a squirrel story
Apparently, today is Squirrel Appreciation Day (#squirrelday). A way it is suggested one observes #squirrelday is to share one's "squirrel story." So, ok.
I went to college in an arboretum, more or less. Which is a terribly obnoxious thing to say, but, it's true. There were a lot of trees on campus, fancy ones, etc. And also there were a LOT of squirrels. They were famous for doing really bold things. I guess it was their safe space too.
One morning I was walking to work really early. It was a bright spring day. I was not a morning person, but I was kind of almost enjoying the morning. Then, suddenly, this thing hit the ground about one foot in front of me. WHAM! Really hard. I jumped and stopped dead in my tracks. WTF! A meteorite! No, it was a squirrel.
I stood there staring at him. My heart was racing. He was curled up in an awful little ball. I looked around, wondering what to do, and there was another girl about 10 paces behind me, and she was standing there staring at him. We looked at each other.
"What should we do?!" one of us said. "Do we call Public Safety??"
Poor guy. Such a little body, and he hit the ground with so much force, I would have thought he weighed 10 pounds. The branch he'd fallen from was super high. Important trees, like I said.
I looked back at him. I almost wanted to laugh, because I was thinking about what would have happened if he'd fallen 12 inches closer/1 second later. If he had hit me in the head, I'm pretty sure he would have knocked me out at least. Now THAT would be a squirrel story for a future #squirrelday. But I didn't laugh because it was horrible, poor little guy. He was obviously a goner.
Then, he opened his eyes. The girl and I looked at each other. He looked at us. He uncurled, and got up, and slowly walked off into the bushes. A little unsteadily, but fairly casual. The girl shrugged and continued on her way, and I watched him for a minute more and then I went on mine.
Later I went back by and looked in the bushes for him. I thought I would probably find him curled up dead, but I didn't. I guess he made it, after all.