of bravery or maybe adrenaline, Molly squeaked, “I’d rather stay a homeless mouse and be dropped onto the floor than be kidnapped!”

He quietly took in her answer and replied.

“If I did that, you’d run off, and I am not in the mood to race after an insane mouse. Furthermore…” the abductor went on a long rant, but Molly tuned him out, trying to take a peek at his face, which was a hard thing to do as she was being carried by the scruff.

“What even are you…”, she accidentally blurted out, and then covered her mouth in shock of what she had just done. Molly was sure that was the end. The offender must have been appalled by her boldness, and was going to kill her for it, but instead he just said, “I am a cat.”

Great, Molly was going to be eaten. She was sure of it. She didn’t even get to live a miserable life, only a miserable end. Truly awful.

“And no, I am not eating you.”

Molly is being carried by a milky white cat with grey stripes. His eyes are blue. We can only see a little bit of the cat's face and neck. Molly's upper torso is visible. The background is of a blurry market.

Molly was about to ask whether the cat was lying, but got cut off by him speaking once more, “And I am not lying either. I only eat what my owner, the Butcher, provides.”

She didn’t want to think of that scary place, so instead she listened intently to the cat. Taking her silence as a sign to continue, he did just that.

“You see, it’s good for the business. I don’t kill the local, so-called “pests”, I make a deal with them. They can eat whatever they want from all the butchers’ stalls but ours, so the quality of our stall is always top-notch compared to the others.”

That was a good strategy Molly thought. But why was he still carrying her then? She asked just that, but in reply she got dropped.

“Rude,” she mumbled.

“That’s your new home. I am off now, bye,” said the cat, as if it had explained anything, and jumped off the stall’s roof. Wait, the stall’s roof?! Molly hadn’t noticed how she had been brought there, and was quite at a loss for words, not only from the situation, but also her own obliviousness.

Tiny Molly can be seen on top of a cloth roof of a stall. She is turned with her back towards the camera. There are two question marks above her.

She turned around and saw a tear in the cloth of the roof, marked blue with what she assumed was paint. Molly timidly entered it and saw a big group of all kinds of critters inside. The space was lit up by fairy lights, there was food, beddings made from yarn, water bottles, even toys.

A dark room with fairy lights that very slightly light it up. There can be seen silhouettes of various critters. Their eyes are white dots.

Everyone was staring at her, and she was doing just the same to them. Then one of them stepped towards her. It was a small rat with one eye.

Same background with critters. This time there's a black rat in the foreground. It has small pink ears and a black nose. One eye is closed and scarred. The other one is open and blue. It is blushing a little. Its paws are held up against its body.

“Hello, are you here to join us?”

“Yes,” absentmindedly said Molly, but then quickly corrected herself, “I mean, what? What are you? What is this place?”

The rat just smiled warmly, “I see, Felidae, the cat that had brought you here, hasn’t filled you in on anything, has he?”

Molly simply shook her head, and the rat continued, “Well, we are a group of misfits that live here,” at the word ‘misfits’ the rat pointed at its eye. “We are all like a big family! And there are a lot of us, so I am sure you’ll find at least one friend here, don’t worry.”

It then held out its paw to Molly, “here, let me introduce you to everybody.”

Same picture, but this time the rat is holding out its paw towards the camera.

After a long introduction of the whole group, Randy, the first rat that Molly had met, led her out to the roof to explain their usual schedule and any other miscellaneous things.

He pointed out all kinds of stalls: the scary butchers’ and fishmongers’ stalls, where they would often steal meat; the florist’s, from which they’d take flowers for decorating; the greengrocers’ stalls, which were also often the targets of their heists; the haberdashery, which was a spectacular place for getting all kinds of materials for their base.

Randy explained that it was easier for them to just steal things, though if Molly preferred to instead steal money from the lost wallets, and then leave it at the stalls that would also be fine.

Molly decided to stay with the misfits, and with time she got the hang of their way of doing things. It was good, she wasn’t being shamed for being different, so maybe, living her miserable life wasn’t as bad as she had thought it would be.

Molly is sitting happily on top of the cloth roof. Her eyes half closed and her mouth spread in a wide grin. Her tail is making a heart. She looks almost the same, but the white colours on her fur spread a little more on her body. There are blue skies behind her. At the right top corner there's an enscryption saying, 'The end'.

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