For warmth and a little peanut butter.

For this little fellow, his last days promised warmth. The winter here on the Oklahoma fields were warmer than normal. The past few days, though, were cold. In one night, the world around him became covered in ice and snow. He ran from place to place searching for a place to escape the weather. His fate was bound in a tiny hole that no one knows of except for him.

He crawled and he crawled until at last he found himself standing on vinyl flooring. It was warm, he realized, but more than that. Scattered across the strange ground beneath him is enough food to survive the winter with joy. In fact, why leave? He moves around with caution, and at length his doom stepped into his view. Beasts that he had only seen from the distance lumbered across the vinyl flooring. He hid beneath that big machine that rumbled, and waited. Finally, the great beast settled in the distance. Time for this little guy to expand his horizons. He prides himself for remaining unseen for so long, and he confidently runs to the big black thing on the carpeted ground. He did not know it them, but that was the beginning of him doom.

The great beast grumbled and rose to its feet. After some time, it exited out of a bigger hole, back into the cold. Oh well, the little fellow thinks, their loss. Why go into the cold when their is warmth and food to be found here. But the beast returns. The little guy waits and hears a few clickings. He waits and bides his time. When the great beasts rests, then he will find tonight's feast.

When the quiet settles in his new domain, our little friend follows the smell of something that is fantastically unique. Here in a little contraption of plastic and metal was a meal that he could only imagine. It took some working, but he was able to get his mouth to the stuff that smelled so good. This, he did not know, was the stuff we call peanut butter. So rapt in this moment of ecstasy, he did not see it coming. The plastic was bound to a spring, and the spring to the peanut butter, and when he got his mouth around it, the plastic came down upon his neck. He struggled and fought, but this device is twice his size. It was designed so his tiny body could not escape.

I am sorry, my friend, that the world is so small that there cannot be warmth for both of us. The moment you braved the carpet, I saw your scramblings and I knew I would be your end. You see, with your species comes disease and a will to breed that is only encourage by the warmth of my apartment. You could have raised so many with the filth that is the kitchen cleaning battles between me and my roommate. She doesn't like to sweep after her own messes, and I don't like to sweep after messes I don't make. I could have caught and released you back into your natural home, but you would only have found an unbearable cold that would have killed you anyway. At least this death found you in a moment of happiness.