Last evening we suffered defeat in one small skirmish of the war between mankind and the forces of E-ville. After Lori and I had rushed across town to share dinner with our good friend, Carolyn, a band of summer storms passed through our neighborhood. Even as we were falling into the embrace of long lost friends, immersed in tears and laughter, a renegade wind was battering our domicile ripping away two thirds of a medium sized decorative crab apple tree and hurtling it into a silver maple some fifty feet away. We live in a burgeoning leafy suburb where the lines are grey between the world of carefully poured concrete and that of the creeping unrestrained vegetation. We live at the very bleeding edge of intense conflict.
This morning I was still feeling a bit sorry for myself when I rolled out of the cul-de-sac and prepared to turn south onto the thoroughfare into the world of rubber and steel. As I awaited the permission of the multicolored traffic sentinel I glanced down the concrete pathway and my eye was drawn to the sight of something moving in the road about halfway to where the street climbs over the brook. A closer look revealed a small brown squirrel that had darted across my lane and was now dancing idly around the curb on the left hand side.
As the traffic signal relented and I rolled the great beast into a gentle left bank I was a little surprised to see the tiny rodent making his way in quick, irregularly punctuated motions back into the right lane, my lane. He positioned himself directly in our path and defiantly, almost unmistakably intentionally, stood and faced the oncoming Dragon. I was in no mood to be trifled with this morning, I who had just lost a significant portion of a gift of nature and had survived a disturbing threat to the very sanctuary of my respite. I pushed the beast slightly to the left, slipped my right boot off the peg and twisted the throttle. For a moment it appeared that my foot would catch the fluffy tailed combatant right in the middle of his furry little swollen chest, but even as the impact seemed imminent he rolled nimbly onto his left shoulder with his right forepaw extended into the air and dashed away. I am reasonably certain that his little paw was clenched and a single digit extended. With a chatter and a roar he was gone, I was past, and the joust was over.
The anger and frustration rose inside of me and I almost succumbed to the impulse to turn and pursue that insolent round nosed sylvan rat but I knew that his cowardly guerrilla tactics were beyond my means; that once he melted back into the protection the tree cuddled populace the advantage would once more be his.
I reached down to the saddle to confirm that I still had the necessary means to continue and to win this conflict and was reassured by the comforting clink of brass upon brass. I say to all the defiant little flat nosed rodents, the bushy tailed rats of the woods, pull up your acorns, your peanuts, the finest of your tiny little stones; I say, “BRING IT, LET’S COLLIDE!”
Then it occurred to me that this beady eyed little insurgent had shown more courage, more presence of mind, possibly even more evidence of practiced intent than I was accustomed to seeing in his vagabond lot. Suddenly it dawned upon me. It was that horribly frightening yarn of Daniel Meyer’s[1]. I have seen it spread about the net, twisted and massaged to meet the needs and amusement of every varied cluster, crowd and coven. Now they had begun to post that awful story even on the rat blogs! What transformations had it possibly taken? What juicy details might have been added to make their own hero appear even more powerful, more in control? How would this infusion of this new resolve affect the ultimate outcome of the conflict?
It is our concrete, our asphalt, and our destiny to dominate. No fur bearing quadruped, no slithering reptilian has lifted any part of his inadequate prehensile appendages to position the steel, stir the liquid stone, or smooth the settling surfaces. Let them keep their grass, their weeds, and bushes. The roads are ours.
We are winning this fight and we do have the resolve, the strength and courage to see the contest through to a satisfactory conclusion, but I have noticed a change in the enemy. I had become accustomed to seeing forest rats sleeping on the road with legs splayed as if they had entered that state in the act of desperate, rapid attempts to evade contact. Lately, though, I have noticed several of these suicide bumpers with their legs folded under them almost crossed in resignation as if they had tucked and rolled with precise intent. And the gender; once I saw mostly does sent to the slaughter, but of late there seem to be an increasing number of bucks sacrificing themselves to their pathetic lost cause. It forebodes a change, a new kind of warfare, a resolve that demands increasing awareness of the constantly evolving ingenuity of this most insidious and determined force.
I’m resigned to the conflict. If it must be them or us, I choose us. Be ready, my brothers, it doesn’t appear to me that this one will be won in a fortnight. Trust nothing that does not walk upright. Be ever ready to respond to the unexpected in whatever form it takes. We must be strong; we must be determined; and we must be vigilant; or we will be no more.
[1] Daniel Meyer is the author of the “Life Is A Road” book series. His stories can be found at lifeisaroad.com.