The Squirrel(s) who Ate Too Much - Part I

An Allegory in 2000 Chirrups
All characters in this story are fictional. However any resemblance to an alarmingly over-weight population of a stupendously consumption-driven society may not be completely coincidental. (I’m talking about the Yosemite squirrels, of course. Who did you think I was referring to :)

Part 1 : Morning

“Wavy-Tail don’t go so near the edge.” Scolded his mother, “Come back here and forage with me. Dinner doesn’t grow on trees you know.” Then corrected herself, “Well actually it does. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work to get it. You have to gather your share of nuts.”

“Oh Ma. Can’t I go Tail-Sledding down Riverside Mount. Long-Whiskers and White-Stripe are going. Its not fair.” Wavy wailed. Pine-Eyes wasn’t impressed. “Well let them go. They can go eat at the Patch tonight, but we’re not going to. If you want dinner tonight, you come back here and gather it, young squirret.” She watched her son scamper back slowly, wavy tail drooping rather non-eponymously. He started clambering laboriously, up the trunk of another hazel tree near hers. Her heart leapt into her mouth for a second as he seemed to slip a couple of feet, then dug his claws into the bark and held on before starting to climb again. He really needed to lose weight, and quickly. Just like his mother did. And his father had needed to.

She looked away, offered a silent prayer to the Pine Mother and gingerly started making her way towards the delicious looking nut that lay at the end of the branch. There was a time, before she, and really every other squirrel in Yosemite's Vernal Falls got fat, when she would have scampered towards the nut blithely; light of feet, tail billowing behind her, cool breeze caressing the fine down on her back. She and Just-Red would sometimes race each other to a nut; she beat him to it more times than not...Red often let her win, especially if it was a pine-nut. They both loved pine-nuts. And then at dusk they’d sit together, their shared body warmth helping to keep the Yosemite chill out, and he’d lovingly nip her ears while she nibbled on the nut.

Red! Red, with the rust red tail he was so proud of. Red, the only squirrel in all of Vernal Falls, without a hyphenated name. Red, who defied all demands by the Squirrel Council to add a noun to his name as per ancient custom…and who said that if they really wanted to hyphenate his name they should call him Just-Red. He knew that choosing an adjective would annoy them even more. Or was it an adverb, she was bad at this! Her beloved Red who’d become so fond of eating, so enamored of the sumptuous delights of the Food Patch that it had eventually led to his death. Only a few full moons back. The sound of his fat body thudding sickeningly into the ground still haunted Pine-Eyes. It was the sound of the world coming crashing down around her. He had attempted to make a flying leap from one high branch to another and had fallen short by several spans…having badly misjudged how, the weight he’d put on recently and his general sluggishness, had affected his Jump-Gliding skills. His beloved tail had been unable to parachute his weight down safely. That’s when Pine-Eyes decided that she and Wavy had to stop eating at the Food Patch. There had been too much eating and too little exercise.

Even after so many moons, the mere thought of Red made Pine-Eyes’ whiskers droop with the terrible weight of her sorrow. She willed them up again with an effort that sent a quiver down her back. Wavy had been hard hit by Red's death and had only recently started coming out of his shell. She couldn't let Wavy see her looking sad again. If only she had lachrymal glands so she could let all her emotions out in one big flood of tears. As she'd sometimes seen lonely Long-Leg hikers do, in the forest, when they thought no one was watching. Perhaps then the sadness would stop gnawing at her – trying to get back into center-stage in her mind from the corner that she had banished it to. She missed Red so!

Click to read Part II

Click to read Part III