The man looked at his opponent with intent. What was his next move to be? What was going through that mind? Even though the man tried to keep a poker-face, he concentrated too much to keep it expressionless. His man looked at the opponent in the eyes and noticed the left eye slightly more closed than the right. This meant the opponent was bluffing. The opponent twitched and looked back down at the table.

"I'll eat the sausage." the man said. He looked at his opponent. Was it safe? There was something wrong about his opponent. His intuiton screamed out at him that he was missing something vital and that he had made a mistake. It was too late to change now, especially considering the fact that he did not know what small yet important clue he was missing. The man looked at the sausage and swallowed nervously. The opponent watched the swallow intently and stared at the man. The man brought the sausage closer to his mouth and saw the opponent staring at the sausage. Was this sausage poisonous? Did the opponent know which one out of the next two items of food on the table were safe to eat? The man could only guess.

Cyanide. It permanently binds to the neuro-receptors in your brain so that the neurons that fire have no effect. Quick. Presumably painless. A good way to die. If the man was to have any deep and meaningful thoughts it had better be before eating the sausage. He looked at his opponent and hateful feelings welled up inside of him. That small frame, that twitching nose. And why did he always scratch it with his two short arms so nervously. The way his opponent ate bugged him. It annoyed him. His intuition was definitely trying to tell him something.

The man brought the sausage closer to his mouth. The warm greasy smell and the feel of lard on his fingers made it seem quite attractive, except for the possibility of an ingredient you would not find in any health food shop. The man closed his eyes and put the sausage in his mouth. The texture was so real yet he trembled too much to enjoy it. Seconds passed. The man opened his eyes. He was still alive! He was safe!

On the table were the last two items of food. They had started out with ten and had finally reached this nerve-wrecking stage. At each stage he had seen his opponent eat the food and live, which meant that he had to again face the risk of his life coming to a sudden end. Yet at each stage something about the way his opponent ate annoyed him intensely.

The man searched the face of his opponent. All that facial hair, those short arms, that bushy tail, the small body. Then it struck the man what was wrong. His opponent was a squirrel. A squirrel! The man looked at the table and at the two items of food
left on it. The man looked at the vindaloo and at the hazelnuts. His intuition told him that the squirrel would go for nuts, like it had already gone for the different assortment of berries and nuts beforehand. The cook knew what the squirrel would go for. The cook and the squirrel were in it together. The odds were stacked against the man and he gripped his chair tightly. The squirrel looked at him and then at the table. The squirrel went for the nuts, ate them and looked at the man defiantly. There was only one item of food left now and by a process of elimination that had been finely honed through many a game of Cluedo, the man knew that it was laced with cyanide.

"DOH!"

The man looked around him. He broke out into a cold sweat, trembled and twitched. He looked at the squirrel in despair. He could not leave the seat without being shot. Only one of them could and then the other would be free to go. The squirrel had won. He was to die. The end of his life. No more consciousness, no more effect on the world. Nothing. If he was going to die, he would die fighting.

The squirrel licked its paws

He jerked a muscle in the direction of his gun, the squirrel ducked and the man was shot in the back of the head. The headless body fell forward onto the table surface and twitched. The squirrel stood up. The cook looked at the squirrel. Blood spurted out the body and started to spill onto the floor. The cook lowered his shotgun and went to the squirrel. He brought his hands to the small, furry brown head. The cook's fingers went inside the squirrel's mouth and withdrew the bag that had stopped all the food before it had made contact with the any part of his pet. The cook untied the domesticated squirrel from the table and it ran off looking for more nuts. The cook watched it run away and as he did so had the feeling that perhaps he had over-estimated the man's intelligence. The cook pushed the body off the table and started to dig heartily into the vindaloo.
 
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