The Weight: Chapter 5
#5 of The Weight
Here is chapter 5. Enjoy.
Chapter 5: The Life of a Loner
Driven mad by the recent famine, Humphrey was now willing to do anything to get some form of sustenance to his famished belly. So desperate was he for a meal that he picked through the hay for even the tiniest of insects, but these were not enough to satisfy, and were hardly worth choking down. He needed something with some meat in order to please his ailing stomach. In the time that had passed since his recent attempt to catch the mouse, he had seen it poke its head out from the crack into which it had disappeared, but each time those beady black eyes fell upon Humphrey, the mouse would quickly shoot backwards and out of sight.
Humphrey needed to formulate some sort of plan if he were to succeed in his attempts to catch this mouse, so, after about the fifth time he watched it dart back into the crack, he focused all of his attention on figuring the simplest and fastest route to what would hopefully be his first meal in about five days.
He paced the floor, considering his options and making guesses as to how likely it would be for each option to yield a profitable outcome, then, after about five minutes, he decided to put his first plan into action.
He theorized that if he were to wait beside the hole, then maybe he could catch the mouse with his paw as it poked its head out. He was uncertain as to how well this would work, seeing as the place where he would hide offered him only the briefest of windows before his discovery, but as far as he figured, it was his best chance, so he was going to take it and hope for the best.
Taking careful deliberation in his footfalls, Humphrey crept toward the wall of the train car, taking extra care to make certain that his progression was as quiet as the animal he hunted, and once he got to the wall, he turned so that his body rested along its face. Now came the time for the waiting game. Quietly he lifted his paw above the hole so that when the mouse again poked its head from inside of it, he could smash its skull, and held this position, waiting patiently for his next opportunity to arise.
Though his body was at rest, his heart raced and his suspended paw shook violently, but he knew not why. He could not tell if he was nervous, weak with hunger, or if he was excited, but in the end he concluded that it was probably a little bit of everything.
He labored meticulously over his breathing and attempted to retard the rate of his heart, for he knew that absolute silence was vital to the success of this mission, but kept his eyes and forethought focused on the hole beneath his paw so that when the moment came he would be ready.
The minute wasted away into three, then blended into five and still there was not a sign of his prey, but just when he was on the threshold of giving up and trying a different tactic, he heard a faint rustle and scratch near the entrance of the crack, but the mouse remained in the void, perhaps sensing that something was wrong and hesitating so that it may identify the change in its environment and deem it a hazard to its life. Humphrey held his breath, fighting to arrest his trembling paw, and praying that his heart wasn't beating as loud as he thought it was, and then from out of the void, a nose appeared, followed shortly thereafter by a pair of eyes and finally a head.
This was it.
The mouse's little nose twitched tumultuously as it sniffed the wood before its hole, and its large ears flicked about like tiny radars, scanning the area for any foreign interlopers which may wish to cause it harm.
Humphrey waited for the mouse to turn its head toward him so that its shoulders were revealed to give him a larger target, then as the mouse turned, Humphrey made his move.
He lashed downward with his paw, startling the unsuspecting mouse, but as his paw made contact with the floor, he found that he had missed and that the mouse had ducked safely back into its hole once more.
Irritated by his second failure, Humphrey cursed and slashed the floor with his claws then moved away from the wall.
"Amazing," he muttered to himself, "can't even manage to catch a stupid mouse."
He sighed and regarded the hole with callous eyes then turned away.
Time for Plan B.
A&?
Despite the laborious task of locating a decent spot then helping to dig her and Garth's den, Kate still found her mind drifting away from the job at hand and to Humphrey. She wondered where he was, what he was doing, how he was feeling, and she worried about his safety. She wondered if she would ever see him again. She wondered if he even wanted to see her again, and sadly wouldn't blame him if he didn't. She wondered if he was still on the train, and if he was, how far he had gone and how much further still he would travel. She wondered if he missed her as badly as she missed him, but above everything, she wondered if he even wanted her to look for him.
"Woah, Kate, wake up!" Garth yelled and pulled her by her hide backward and out of the way of the rubble that crashed to the ground.
Kate, now realizing that she had wandered, was slapped in the face by the realization that she almost lost her life, then lowered her eyes in shame.
"Sorry," she apologized, turning to Garth with a distant gaze, "guess I drifted off."
"I'll say," Garth mused, a hint of mock in his tone.
