Rat

Mate

What a beautiful day. I had found an absolute bounty of food. It was lying all around, just discarded. I couldn't believe my luck. They were like mushrooms: the day before there had been nothing there, and now this morning they had popped up out of nowhere. They were bright colours and strange shapes that I hadn't experienced before, but they were food.

It was a great harvest.

I took my time to collect as much as I could and I took it back to my burrow. I resisted the temptation to eat it straight away. I had a mate to look after. I had children to feed. Their needs were greater than mine, and there would be food enough for all of us--a few hours of waiting would be nothing in the long run. It was more important to gather the food before the other creatures discovered it.

Food was a competition--and there was a lot of competition for food. Birds would swoop down from the sky and steal morsels right from my paws. Other creatures--some small, some big--would fight me before relenting. Some would beat me and take the food, others would not be so lucky. The ones with the worst luck became food themselves.

But now I was a father, and my mate had given birth to a litter of a dozen little versions of me. I needed to be sure they were all well-fed. I needed to be sure they were all safe.

So I harvested as much of this brightly coloured food that I could, and I made sure to take it all back to the burrow. I found them everywhere, but mainly they were around the enormous nest that the beasts lived in. I don't think there was any left by the time my harvest was finished, and my mate was thrilled. I could see my little offspring gorging themselves. They had never experienced such a bounty of food.

But there might have been more, so I headed out to investigate. This was too good an opportunity to ignore. This much food could get us through the colder months, when the star hardly ever appeared and the dark grew so cold that ice formed on the grass, and on our whiskers.

So I searched and searched, but I found nothing. I had harvested it all. I had to be content with that. I had been a good provider; I could return to my burrow knowing I had done the best I could for my offspring.

So I headed home.

The first time I realised something was wrong was when I saw my mate. She was just lying there, outside our burrow for the whole world to see. Any predators could have just swooped down and eaten her. But they hadn't. She was lucky.

No, she wasn't lucky at all. As I approached, I realised that she smelled wrong. She didn't smell like her. She smelled like death. She smelled like poison.

And she was dead.

I stared down at her body. Her face was absolute torture--clearly, she had been in pain when she died. That stung. What had killed her? I didn't know. She had been perfectly fine when I had left for more food.

But there was nothing that I could do for her now. I had to check on my offspring. I headed into the burrow.

The smell hit me. It was not pleasant.

I stared down at my children. They were all like my mate: they had died in complete, writhing agony. All of them were gone. It was hard to fathom. When I had left them earlier, they were all alive. They were all happy and eating. Now they are gone. Lost to me.

There was nothing left for me to do. In my funk, I notice one last remaining morsel of the food that I found. I had nothing else to do, and being hungry wouldn't solve anything.

I ate.