The
longer I stared the lines between him and I blurred. Was it male? Of course it
was. This wasn’t spring or summer where the little ones were running around and
Mom needed to keep an eye on things.
Winter had already started throwing its weight around by
coating the deck in snow and ice. I didn’t have to break the deadlock in order
to see that because he was even darker up against the splotches of white.
My mind blanked and wandered back to my previous thoughts
that seemed to be even more strange and personal. ‘Do I really look like a female?’ How was I supposed to know? Yet on
some strange level, it mattered.
I stepped back and it stepped forward… did I really care
what the sex of it was? No…not really. Then why as the longer I stared the more
concerned I became about being correct about this intruder this thing that
walked into my path? Better yet, why did it look like it was going to charge
me?
Turning my head to the right I kept my peripheral sight
on the brown fuzzy lump on the deck. It advanced. My head turned and locked
eyes again and it stopped its actions reminding me of the childhood game of “Red
Light, Green Light”. A thought popped into my head ‘What is red and green?’ “What?” I cried putting my hands to my
ears as if I could tune out the noise generating from the inside of my head.
The staring continued and became even more intense. ‘Just relax, move your paw and I’ll do the
rest.’ “I don’t have a paw.” I protested out loud. It rose to its back
haunches and wiggled its left foot. I mirrored the response and wiggled my
right. ‘That’s the one…now just move it
back a bit.’ I kept contact as the squirrel slowly came up to the crack in
the deck in front of my toe. ‘Now… I’m
going to reach down here’ Indicating the crack with a jerk of its head. ‘I trust you not to do anything stupid
like kick me. We both know that your leg is nothing more than a scrawny sapling
to me.’ I nodded my head.
He placed his paws into the crack and worked up a grungy
old Cheese Doodle. I looked at the creature’s eyes one more time as he stuffed it
into his mouth. ‘Thanks, these are so
hard to find anymore. Hopefully a new crop will come up when the air is warmer.’
It scampered back to the other side of the deck and up a tree where it sat eating
its prize as its paws and face became smeared full of orange doodle dust.
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