They called it strange love. It was beyond their cerebral capacity to understand how someone could love a rodent; a creature that stirred the most primal fear of invisible danger in my mother, made her see monsters in every defensive squeak. Albie’s albino skin was unnatural to them, his glassy red eyes a sign of Satan’s summer vacation. They were equally stumped and fascinated by his antics on the wheel in his cage and utilized every chance to question me; why did I want a mouse for a pet? I never gave them an answer, but then again, I never questioned them why they wanted another son. They brought one home anyway.

They claimed Albie’s bald head was disgusting and kissed my little brother’s naked pate with unexplainable glee. They complained that Albie’s ears were too huge for his small head and why did nature even make them like that? Then, they went on to take a dozen pictures of my little brother’s oversized ears that stuck out from his head at right angles and made him look like an uninviting alien.

Albie’s daytime shrieks were intolerable to them; while my brother’s midnight banshee rendition was adorable. The world was my brother’s stage to practice crawling, but heaven forbid if Albie ever stepped out of my room! My conversations with Albie were classified as insanity while I was branded insensitive for not appreciating the poetry in my chubby little brother’s goo goos and ga gas. My brother was touted to become the next Churchill and Albie they predicted would probably be of better use under a scalpel in someone’s research lab. That rat on TV makes five-star hotel food. Your rat can’t even make cornflakes, roared my mother in triumphant laughter as she wiped away a spoon of baby food that my brother had spit up. Albie is a mouse, I did not bother to correct her, nor point out that the only thing my brother successfully managed to make was poop.

They said I must love my brother by default, wasn’t he just the most adorable thing. I told them love and duty are two very different notions. Strange, they said. We’ve failed, they concluded, for our eldest is capable of loving a mouse but not his own brother, who is just the most adorable thing.

And strange I thought, for my little brother, in all his wad of baby fat had managed to effectively shut my parents out on me, the mouse-loving older one, recently sentenced to eternal loneliness.  They were oblivious to Albie because he was just a mouse and they refused to see me because I was just a mouse-lover.

“Daddy” calls out my 4-year old, here at the pet store, and that brings me back from my trail of thoughts. “Have you made your choice?” I ask him and he nods excitedly.

I pay the store clerk and hand the medium sized cage to him as he asks me, “What should we call him?”

I take one look at the albino skin and glassy red eyes scurrying around inside and smile at my son, "Albie, may be".