Kate turned wordlessly and went back to work, trying to fix her blunder, but Garth could tell that she was doing so halfheartedly due to the seemingly mechanical motion of her body.
"Kate, what's troubling you?" he asked her, "you've been vague all day, like you're just not in it."
"I don't know," Kate replied, ceasing to dig and turning to him, "it's just that seemingly everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong and I don't know what I can do to fix it."
Garth sat down before her and gestured with his paw for her to join him.
"I'm all ears," he stated invitingly.
Kate reluctantly conceded and took a seat before him.
"Well... it's just that... Humphrey was a good friend of mine and I treated him like dirt," she began, "I always put myself above him and pushed him aside like trash and now that I realize what I've done it's already too late. I've already driven him out of the park, probably for good, and on top of that my parents are fighting."
Garth nodded.
"Yes, I wondered why your dad passed out in my dad's den last night," he mused, "but he never told me why. Would you like to continue?"
Kate lowered her eyes to her paws.
"Yeah," she answered flatly, tempting her eyes toward Garth's face once again, "and now that Humphrey is gone, I seem to be the only one who cares. I told my parents and they shrugged it off like he meant nothing, but he means something to me. I-"
She stopped herself upon realizing that she was getting carried away, but she knew that she had said too much, so she lowered her eyes, subjecting herself to the imminent question.
"You what?" Garth asked her, cocking his head to the side.
Kate lowered her head further and felt hot tears begin to sting her eyes.
"I'm sorry Garth," she choked and bolted away from him.
Garth, fearing that he had upset her, rose immediately to follow her.
"Kate," he called, but she did not stop.
He sped up and cut Kate off, causing her to slam her forepaws into the ground and skid to a halt.
"Kate what are you doing?" he asked, but instead of answering she brushed past him, "Kate talk to me," he said, grabbing her shoulder with his paw and turning her to face him.
With a passion birthed by her anger and woe, she tore herself free from his paw and stepped toward him, putting her nose so close to his that they nearly touched.
"I can't do this, alright!" she yelled, "I can't play this stupid game any longer!"
"Kate, what do you mean?" Garth asked her confused.
She locked her jaw, on the verge of exploding, but after a moment, she relaxed and lowered her head.
"Nothing," she replied monotonously and turned away from him, "just forget it. Forget it. It doesn't matter anyway."
Garth stepped forward so that he stood at her side.
"Kate I-"
"Please, Garth," Kate begged, "just leave me alone."
Garth did not know what to do so he sat down, and as he did so, Kate began to walk off. Garth wanted to follow her, but he knew that doing so would only make the matter worse, so he watched her go, and once she was out of sight, he cursed and turned away.
A&?
Humphrey watched the crack intently from atop his perch, ready to pounce upon the mouse like a cat once it ventured forth into the middle of the car.
He did not know why he had thought of this, because the stack of hay bales on which he lied was anything but stable, but he had committed far too much into this plan to back out now, and besides, his stomach was quite convincing when it told him to partake in hazardous activities in order to get a meal into it.
So there he lied in wait, his eyes open and his ears alert, but was otherwise motionless.
He dreamed about how delicious the mouse would be once its plump body was held between his jaws. He relished on the thought of how its little bones would crack between his teeth, how quenching the blood would be as it seeped down his throat. Just the thought made him begin to salivate, and his desire for food quickly transformed into a craving. The flesh would be tender, the juices sweet, and how he could just picture how it would feel to have the tail squirm violently between his lips.
The mouse, however, was not so keen to show itself again seeing as that the last time it breeched beyond the safety of the crack, it narrowly escaped with its life.
The minutes wasted slowly away and still the mouse remained inside of the crack. Humphrey was beginning to grow impatient and wished now that he had some means of luring the mouse out of the crack with some form of bait, but he had nothing, so all he could do was grit his teeth and bear the agonizing torture of waiting with the hope that it would soon pay off.
But twenty minutes passed and still there was nothing to show for it but a piquing frustration.
Deciding to call it quits, Humphrey rolled his eyes in aggravation and pressed himself to his paws, but as he moved, the muscles in his legs wrenched themselves into clenching knots, refusing to allow him to move any further. Having been so suddenly assailed by the pain, Humphrey yelped and threw himself down onto the hay, but as soon as his body hit, the unstable stack was knocked off of its fragile point of equilibrium and began to tilt toward the opening of the train car.