Dawn has not yet broken, and already the herd has gathered. In the great asphalt clearing outside the retail megastore, dozens of the creatures stand pressed together against the November cold, breath steaming, eyes fixed on a single set of glass doors. They have been here since the small hours. Some have brought folding chairs. Some have brought young. All have answered the same ancient call.
Observe our subject near the front of the pack: a mid-sized female, insulated in a puffed synthetic pelt, gripping a cardboard vessel of hot liquid as though it were the last warmth on Earth. She does not speak to her neighbours. She does not need to. In this season, they are not friends. They are competitors for the same prize, a flat black rectangle marked seventy percent below its usual worth, of which the store holds only twelve.
The doors part. And now, the run.
Watch her move. All winter's patience discharged in a single surge of muscle and purpose, the coffee abandoned mid-stride, the herd thundering across the polished floor toward the great glowing pyramid of televisions. She does not hesitate. She does not glance back at the fallen. Instinct alone guides her hand to the box, and with a low triumphant sound she clutches it to her chest, heart hammering, victorious.
She will not remember what she paid. She will barely watch what plays upon it. But tonight she will sleep deeply, the successful hunter, secure in the oldest truth her kind has ever known: that she has taken, before the others, the thing they all wanted most.
And so the season turns.