Expectation was a happy shrew. His life was as easy as it was young: the meadow offered infinite freshness in food, in air, in play. Every day, he woke up in the hole and assumed the sun, the seeds, and the fresh creek water would be abundant. This abundance was every day confirmed.
On a day that another species might call the thirty-first of October, Expectation was shattered to find the sun behind clouds with flaked river pieces falling where the bright rays used to be. The picture of plenty Expectation had was no longer painted outside the hole. At least the hole had not changed.
Expectation's snake tears (for shrews know nothing of alligators) froze to his face on the final day of his first calendar year; the seeds were gone. While an immense desire to sleep and stay asleep had settled over Expectation, he refused. Summer days must return. Only one way to live could exist.
February's Expectation was a miserable shrew. Each stroll through the snow tunnels spelled another looping letter X, an infinitely paced eight confirming the inanity, the insanity of the cold, fruitless, foodless wasteland the meadow had become. Expectation would not change, would not adjust.
Expectation might have seen it coming, one death or another. A winter of too much walking, too little hibernation; these things are intuitively denied in the average shrew's pre-sketched design. Expectation was
determined to accept nothing short of high July. The dog's excitement, anxious nose, and teeth came on unexpected.
Roman Ryan 