Lilith Saintcrow - Squirrelterror

SquirrelTerror

Lilith Saintcrow

Squirrel Terror

Copyright 2013 by Lilith Saintcrow

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Cover Art 2013 by Skyla Dawn Cameron

First Edition: September 2013

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How This Happened

It all started with a squirrel that refused to die.

Youre holding a collection of blog posts from September 2010 to December 2011, during which I was recovering from divorce and struggling through deadly depression. My allies: the fact that my kids loved me, a therapist who assured me I was not crazy, two or three close friends, my new addiction to running, and writing as if my life depended on it. My dependents: two little people, three cats, and several houseplants. Arrayed against me: single motherhood (though Id been basically a single mother for years, the divorce just made it legal instead of me being responsible for more of someone elses debts, but thats another story), crippling anxiety, deep despair, daily panic attacks (Ive had them most of my life, but I was beginning to have half a dozen or more a day) and the stress of making a living as basically a freelancer.

I didnt know how the hell I was going to make it through anything. I was drowning, but I wanted to avoid advertising it. Still do. So I wrote instead about writing. The weather. Running. Putting one foot in front of the other.

One day, there was this damn squirrel.

Chronicling the wildlife in my backyard amused me. It seemed to amuse other people too, but I didnt know how much they liked it until my website was hacked and I lost significant chunks of the blogging Id been doing since 2005. The first thing most people asked after they extended their condolences was Wait, what about the squirrels?

Months went by, I bought a house for the first time, moved, and every week Id get at least three emails, either politely asking or outright demanding to know where the squirrel stories had vanished to. When I got to the point of publicly announcing that I couldnt find them, and that digging them off the Wayback Machine was something I didnt have time for, what with a mortgage and kids and dogs and cats to feed, I sort of figured that was the end of it.

I had underestimated, once more, that goddamn squirrels refusal to lie down and die.

Within a couple hours of making that announcement, Id had my feet thrown up on and my shoes eatencourtesy of a bulldog with separation anxiety. Oh, and copies of SquirrelTerror posts landing in my inbox. From CE Murphy and her friend Flynn in Ireland, from Kathleen R. who had printed them out to have something funny to read during her twelve-hour shifts in an ambulance, from a fan whose Internet handle is a stag-god.

We just wanted to help, they said, and from that help, SquirrelTerror posts...well, they resurrected.

Stories can be a rope, pulling you from the abyss. The funny thing is, when youre dragged out of black suicidal bleakness by a story, you have no way of knowing how many other people will touch and twist that rope. The rope itself is neutral. It can be a moment of fleeting amusement or a lifesaving grace.

I dont think the squirrel stories saved any lives, even mine. I do know people liked them, and I laugh helplessly rereading them sometimes, thinking of the things I saw that didnt make it onto the page. I do know that peoplecomplete strangerstook time out of their busy days to save them, to keep and reread them, and to offer them to me again when theyd been taken away.

It makes me very happy.

So here they are. I hope you like them. Settle in, get comfortable, and let me tell you some stories about a backyard I used to have, and this crazy goddamn rodent with a crooked tail, bluejay romance, the Forces of Gull, gaslighting, a herding dog, a coyote named Phred, and how I always ended up shoeless and screaming...

Squirrel Wars

September 4 th , 2010

Those of you on my Twitter feed may (or may not) have been amused by my Ninja!Squirrel reportage. Basically, this all started one morning while on the treadmill, sweating out a five-mile run, I saw a death-defying squirrel.

Im not kidding. The little rodent leapt (or was otherwise propelled) off a two-story roof, tumbled through tree branches, hit my back fence, somersaulted in midair, hit the ground, bounced (TWICE! Bounced TWICE, I tell you!) and lay there for a moment, maybe stunned by its own daring.

I was thinking it was a when the little fur-bearing Terminator hopped up on its back legs, twitching its crooked little tail, and glared at me. Of course, I was also (breathlessly) laughing at the time. While running, I might add. Developed a hell of a side stitch, too.

Ninja!Squirrel glared at me, I repeat, as if I had been the author of his downfall. His beady little eyes were alight with what I can only call hellfire.

Since that moment I have paid closer attention to the squirrels in my backyard. Of course, I cant bloody tell if Ninja!Squirrel is among the ones who gleefully frolic while I run on the treadmill, providing me with distraction and Twitter-food. Those fuzzy little things all look the same to me. Seriously, I cant distinguish one squirrel from another.

Still, things...have grown odd.

Yesterday, as I ran, I began to notice something strange. There appeared to be two groups of bushy-tailed Rodentia in my backyard, and they were at what appeared to be war or an . There were leaps, chases, aerial maneuvers, and out-and-out clawings and bitings. The longer I ran, the more interested I became in trying to figure out just what the holy hell was happeningand this was while three bluejays and a crow were playing chicken over some scattered bread, while two of my cats watched from the sunroom window and made throaty little ohpleaseohPLEASE warbles at me.

Of course, my fancy got the better of me. I began to think up a squirrel Romeo and Juliet.

,in my fair backyard, where we lay our scene,From ancient grudge break to new mutinywhere rodent blood makes rodent claws unclean...

I cast one of the jays as Mercutio, and the crow, of course, as the Prince. I was trying to figure out if one of the cats could conceivably be Tybalt or if that was Just Too Much and I would have to have Tybalt be, say, a raccoon? Or something? When my run ended and I hopped off the treadmill for my chin-ups and the rest of my day.