Adding one hungry guest to a snowbound party threatens everyone’s survival.

Evidence

Our only anxiety is about the supplies. We have tea and coffee enough to last over to-morrow, the sugar is just done, and the flour is getting low. It is really serious that we have “another mouth to feed,” and the newcomer is a ravenous creature, eating more than the three of us. It dismays me to see his hungry eyes gauging the supply at breakfast, and to see the loaf disappear. He told me this morning that he could eat the whole of what was on the table. He is mad after food, and I see that Mr. K. is starving himself to make it hold out. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 240

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A survival arithmetic where hospitality becomes a mortal liability — the social obligation to feed a guest collides head-on with the group’s calorie budget.
• STORYSTEM: A book could turn on this exact pivot: the guest whose appetite quietly converts a group’s abundance into a countdown, with the host starving himself unseen.