Squirrel Love

A Story by OnePage

Ever notice how much love a squirrel holds in their heart? Well, take note, my friend.

How could life possibly get any worse? Jim’s girlfriend had just left him for another guy, he lost his job last week, and he was three weeks behind on his rent. Standing in his backyard, trying to admire the change of the autumn trees was proving to be much harder than normal. He always saw beauty in everything, but all he wanted to do was fall on the ground, crawl up into a ball, and just give up.

He wondered when this pain would end, if at all. Then he saw something, something that unexplainably made him feel exponentially jealous of every couple on the face of the Earth.

A squirrel chased another up the large oak that was in his back yard.

How could two primitive creatures have such a beautiful relationship, but he was all alone in this world? The more he thought about it, though, the more he wished he was one of the squirrels. They were so happy, so carefree, so elegant and beautiful.

Silently, he pictured his life as a squirrel. He would wake up in the morning, his squirrel wife would give him a kiss on his chubby cheek, and he would go to work. All day he would gather the couple’s meal for that night’s feast: acorns and peanuts. Squirrel Jim would go home to Janet (his squirrel wife) and there would be no fighting or yelling. She would look at him with those huge pupils, and he would look back, and instantly they would know, without ever saying it, that they loved each other. Then, they would go for their evening jog, chasing each other up trees and through the yard, their tails following the path of their body.

At this moment, Jim woke up from his day dream, and realized that his neighbor was asking him what he was thinking about.

“Jim? Jim?” he shouted from over the fence, “Is everything all right over there? What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said, sighing, “Just wanting something I cannot have, I suppose.”