Progress

            There was an art to building dams, a fact the other animals failed to understand. They viewed Beaver’s work as crude, unrefined labor.  Didn’t they see how carefully he chewed through the saplings, how delicately he stacked the trees, as if they were young rabbits lying in a nest. Not that he liked young rabbits. Obnoxious, needy things, he loathed them to his very core.

            But soon, in the name of production, they would perish. Of course, only if they failed to heed his warning. He wasn’t completely without mercy.

            Spotting the mother rabbit hopping through the meadow, he shouted out to her. “Eh you! Yeah, asshole. Get your little brats outta here. I’m developing this land, and you’re right in the splash zone.”

            The mother rabbit blinked. “You’re going to destroy our homes? But why?”

            “Development, sister. Development must go on, opposition be damned. You understand? Get outta here.”

             Beaver’s shouting drew the attention of other animals. A shrew coldly eyed him. “And just what are you doing?”

            “Building a dam, yah dimwit. This whole land is going to get flooded. All your young will drown.”

            Shrew hissed in frustration. “What a savage creature you are.”

            “Yah know it! Now get. You’re keeping me from my duty.” Grabbing the base of a chewed down sapling, Beaver dragged it over to a stream, adding it to an already formidable stack. The stream struggled to break through, already flooding on the other side.

            Within a day, Beaver completed the dam. Satisfied, he watched as the meadow slowly flooded, forcing its inhabitants to grab their young by the scruffs of their necks and flee. But the mice and rabbits and the shrews had too much offspring; not all could be saved. And so they left behind the runts of the litters, left them to drown.

            Beaver watched with a smirk as they fled for their lives. The world had to progress, no matter the cost, didn’t it?