The world is odd at his size.
The mouse toggles between soil that sinks below his feet and a sky that threatens to wash him away. Within the limbo of nature, nothing seems as small as the mouse. Each day, taunted by his tectonic pawed neighbors, rumbling his weak underbelly as they pass through, the mouse feels his distaste strengthen. The power they wielded simply with their size was enough to make the mouse grow in rapacity.
“You mope around too much,” said the wolf, bending so his mouth levied with the mouse’s head. “You have the dirt at your disposal after all!”
With a wolfish grin, the towering animal sauntered away, kicking up the Earth in a successful attempt to beleaguer the mouse. The mouse buried himself further into his burrow: an anxious mess of grass stuffed dirt.
“Wolf is right….” the mouse entombed himself in his personalized dishevelment of green. “He's right isn’t he...”
“You know Mouse,” the hummingbird began. The lightness of her voice aligned with the soft titter of her wings. “Owl says ‘when the moon reflects against the pond, our hunger will cease.’”
The mouse's ears perked up and he scampered out to meet his friend.
“Pond? What pond?”
The hummingbird chirped, dumbfounded.
“The pond next door Mouse! Do you not leave your burrow?”
The mouse bowed his head shyly.
“There’s not much to see out here…” he mumbled to himself.
“Well it is a full moon tonight…” in that moment the hummingbird became the mouse’s goad, subtly pushing the mouse to try his luck.
“I see…” the mouse murmured and slunk back into his burrow.
________
That night, the moon was indeed full and the mouse could feel it loom over him, beckoning him to bathe in its rays. The mouse complied to the invisible offering, nimbly finding his way to the pond. Recalling his earlier conversation with the hummingbird, the mouse peered upon the sliver of water, painted an ever flowing glow of silver. All else was still and the mouse could only fathom the unheard voice of the moon, calling into the depths of the his hunger, his craving to be bigger. That was what swelled inside of him, making his body hollow. Eagerly, the mouse dipped his nose into the water. 652Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXFbnuhVTRb
Nothing happened.
Defeated the mouse hauled himself home, disappointment digging into his body and making his feet feel like stones. However, morning arrived and the mouse could no longer sit comfortably in his home; his body had misshaped his burrow. Ecstatic, the mouse heaved himself out and smugly awaited the wolf’s arrival. 652Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ56AklrSogr
652Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjezyJAgz6h
“Tiny still! Barely up to my hind feet!” The wolf smirked and paraded away.652Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4B7lFaSoSr
The hollowing returned to the mouse and that night he subsided it with a visit to the pond for more. In the morning he was sure he had passed the height of his adversary's legs yet the wolf never came. So, the mouse returned to the pond each night again and again and again. Growing bigger and bigger yet he awoke each morning hollow. He could never satisfy the emptiness in his underbelly, which felt weaker no matter his size. He could never fill the pit in his body and dismay became a stake in his stomach, rooting him to the pond’s edge even after the mouse drank it dry. 652Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXukGkasKgH
