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Saturday 29th July 2000
Dak the Hamster reports on the death of a Rodent Weekly
writer 
The morning had seemed like most other
Saturday mornings, so Lee said - a bit of studying, some food and several cups
of tea, while watching some cricket on the box that's probably the best cure for
insomnia I've ever known. It was during the sixth over that he noticed that the
daily fresh food hadn't been eaten in Ebony's compartment, the dried food was
still full and the walnut, cracked open the afternoon before, was still in its
shell. 
To anyone who knew Ebony as I knew him,
this was unusual. The dried food could have been left, the fresh food
may have been ignored - but there was no way in the world that a freshly
cracked walnut would have been left - no way.
Lee woke me from a deep sleep and asked me what I knew - had I heard Ebony last night? Did I hear the rattling of the wheel? Did I know of any hits that had been put out on him by the human underworld?
There were always the rumours,
but who paid attention to those? The last article which had caused just such a
controversy was that one he'd written back in June about Julia Roberts, but that she
would have put a hit out on Ebony? I doubt it... 
I
watched Lee go over to the nest compartment and peer through the hole in the
bedding material like some famous naturalist discovering a new
species.
'No movement - not even breathing' he said, then shook the unit gently, less gently, then violently. Even if Ebony had been waking up, he may well have been despatched directly into a coma with all that vibration...
'I think he's dead' Lee whispered. Have you ever wondered why humans lower their voices when they announce bad news? Do they think they might wake the deceased? That, somehow, the only way to deal with something is to whisper the problem as if it really doesn't exist? Beats me...
But, yes, Ebony was dead - and he was less than eighteen months old, too. I remember how Kath had bought him from the pet store after watching him for a week or so on her continued returns to the store and how he'd become such a close friend and colleague at the Rodent Weekly.
I guess I was a bit shocked - I had been half-expecting to die first, me being over two years old, now, and certainly not as active as I once used to be but, as fate would have it, such things never can be predicted. I shall remember Ebony with fondness - how he used to hold the world record for stuffing the most amount of cucumber into his pouches, how he used to groom himself behind the loudspeakers of the hifi so he could listen to the music and how he always vainly tried to climb the velvet curtains from a position high above the floor, only to fall to earth with the most hollow of thuds.
Yes, Ebony was quite some unique hamster - I shall miss him.
I wonder if Lee and Kath will get a new one...Russian...female...hint, hint.
Dak the Hamster writes for
the Rodent Weekly.
This article appears courtesy of that paper.
The Hamster Presidential web site can be found here
