Living Like Squirrels

Kate Flannery

This evening, I’m not able to stop the car in time. The squirrel does what squirrels always do before crossing a road: It jumps forward, then back, then forward, and then, when I think it will jump backward again, it dashes out into the road, just as I am gliding past.  

I don’t feel a thing. Not a bump or any sort of impact. I can’t bring myself to look in the rear-view mirror to see if, somehow, the animal has avoided the 4300 pounds of solidly-built German steel on the move.   

I find a parking space on the street, since Neil always seems to get home before I do and take the one space allotted to us by our landlord.  

Over dinner, trying not to start another argument, I mention the road trip again. I want to head out to the desert. The desert light in winter is crisp and clear and clean, and I want to see the groves of Joshua trees again, the ones along Cima Road in Shadow Valley. The ones that know how to survive in the unkindest weather. I want to feel the cold of the desert night and the kind warmth of the winter’s sun in the day.

“C’mon, Sweetheart,” I say brightly. “You’ll see why I love my car if you just come with me this weekend. It almost hums as it goes down the road. It’s exhilarating when it gets going!”

“I’ve got grading to do this weekend,” Neil responds. “Besides, that old thing will probably break down on the way, and there we’ll be: stuck in the middle of nowhere.” Pause.  “Maybe.” Pause. “I don’t know.” Pause.  “Maybe.”

“But that’s the point! Adventure! Taking Risks! Let’s go on a road trip! Just the two of us, off to see what we can find!”

Neil’s face takes on that pinched, rodent-y look that he sometimes sports when he’s about to launch into another lecture about my “not being responsible.” 

Around 4 a.m., I get up from our bed, grab the keys to the 1971 Mercedes, forget my purse, and walk out barefoot into the 40-degree night air.  I can’t seem to get the seatbelt to latch, so I settle in without it.  

As I drive off into the eastern light, bare foot on the accelerator, I wonder how the squirrel survived for as long as it did.

Kate Flannery is an editor-at-large for The Journal of Radical Wonder. She lives in a small college town where she also practices law. Her essays, poetry and fiction have been published in Chiron Review, Shark Reef, Ekphrastic Review, and MacQueen’s Quinterly, as well as other literary journals. She was a finalist in Bellingham Review’s 2022 Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction.