She woke up slowly, stretched and yawned and stretched again. The soft, warm, downy bedsack tempted her to go back too sleep. It was easy to roll over and close her eyes again.

An itchy place square in the middle of her back nagged at her. Forget any thought about lying still. And she was hungry. Not just hungry, ravenous. As if she hadn’t eaten in months. And she hadn’t. Really.

The house was dark, and oh so quiet. Could it be that she was the first to wake up? If that was true, then she coud eat her fill before the rest of the family. But surely, like always, there would be enough food for all of them to eat for as long as they wanted?

She pulled herself out of her warm bedsack and eased over to the window to peer out into the world. Whoa! Things didn’t look right. At least, not like she thought they would look. There should be Green. Green leaves, green grass, and juicy green bugs. But this world outside was brown. She didn’t think that anything she should eat would be brown.

Outside the front door, the view was much the same. From there, she could see far across the field to the other trees. Brown, brown, brown. The yellow sun hung low in the sky and shone right through the door. The warm sunrays  tingled her skin. This quiet world didn’t seem right.

She slipped back to her bedsack. But it didn’t feel the same. She didn’t fit! It was like she was suddenly too big for it. And it was the most aggravating thing. Her stomach rumbled, her back itched, and she was wide awake. 

What were the other members of the family doing? Dad’s mouth was open and ever so often a snore rumbled up from his throat. Mom had the covers pulled over her head, but her foot had slipped out from under them. Ever so often, that foot twitched. And in her little brothers’ adjoining bedsacks, the two of them were sleeping so close to the edges that they were almost to fall out. That wouldn’t be a good way to way up, and it was a long way for such little guys to fall. She eased out of the bedsack and over to their’s, where she scooted them farther from the edges and tucked the fluffy comforter around their bodies.

A breeze teased its way into the house and swirled around their bedsacks. With it came a moist smell that teased her nose and made her stomach roar with hunger. She found a comfortable spot where she could see out the door, and curled up on the rug. She had never realized hunger would hurt so much. She wanted someone else to wake up. She wanted to know if there was something – anything – out there that she could eat. But no one else was awake. She would have to wait. 

There was no green, there was no food. She felt a little faint. Why had she woken up so early?

(Today’s short story was prompted by the early Spring weather we are having here in northeastern Oklahoma. In the cycle of life, eggs (of both insects, birds and other species) typically hatch when nature has provided food for the babies in the way of plants, insects, flowers, etc. It’s a very fine-tuned cycle. But what happens when rising global tempteratures prompt these creatures to hatch or ‘wake up’ too early?)

(What kind of creature do you think “she” was?)