This cheetah lived atop a smallish hill with a single tree for shade, under which it could often be found reclining, gazing out over the land with a scanning eye, knowing much more than it let on. The man, even before he found himself so smitten, was subject to a daily routine which took him frequently past this hill; and after he found himself overwhelmingly in love with the hill's mistress who lorded o'er her domain from beneath the shade of the tree, he arranged his schedule to bring him as often in sight of his belovéd as he possibly could.

He never approached the cheetah - - he was too nervous and afraid for such a bold gesture - - but merely yearned from afar. At night when he went home to his measly little rooms, he would lie awake thinking of the powerful muscles and sleek, curving, graceful body that the cheetah possessed; and of her speed, and the glint in her feline eye.

He began to feel at odds with his world, his whole life beginning to revolve around his obsessive love, but still he could not bring himself to approach the lordly creature and profess to her his feelings - until one day he found he could no longer contain himself.

"I will go to her hill tomorrow," he said to himself that evening, "and wait for her to come and lie in the shade in the afternoon; and then, come what may, I shall make known to her my burning passion."

Which is what he indeed set out to do the next morning, after a nervous and excited breakfast. He climbed the hill, his heart beating with anticipation, and he would have attained the summit, too, if not for the events of the evening previous.

For that night, as he had lain in his bed solidifying his plans, two men with machines had been on the hill, and had dug a trench round the middle of the hill's height. Into that trench they had then placed one of the last of Earth's Great Crawlers, as they had nowhere else to put the creature. Thus, when the man had encountered the trench on his ascent and tried to cross it, he found himself set upon by the Crawler, and there can be none who could be in any doubt as to the outcome of such a contest.

When the Crawler had finally bored, the man's remains - - barely more than a skeleton held together by red and sinew - - clambered out of the trench; and, fueled by his love, managed almost to reach the top before life finally fled and his component pieces collapsed in a clattery heap in the grasses.

When the cheetah returned to the top of her hill, she found the man and gently, tenderly picked up his skull in her paws and looked at it with a sad eye, for she had been aware of his feelings, unspoken though he had left them.

"You waited one day too long," she whispered to the skull, then kissed its domed top gingerly, affectionately.

Then, with a resigned sigh that bespoke a life-long habit of never letting anything go to waste, she settled into the long grass and started to chew on what was left of his femur.
G3a(4)