The Plain White Room

by Oliver Phisher

  His little Shrew head darts back and forth. To his right, the sun is bright in the sky, although his bag has some valuables in it, mainly clothes, a few trinkets and enough coins to get him to his friends in the next town and a boat to a distant shore. Of course, also the bottle of very fine celebratory wine he had been keeping for a special occasion.

  To the left of him, however, back a difficult scuttling difficult climb back up to the cellar and a moment to open his safe. His mind thinks sharply about than anger in the towns folks eyes.

  The shiny dirk that Badger always carries in his belt is glinting mesmerizingly. Shrew imagines them all berating around his home. What if one of them has flipped the desk, what if they are searching for a hidden doorway passages, how Shrew could have suddenly have vanished.

  Badgers dirk was undoubtedly already drawn. Shrew shakes, imagining papers and documents floating through the air as the townsfolk throw whatever they find of hiscarelessly around. As Badger stood growling in the middle of the room, pedantry and meticulousness, his paws whitening as they choked the dirk in his hand with impatient anger.

  What if someone has flipped the desk in a rage? What if they have uncovered his secret panic room hovel and are frantically bustling around it, trying to fit in? What if one has already realised that Otter alone, or (now Shrew realises it) Mouse can provide? What if they have given him a dagger, and have sent him down to fetch their traitor?

  Shrew’s breath begins to deepen with panic. Reflecting on his life, he starts to weep. It’s not like he smoked too much pipe tobacco as Owl does, or was ever a gambling man, like Fox. It’s not as if the cards had stripped him of his reputation and he had had to live as a vagrant. Or even that he was ruthless, evil and a murderer as everyone suspected wolf to be.

  He had simply craved a particular kind of lifestyle staring at the broken wood and ominous dark hole, which tempted him with the possible promise of gold and the wealth he had worked so hard to steal, but possibly certain death. He shivered with fear. All his worldly possessions gone, bare a bottle of the finest wine available and the clothes in his bag.

  For the first moment in his short animal life, the Shrew turned. Then walked away with his head high, and his tiny light duffle bag under his arm. Starting his first steps on the long, arduous journey away from his home, and towards a distant land where he would be safe and free. In his safe he thought, a smile slipping across his face as he began to fully realise what he had done.

  The town’s folk would find more money than they could ever have dreamed. All that he had taken from them, selfishly, of course, he had been continuously reinvesting and growing for a lovely fat retirement for himself. That would be all theirs now. Otter, with the loyal hand of Badger, would ensure everyone got their fair dues. The town would flourish and prosper like never before.

  For generations to come, all would call this time ‘The Golden Age; Of Merry Town,' from the day the Shrew, a mysterious banker, had slipped away quietly, a mysterious dark hero. In the songs, they would one day sing of him, and as time passed eventually, none would ever call him. The Excessive Shrew, but only The Mighty Brave Shrew.

  As Shrew ascended his friend's boat a few weeks later, he was beaming.

  For he, was alive.

  The End