Thereby hangs a wee creature with mousy fur and fat-lined tail. It scuttled busily through the litter by Sungei Road after midnight, snout atwitch and stubby legs atwat. At times, the pattering feet overshot their mark and landed their lord on the sidewalk, where the thuds of a thundering duck sent them back into a narrow corridor of grass and plastic. A common prowler of drains and waysides in the city, the house shrew is usually mistaken for a rodent. But it is far worse. Built to punch above its weight, the little beast is a ferocious hunter of any- and everything it can get its jaws into, from snakes and lizards to roaches and rats, which they dispose of with a lusty bite in the neck followed by a jugular shake. But unlike retrenched workers, shrews are not fussy eaters and readily gobble their way through the waste of human scum. And if you should ever find yourself trapped in a corner with one of these monsters, it's said that peanut butter is an acceptable substitute for manflesh.
Given adequate peace offerings, house shrews could plausibly make wonderful housemates for humans, given their similarly-thorough dedication to eliminating all other lifeforms that come within their reach. Unlike ducks and other domestic fowl, however, shrews are no fans of intimate contact and will cry blue murder with hideous shrieks and unearthly screams even when they are chastely handled. They also stink due to musky secretions from a gland near their backside and resolutely refuse to shower, but this drawback might prove irrelevant for some. Less happily, their bite is said to result in painful swellings that could result in social ostracisation as polite society is wont to judge victims rather than perpetuators for misdeeds upon the former. By now, it's clear that shrews rightly earn their Elizabethan reputation for contributing to the downfall of decent ducks. For their temper is such that my duck is happy to compromise his principles and refuse to poke these squeaky bundles, and actually considered stripping off his shirt to cushion the impact of capturing one of these creatures for inspection without having to go closer and risk the pain of the biting truth on thin egos.
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