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It was just a little thing, compared to the bigger things around it. It was a big thing compared to the little crawling things it found everywhere. It put those little things in its mouth and wasn’t often sick, so it put those little things in its mouth whenever it could find them. It largely avoided the big things because they sometimes grabbed it. It didn’t like being grabbed very much, as much as it could like anything.
Here is what it did like (put into a list for your convenience):
1. Little things that it could put in its mouth without being sick
2. Big things that it could put in its mouth without being sick
3. When there was light and it was warm
4. When it was dry
Here is a truncated (for your convenience) list of what it did not like:
1. Things that would probably try to put it in their mouths
2. The many, many sicknesses
3. When there was no light and it was not warm
4. When it was not dry
5. When it hurt
6. When there was nothing to put in its mouth
It might be good at this point in the narrative to explain that bullet points five and six in the second list (see above) were largely the same thing, as it didn’t like the hurt that came after nothing being put into its mouth.
It might also be good to explain that the thing didn’t know how to tell a story, so you shouldn’t expect too much from it. It didn’t know what a story was. It had never seen a story or put one its mouth, but it was certainly willing to try if it came across one.
Sometimes it walked on two legs. Sometimes it walked on four (it couldn’t walk on more because it didn’t have more than four, you see), but sometimes it walked on none. When the ground was not dry or when the ends of its legs hurt, it went about on none.
There were lots of other small things that went about on no legs sometimes and two legs at other times. It was faster than those things and often put them in its mouth.
One time it went chasing after a small thing on no legs and was subsequently grabbed by a big thing. It didn’t like that sort of thing very much, as was said before, not after it got hurt when it was grabbed. So it made the big things stop moving. Moving things tended to hurt more than things that didn’t move at all, and even then, if it didn’t touch things that moved, then it wouldn’t be hurt by them. The thing wouldn’t have ever moved at all but for the hurt when it didn’t put things in its mouth.
The thing didn’t have any concept of how long ago it was that it had been grabbed and hurt. The thing didn’t have any concept of time, but it would be willing to try putting time into its mouth. Maybe it just hadn’t seen time yet.
It was at some point during the thing’s existence, at any rate, that the thing was not dry and not warm, which prompted a rather curious connection to be made in its head. The not dry and not warm only happened at times when there was not light everywhere. The thing didn’t care very much for light, as it either came along with big things stomping around and grabbing or else with a little circle above him that hurt its eyes when it looked at it. However, the thing was willing to trade sore eyes (besides, it could always close them) for dry and warm, so when it saw the little circle (when did that happen? Ah, well, it doesn’t matter, as it had no idea), it went off on no legs to get to it.
The circle was so little that the thing could surely put it into its mouth and be warm and hurt free. The circle only moved but slowly as well, so the thing supposed that it couldn’t hurt much even if it wanted to. However, no matter how much it walked on no legs, it couldn’t catch the little circle. It waved its forelegs at the warm little circle futilely.
If the thing knew what cruelness was, it might have labeled the circle that, but both labels and cruelty were foreign to it. It’s impossible to be cruel to something without a soul, after all. You don’t feel bad about kicking a bit of rubbish on the side of the road, nor should you. It was the same way here. The warm circle didn’t care that it stayed perpetually out of the thing’s grasp, nor should it have. The warm circle couldn’t possibly be cruel to the thing any more than you could.
The thing had left the ground far away below it. If it had bothered to look down, it would have found the places it normally walked about in reduced to nothing but a smear of activity upon the earth. The large expanse of not dry (sometimes the thing went about in that on no legs, but it was not warm and not dry- additionally, things tried to put it in their mouths, so it didn’t like it very much) loomed great below it. The thing didn’t bother to look down. There was never any need to look back when looking forward held as many details as it did.
What the thing was rapidly discovering was that it was becoming a distressing kind of not warm the higher it climbed. It probably should have given up and climbed back down into the smear of dirty dust teeming with its infestation of life. It probably should have gone back to being a little thing crawling about in the belly of the world.
The thing, however, did no such thing and instead clung to the big open space surrounding it. It clung to the warm below and pulled that warm with it as it climbed, farther and farther on its no legs. The warm climbed too, pulled onward by the thing with four legs that used none of them. The warm climbed into the big open space and formed a kind of protective barrier around the thing.
The warm little circle resolutely stayed just out of reach, but it didn’t occur to the thing to give up its quest for the warmth. It carried the warmth from the smear of world far away up to the circle in the empty far away. It was a challenge to lay down at the base of the circle’s no legs. The thing would take the warm little circle into its own mouth; that was what happened when big things came across little things. The thing would prove itself victor.
It became harder and harder to climb, but the thing pressed on. There was a dreadful sort of ringing in its ears, but, much like the pain in its eyes, such a thing was to be expected when one went and faced the little circle.
The little circle was such a little thing after all. That is to say, it had power.
The thing didn’t know what had happened- suddenly, it was climbing, and then it was not. It was going about on no legs at great speed, but under circumstances outside of its control. The thing wasn’t moving itself, but everything else was moving around it. It felt a great rush of not liking that. If everything moved, that meant that everything would hurt it as everything ran into it.
Its eyes stung, and its ears roared. Its flesh burned. It screamed in that moment, a raw and brutal scream, as everything moved around it. The big open surged in painful tugs on its legs and body as the large splash of not dry and the little dirty smear moved towards it on no legs. Everything moved so quickly that the world screamed as well.
In the midst of the screaming and burning, the thing twisted its head in agony and noticed that the edges of the world fell away on the sides. The thing didn’t know what the end of the world was, but it tasted it in the fire and the pain roaring into its open and shrieking mouth.
Then it moved, and the world stopped moving and lost its ends. The thing moved back to the smear on no legs, no legs as running as fast as they could to reach the world. Nothing moved except for the smarting blood dripping down its sides and its legs moving almost into a blur. Its eyes were blinded from daring to challenge the little circle, and its ears were ruined.
So for those reasons, you see (you see what it couldn’t, of course), it was grabbed by some big things the moment it touched its four legs to the smear (which had become large and cavernous and an expanse once more). These big things weren’t terribly bigger than it. They weren’t terribly more frightening, either. They were called “Sheep”, and they were just little things too.