he collector lay in his bed, the conclusion of his collecting years rapidly drawing nigh. He looked with a mixture of emotions at the shelves that lined his room and the contents thereon displayed. This was by no means the entirety of his collection, but the absolute prizes were kept here so he could gaze with admiration at the fruits of his life.

In jars both little and small, the bodies suspended in solution. He could remember where and when each acquisition had finally been run down. There was a distinct amphibian bias in this, his inner sanctum, but a few birds, mammals and reptiles also graced his eyes: the top shelf just opposite his bed, for instance, held the amazing weight of a sizeable monitor lizard - - the Lizard of Plodding Indifference. Flanking it were two taxidermy sparrows, one of Flightiness and the other of Cautious Inhibition. Beneath the trio, on the shelf immediately below, a whole row of newts and salamanders ran from one edge to the other. The line of jars was book-ended by the Newt of Unsavoury Thoughts on the left (a greenish-coloured specimen he'd acquired on a road trip through a Georgia swamp) and the Toad of Despair (a glum, squat creature) on the right.

His eyes roved to other shelves, for it was possibly the last time in his life he would be able to do so. The Rat of Ridicule Endured looked down from its silent perch as it always had - one of his very first, he recollected with a faint grin.

Then his eyes stopped at the empty spot on the shelf just near the entryway; the spot he had never, in all his long years, been able to fill, try as he might to track down the physical instantiation; the one missing piece of his grand assemblage. He thought it somewhat ironic, but his eyes stayed on that one open spot and a faint tear came to his eye. The various dead creatures all looked on, observing the collector's final moments with their impassive stares.

Sometime in the night the collector passed away, and was thus discovered by his family the next morning. The discovery itself gave them all quite a turn. As they opened the door and espied his corpse, they gasped: squatting atop the body was the one sought after object that he had for so many years pursued - eventually to the exclusion of everything else. It must have been his condition just before he died that called to it; for there it was, the only living creature in the room.

Shrouding the corpse's face was a Poisonous Frog of Regret, which let loose a croak horrendous to hear as the family came in. Then, heaving its not inconsiderable mass off the collector in a mammoth hop, it disappeared from view.
G9b(4)

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