“Right front paw, blue.” The ominous sound of Grandmaster Sprinkles was slightly squeaky from both the excitement of the occasion and the fact that he had his back legs occupied performing the splits. His tiny gerbil face was twitching every so often with concentration and certain muscles that he really didn’t wish to strain where protesting most vigorously. That last move had brought him face to face with Mr Nutsack, his mortal nemesis, in this, the grand final of the Rodent Twister World Cup. Their eyes burned into each other with barely disguised loathing. Mr Nutsack did his best to accidentally tickle Sprinkles with his long bushy tail, he always had been a cheating bastard.

 “Left back paw, red.” Sprinkles felt a wave of relief as he felt his hips click back into place. God, he thought, he was getting too old for this game… and yet, it was in his blood… he had retired once, and spent every day wishing he was back on the big stage. Mr Nutkin had years on him and, by all rights, should have destroyed the ageing gerbil but, Sprinkles knew, the kid didn’t have the mental toughness required to reach the true spiritual heights that Rodent Twister offered. Sure, his technique was near perfect, but he did not understand the true meaning of it all, and thus Sprinkles would always have an edge… as long as his body held out.

“Feeling the strain old man?” Mr Nutkin smiled in a malicious squirrelly way. Just to mock Sprinkles he absentmindedly contorted to be able to remove a cigarette from his pocket with his teeth. “Got a light?” he laughed and, under the pretence of spinning the dial, he struck a match off Sprinkles’ left ear. The smell of singed fur filled the air. “Front Left paw, yellow.”

 “If you strike me down I will only become more powerful Nutkin.” Sprinkles said, his eyes cool and calm, as he crossed his paws to reach the yellow.

 “If I strike you down you’ll break your bloody hip…” replied Nutkin and exhaled a stream of smoke into Sprinkles’ eyes.

“Hatred and greed will only get you so far… then you shall be brought crashing down to earth…” Sprinkles said in a level voice. “Rear left paw… yellow…” He winced as he stretched uncomfortably, his face now pressed hard against Nutkin’s, the cigarette smouldering mere inches from his fragile whiskers.

“I think you’ll find it’ll take me further than you have ever been with your mystical mumbo jumbo… I’m going to ride this gravy train for years while you’re in a nice little humble plastic retirement house… nesting in your own poo.” Nutkin’s smile widened.

“You have already lost the battle with your own mind… the battle with your body will bring your next defeat.” Sprinkles really didn’t have quite as much conviction in his own words these days. He’d been a similar loud-mouthed braggard once… but a career-threatening paw-strain had seen him plunge into drink, drugs, and cheap sleazy hamster hookers… The only thing that had pulled him from the gutter had been a chance encounter with Fluffles… Fluffles had found him lying in the gutter amongst discarded gin bottles with pipes with little metal balls in the end and carried him home in his cheek pouch. He had nursed him back to health and then the training had begun.

 Fluffles had been a legend… the toast of the circuit years back, seemingly undefeatable… that Russian Hamster had been a tough, wiry, little ball that had defied all the odds to crush all opposition. All still remembered the 1966 final, where he had seemingly folded himself in half eighteen times over to reach the most evil of combinations… the triple yellow crossover… it had seemed like godly genius… Yet it had all suddenly gone terribly wrong… In those days the prize money had not been anywhere near as huge as in the modern game and the competitors often struggled to survive… and this had brought about Fluffles’ downfall. The papers had leapt on the story… “Backstreet Bare-knuckle Twister Match Ends in Tragedy.”

A young, but promising, vole had talked Fluffles into helping him make a name for himself in the dark and sleazy world of Twister Club… Fluffles had been coked up to the eyes and had agreed… he still had flashbacks to the aftermath… the young vole… lying in a pool of goo… Fluffles… blind in one eye… It hadn’t been deliberate… but… it was the quadruple yellow, double crossover… both hamsters had been wound like springs… the crowd falling silent at the incredible sight… all knowing that nature would not allow it to last… and then… a spilt pint of beer… a slip… physics… death…

 Fluffles had run in shame, and soon was thought to be dead by many, yet he was not… he was holed up in a Tibetan monastery, trying to forget. It was while he’d been out picking up bread and hookers for the other monks that he had come across Sprinkles and it had all come flooding back. He saw himself in the sick encrusted hamster… “IT WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!” he had squeaked to himself…

 Years of brutal training had followed, teaching Sprinkles that the mind was the key… that the body would follow, that the body could be left behind, all could be overcome… He’d done some stuff involving getting Sprinkles to hold his hand over candles, break blocks of concrete with his head, and do sit ups over a pile of cobras, but he’d only done that for shits and giggles… The key was the mind… then he’d been eaten by a sparrowhawk… it turns out karma’s a bitch like that.

 Now, years later, Sprinkles called upon the memory of his old master… “Front right paw… yellow…” He felt his ribs creak… “Front left paw… yellow…” Nutkin was laughing louder now, spinning the wheel, listening to the clicking of Sprinkles’ hips… yet even his face went white, admittedly under all that fur, when he watched the dial begin to slow… “Rear right paw……………….” There was a gasp from the audience that was bordering on the hysterical, “yellow.” A hush fell. Nutkin and Sprinkles exchanged glances…

“Gentleman, you have five seconds to move or forfeit.” Came the tremulous voice of the umpire…

 “So long old timer… you were a bit shit frankly.” Grinned Nutkin as he lifted his paw, looked over his shoulder, and slowly, nervously, swung towards the yellow.

“It is no longer down to us to decide our fates, the wheel has decided them for us.” Sprinkles said, slowly, feeling an immense calm filling his body, shifting his paw, his eyes closing in meditation.

 “OW MY FUCKING BALLS…” Yelped Sprinkles and fell over.