The Only Squirrel in the World

Something about the air wasn’t right. 

   As the gentle breeze drifted across my face and neck, I could feel an awkward shift in it’s direction unlike the typical changes that I’d recognize. The air seemed to hit a wall, and then a spiraling gust twirled clockwise directly in front of me. 

   I stopped in my tracks, halting my previously brisk pace on the tail end of a morning jog through the park, my attention focused on that invisible phenomenon. The still-budding trees scattered throughout the park green were entirely unaffected by the wind at that moment, but the few people moving along the trails didn’t seem to notice the change. No one other than me acknowledged it, at least.

   Standing there for a few minutes, the tiny hairs on my neck and arms rose, tickling my skin, and a chill ran up my back. What a strange occurrence, happening before me – I couldn’t help but watch and wait. That’s when something even more strange happened.

   Suddenly, the spiral of air gained speed, and I could see colors manifesting – first red, then purple and blue – until it formed a sort of vortex that began pulling my body toward it. My hair, wrapped into a loose ponytail, stretched from behind my head and across both sides of my face, and then I couldn’t keep my feet in place, no matter how much I tried. Spinning, pulling, swirling a rainbow of colors, the vortex became a large circle that spanned ten feet by ten feet vertically and horizontally. And then a sharp white light shot out from every part of that spiral, blinding me, and the forces of the vortex instantly stopped.

   I fell to my knees, then to my hands, and the vortex had disappeared without a trace. The breeze continued as before, and I nervously scanned the park, noticing a couple staring in my direction, a jogger standing twenty feet in front of me gawking as she slowly returned to her routine. I heard the wind gently pushing and pulling at the tree branches while I struggled to process what I’d just experienced.

   Getting back up on my feet, I brushed myself off, tried to smile at the staring couple but my lips wouldn’t lift at the corners. I didn’t feel right – every part of my body seemed to be rebooting after a system crash. Failing to prove to them that I was okay, I said, “I’m okay. I’m fine. Must have tripped on a rock,” and the man replied, “You sure, honey?” I paused, and I didn’t know why, then said, “Yeah. Yes, yes. I’m okay. Thank you.”

   The man looked at me in disbelief, but the couple continued their walk.

   I stood there, hands on my hips, looking at the spot where the vortex vanished from, and confusion – did that REALLY just happen? – took me over. My own disbelief didn’t convince me that I must have been daydreaming, or something other than experiencing a time-space vortex creating a rift right in front of my eyes. No evidence remained to prove that it happened, yet I couldn’t believe otherwise.

   Once the jogger and the couple were out of sight, leaving me to myself in that section of the park, I spotted a bench underneath an enormous oak and I took a seat. My mind drifted, recalling the colorful spiral, trying to decide what it could’ve possibly been. 

   “My apologies,” issued from out of nowhere, then, “I could not have foreseen that you would be occupying that specific space at that specific time.” I’d hit my head or something. Hearing voices. I needed to get moving again.

   “My calculations appear to be approximate, not precise,” said the disembodied voice. I jumped to my feet and looked all around in every direction, but still revealed no person. Then, “I am glad that you seem to have not suffered injury in my return,” came from a much lower place than I’d been searching. I looked to the ground, and my eyes traveled across the grass, stopping at the concrete slab that connected the bench to the ground. 

   To my surprise, I saw a large squirrel standing at attention, staring right at me. 

“There we are,” the squirrel exclaimed. “You are alright, I hope?”

   I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing even more than the vortex. In that moment of wide-eyed, jaw-hanging, mind-melting mesmerization, I couldn’t manage a word. Instead, a stream of saliva spilled from my open mouth, landing in a splash on my sneaker. 

   “Oh, dear. Has your brain malfunctioned, ma’am?”

   Maybe, I thought, and the squirrel tilted it’s head, squinting it’s eyes at me. My brain couldn’t possibly be functioning properly. And then my stomach turned, and I tried to snap my mouth closed before…I vomited. A chunky, wet pale-yellow paste splattered at my feet, barely missing my sneakers – the banana and oatmeal I had for breakfast getting a second chance at life.

   Pointing at the puddle in front of me, “The plumbing’s a bit wonky,” the squirrel jabbed, then, “let’s pray that the electricity checks out.”

   “The lights are on, I assure you.” I was trading quips with a rodent. If someone asked me what my plans for the day were, this wouldn’t have been an option. The squirrel extended one of his tiny paws out towards me.

   “They call me Rochester. Pleasure to meet you, umm,” it paused mid-sentence.

   “I’m Emily,” as I reached out, reluctantly wrapping my hand around his. Add yet another INSANE moment to the already maniacal morning. 

