The Squirrel

"G'mornin" I said, half-interestedly perusing the paper as he slowly shuffled into the kitchen, still half asleep.  "Coffee’s just made.  How was your sleep?"

"I was talking to a squirrel" he said matter-of-factly through a yawn.

"Oh. What did he have to say?" I asked with a barely detectable smirk, knowing this opening line was the indicator of a conversation that I would reference for months to come.

"Not much" he replied, looking for orange juice with heavily-lidded eyes. "He was building a sculpture out of his own feces, so my expectations were pretty low going in."

"What was the sculpture of?" I asked, barely able to contain myself and wildly appreciative of the fact that if he were a little more alert, he wouldn't be telling me any of this.

"Another squirrel" he said, unfazed. "I couldn't tell until I got into the room, because it wasn’t that great or anything ... you know those weird little squirrel hands probably aren’t great for sculpting, but it was of another squirrel."

"The room?" I asked.  In the interest of of keeping my composure, I was trying not to focus on the image of little squirrel hands craftily working away at a squirrel-shaped sculpture, though I imagined they would actually be quite good at it.  I needed to hear more about this dream, and was afraid an outburst of laughter would shatter any opportunity.

"Yeah we were in his tree.  He had armchairs and a fireplace and stuff.  It was pretty awesome ... except for the shit sculpture.  Who does that?"  He paused and shook his head, letting his incredulity towards the squirrel's filthy behaviour have time to breathe.  "Fucking squirrel."  He paused again. "Are we out of orange juice?"

“It’s on the table.”  I began to feign interest in the Sport section in a lame effort to avoid eye contact.  It was incredible that he didn’t catch me.

“What was his name?” I was hoping for Montgomery.

“Zipper” he said.  I almost choked.

“What did you guys talk about?”

“Well we didn’t have much time for niceties, Di.  I saw what he was doing and I left.”  He was mildly annoyed, assuming I should know better than to ask a question that would intimate that he would stick around in a squirrel's living room while he was doing such a thing.

“Well you’re the one who said you guys were talking.  And you know his name.” I paused.  “So what were you and Zipper on about?” 

“It was before I went to his place.  Cooking.  We were talking about cooking.  He told me puts lemon zest in his scrambled eggs.”

A now-cold toasted English muffin was halfway to my mouth as my arm arrested in midair.  I had been preparing myself to be entertained, but I instead found myself completely prepared to take cooking tips from an imaginary squirrel named Zipper, who, in addition to being an obviously creative culinarian, had an affinity for creating fecal sculptures in his spare time. 

“What else does he put in them?” I asked while thinking about where I’d left my zester.

“Fresh oregano”

Man alive, I’d just bought some fresh oregano. 

Before I was aware of it, I was making Zipper’s signature eggs.  They were delicious.  I almost felt bad about judging the damn squirrel and his foul artistic habits.  Almost.  I felt less guilty after reminding myself that he was not in fact a person, or real, for that matter, as most talking squirrels tend not to be.  This was undoubtedly a chapter from no one’s life but mine.


**alternate ending (ooh ahh)**

I placed two plates on the table and we sat down to try the eggs.  They were delicious.  As I enjoyed them, I began to look around the room.  A newspaper clipping on the fridge of two squirrels boxing caught my eye.  I paused.  On the table, my home design magazine was open to a photo of a living room with overstuffed arm chairs and a fireplace.  The opposite page was an advertisement of a child making a sculpture from toilet paper.  My gaze darted to the fruit bowl in the middle of the table.  Oranges and lemons.  Yesterday, he had helped me unpack the groceries.

“Dear God.”  I was astounded.  “You’re Keyser Soze.”

“Thanks for the eggs, babe” he laughed, bending down to kiss my forehead as he cleared the plates and faked a limp to the sink.