Squirrels

by clysm  |  written in 2000


The shuddering hum of vehicle engines radiates from the congested intersection. Exhaust fumes rise and dissipate into the blue-gray air, curling invisibly around giant oak tree limbs overhanging the road. Where narrow branches from two trees nearly meet to form an arc high above me, a gray squirrel bursts out of a cluster of leaves and darts along one extended arm to leap deftly across the gap. It leaves a gentle swaying as it disappears.

Like its relatives in family scuridae, this squirrel spends much of its time seeking and gathering food. Among the mighty oaks, it finds acorns to collect and bury. Many of these nuts will be remain forgotten in the ground and will eventually sprout, completing the symbiotic relationship between plant and animal. The creature I see is one of a vast array of squirrels teeming among the sparse trees of the city. Their arboreal tendencies separate them from their cousins in other places--chipmunks, marmots, prairie dogs, and woodchucks–-cousins who do not so obviously merit the name squirrel, from the Greek shadow tail.

Aside from those that brave life near structures of wood and stone while avoiding the builders of such structures, there live many more squirrels beyond the receding forest frontier outside of the urbanized areas. One of these less sophisticated animals ventures out onto the smooth gray highway, sprinting toward the other side of this alien surface in the face of an oncoming vehicle. When faced with a major threat, squirrels will altruistically stand and sound a call to others in the area, drawing a predator’s attention to themselves and warning others to flee. This squirrel has no such opportunity as its front half is crushed and its broken body flung limply onto a yellow painted stripe. The familiar scene is ignored by some passing motorists; from others it elicits a token sigh of regret but is soon forgotten. Soon only vague furry clumps remain of the formerly energetic creature.

Rain begins to fall from the darkening sky. A row of oak trees lines a peaceful street, where squirrels scamper along the ground and among the tree branches. Some carry food or nest-building materials between their protruding teeth. Others seem to be simply playing, chasing one another around tree trunks and through the grass. None seems to question the importance of its activity. A tiny peaceful corpse of a squirrel that has died somehow lies among the bushes. Insects swarm over it, accelerating its return to the cycle of organic matter. I become suddenly aware of the everpresent sound of squirrel communication, which although overshadowed by larger and louder things, is always in the background, much like the animals themselves. They go on in their work and play and births and deaths and exploration and interaction, regardless of whether humans ever notice their existence.



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