   “I am quite sure that the situation which you find yourself in is perplexing. To say the least. The wormhole that brought me here to this park can cause some discomfort, or nausea, and possibly reorganize your innards.” Rochester, the talking squirrel paused, but soon continued, “You may have stepped directly in the event horizon, and you are experiencing the effects as such.”

   “What are you? Why can you talk to me? How can I understand your talking?” I needed answers.

   Rochester explained that he was a time-travelling squirrel from a time long before then, and the vortex (a wormhole, he called it) was his mode of transportation between times and spaces. He went on about physics and mathematics, but I didn’t understand much of what he said after “time-travelling squirrel”. I listened anyway, and he eventually told me that his species were nearly wiped off the planet during a cataclysmic earthquake that changed the entire world. Only a fraction of the squirrels on Earth survived, hiding in caves throughout the shattered lands. Rochester, and others that remained, suffered many hardships after the Great Earthquake, further dwindling their numbers until only a few were left.

   I must have made my way back to the bench because we sat there together and Rochester, after another pause, carried on.

   “See, Veronica and myself had nowhere left to escape the enormous predators that roamed the lands. Everywhere we went – there they were, waiting for us,” he said through clenched teeth, choking back tears. He inhaled, then exhaled, and he continued. “Veronica and I came to a wide-mouthed cave, large enough to be followed, but we managed to evade our pursuers awhile longer. We eventually arrived at the end, the back of the cave, and the predators had us cornered.”

   Out of respect for Rochester, and for his dear friend Veronica, I chose to leave out the next part of his story.

   “Then the wormhole quickly pulled me in, and a bright light consumed me, leaving me blind, unaware of my surroundings. I could see nothing but pure white all around me, until, suddenly, shapes and colors and figures appeared as if from nowhere. My vision returned instantly, but I did not recognize the place where I lay. The rest is history, and far too much to iterate in a short period. I will spare you the details and tell you that many incredible people shared with me many incredible things, and now here I sit.”

   I still had questions – more so than before – so I asked, “You’re telling me that there are no other squirrels left? Just you?”

   “That is correct, Emily.”

“Then how do you explain the hundreds of squirrels I see every day – in this park, all around my apartment building, everywhere?”

   “I am a time-traveler. I travel through time and space, and I arrive to various locations at different times. I do this quite often, and I have done this for quite some time.”

“Are you telling me that…you are ALL of the squirrels?”

   “Precisely.”

   That couldn’t be the truth. He was lying to me, or I DEFINITELY hit my head. Did he really expect me to believe that he was the last squirrel on all of Earth? As I sat there with Rochester - the talking, time-traveling, sole squirrel in the entire world – I saw a man about thirty feet from us walking his dog. The dog must’ve caught Rochester’s scent. It jerked forward, snagged by the leash connected to it’s collar, but the man couldn’t hold on and the dog came right at us. Rochester darted from the bench, and the dog followed, gaining on him. I lost sight of the two when they ran through a grouping of bushes, and I didn’t know what to do next.

   I stood and shot over to where the two disappeared. As I approached, the dog bounced backwards from the bushes, twisting and twirling like he was searching for something. The dog seemed confused. Had Rochester managed to escape?

   Parting branches, I pushed my way into the grouping, but found nothing but scrapes and scratches to my arms and hands. That strange feeling again – the breeze caught against a wall, spinning in place – and I waited for the rainbow, but the breeze corrected and continued to dance freely. I turned back and made my way back to the path.

   By the time I stepped out from the bushes the man and his dog were gone. Rochester wasn’t anywhere in sight. Sadness came over me, and I felt like I lost a friend. Where had that crazy squirrel gone? I had an idea where he went. 

   The sun almost overhead by then, signaling that it was around noon, so I had to get back to my place to shower, get ready for work. I continued my normal route, through the park and past the fountain that I could see from my living room window. 

   The events of the morning shuffled through my mind as I slowed to a walk just a few yards from the gate. A crisp breeze stirred the leafless low-hanging branches of a lone tree at the edge of the park, and my thoughts zeroed in, focusing on the memory of that chubby little talking squirrel. He had a presence about him – something I couldn’t describe exactly. Maybe it was experience. Maybe it was something that time-traveling through wormholes for millennia left with him.

   Walking past that lonely tree as I approached the exit of the park, I heard a rustling in it’s branches. Looking up I spotted a couple of squirrels darting back and forth to each other, spiraling around the tree in play. Both of them stopped in their tracks, looked right at me and each lifted a tiny paw towards my direction. I raised my hand and smiled. I waved goodbye to the only squirrel in the world.