Author: Mossy Bog

Towards the end of the eleventh hour, the moon of the popping trees finally broke through the clouds. In her absence, some had already lost faith, given up. The crows, after a long debate, had decided to drift off and head south along the river. The hares held a council to discuss which steps to take, in light of such a drastic turn of events. Muskrats, beavers and otters slinked along the lakeshore to search for the right path to take at such a time. Indeed, the confusion, the uncertainty, could be felt in the air by anyone, or anything, out to take stroll in the late afternoon sun. But the fears of all God’s creatures were allayed at a somewhat sudden drop in the temperature. The wind picked up and bit at the skin like the winds of old. Perhaps it had taken the shadow of the blood wolf moon to finally portend the return of the cold, dry breath of the Waziatá, the old north wind. Despite the harshness and fierceness that began whipping across the plains, bringing and end to their respite, the creatures, in spite of themselves, were relieved to be shivering again, to feel their cheeks chafe against the windblown snow. There would be death foretold, but as it was, so it shall be. The hard earth compacted like granite. The creatures struggled to wrap themselves and entwine with each other. The black and cloudless sky as blank as the abyss, left all exposed to the icy ether. The worms lay frozen. The frogs lay frozen. The hawks and eagles shifted uncomfortably in their icy nests. The Moon of the Popping Trees was now aloft, bright in the sky with nothing brave enough to conceal it. Aquarius, as she is also known, rose up high and brought forth the night and was proud of the stillness she caused. The absence of movement. The surrender to her standard of blue and back, her song of whistling wind, her time admired qualities of making the emptiness exquisite, the silence sing, and the darkness bedazzled.

It was November and the sky had been replaced by an empty gray void. The leaves had fallen. The wind blew them around, and men with loud tubes over their shoulders blew them further still. Some snow had fallen and ice had formed on the streets and sidewalks. Driving through the neighborhood, I could see the endless porches populated with rotting, deformed pumpkins, and the yards dotted with no longer useful political yard signs. I’m not sure they were useful in the first place, actually, along with the pumpkins for that matter. It’s an autumnal habit, I suppose, of participation in the social and civic sphere. Put some lawn signs up to show who and what you believe in, and put some pumpkins out to show that you recognize the passing of time, the fact that the season, now, is something called “Halloween”, and that you’re supposed to put pumpkins and simulated dead people out in your yard.

I never thought that much further about it until I noticed the pattern. Something was happening and no one seemed to notice. Driving along as I do, having relunctantly assimilated to the mainstream lifestyle, I am prone to fix my attention on the drivers passing me by going the opposite way. I watch them to see if they are looking ahead or gazing down at the phones on their laps. Of course, many of them are looking down, and I usually mumble some derogatory insult, or if I am in an animated mood, I honk my horn at them and shake my finger in their direction or shout an angry warning to them. My attention to fellow navigators, that some would call overzealous but I found it perfectly reasonable, was now bearing witness to some other kind of inexplicable act then driving while scrolling through Instagram posts.

People were frothing at the mouth, eyes rolling back in their head. Occasionally, and with increasing frequency, they were vomiting into their laps, no doubt all over their precious phones. Oh God, I thought, the opioid crisis. It’s spreading. For, unfortunately, I had become accustomed to seeing slumpers; junkies sitting on bus stop benches, on lawns and sidewalks, heads lolling around, their ultra-relaxed back muscles barely holding their torso upright. So, now, I thought, they’re actually driving through the neighborhood, middle class Subaru and Prius owners, shooting up while waiting at a red light, the lure of the phone screen no longer stimulating enough to escape their blueprint liberal lifestyle.

But the smell of the rotting pumpkins was becoming stronger. It filled your nostrils as soon as you left the house in the morning. I wondered if maybe there was something to that. In October, the squirrels start their winter preparations, which means gathering acorns from wherever they can find them. This leads to a lot of darting back and forth across the streets, more than usual, if you care enough to notice. They are stockpiling, and I’m sure it is known as the time of year in many squirrel families when a couple of beloved relatives don’t make it back across the street. Now, however, the frantic darting sprints had been replaced by wild zigzagging jaunts with no rhyme or reason. And the smell of rotting pumpkins grew stronger.

Finally, after a couple of weeks, even the news reporters started to catch on, as motorists continued to drive off the road, crashing into trees, frothing at the mouth, blank looks on their faces as they stared out into the empty gray void that had replaced the sky. Public health officials and medical researchers, as well as SWAT teams and armed forces regiments were dispatched to the neighborhoods, searching for the cause of this horrible phenomenon. The cable news channels were afire with theories; Russian nerve agents spread through the air from undetected drones, or else a liberal plot to kill people and cause mayhem in order to blame the government, being the most promulgated theories.

But no one could account for the rotting pumpkin smell. They seemed not to notice, as Thanksgiving was approaching and they all had pumpkin pie on their minds already anyway. A salmonella outbreak had recently spread throughout the region’s poultry farms, putting a pall on the thought of eating turkey for Thanksgiving, and thus placing the importance of tasty pumpkin pie even higher in the minds of the town folk. But slowly, all realized that even their beloved desert was going to be forsaken. The cause of the public health emergency was indeed the rotting pumpkins on the porch steps of all the residents who had left them there after Halloween.

The pumpkins had become infected by windblown spores originating from China’s multitude of plastics factories. As they rotted, the infection metastatized and the poisonous spores were re-emitted through the stiff November gales, helped along by a wind tunnel created by all of the political lawn signs that had been left behind along with the pumpkins. The squirrels, accustomed to an energizing breakfast of raw pumpkin before a long day of stockpiling acorns, had helped to spread the disease. Now, half the town was dead or in critical condition, and the rest of us locked ourselves indoors for the foreseeable future. Prisoners were furloughed and outfitted in hazmat suits, paid a dollar an hour to go through the town and collect all of the pumpkins to be destroyed in a huge burn pit out by the airport.

The political lawn signs were sprayed in a dissolving foam that just left two slim little aluminum spikes sticking out of the ground, the messages of better times to come melted away by the toxic spray. Thanksgiving came and went, with nary a turkey or pumpkin pie to be had, although many folks shared pictures of their “season to remember” mashed potato creations on their Instagram accounts. I heard that the “Korean Street Mash” was a popular hit. By the time Christmas came around, things were starting to get back to normal.

I been squirrelin’ roun’ these parts for a long time. Well, to clarify, i am a squirrel and i’ve been here since i was born, and before that, my family we been here for a hundred years or more. Before that we emigrated here from somewhere up north. Some squirrels and gophers come around, as the story goes, and said there’s a big town a growing up south of here. and its warmer and there’s all kind of amenities that we don’t have up here in
the forest. There’s garages and porches and telephone wires and cool stuff to do that we just don’t have up here. And we’re organizing a party to come travel south with us and get in on that good life livin’ in the city. Yes, there’s people there, but they don’t shoot at you like they do up here. And they leave all kind of food laying around and they grow stuff in their yards that you can just go and help yourself to.

So legend has it, there was a few that said thanks but no thanks, we are astayin’ where we are, but my great gran pappy and them they was like what do you all think? And they
held a council and it was decided that they would join the migration, and thats how we ended up down here. It was better back then of course. We was all one big family and well the winters were a lot longer and colder than they are now, but otherwise everybody got along and things were simpler. Nowadays, nobody has any respect anymore and its just so overgrown. A few of my cousins got run over with all these cars everywhere and the other squirrels and animals that moved in recently, heck they don’t know how things are done. They speak funny and don’t want to adapt to our ways.
They’re messin’ it up for everybody. And the dogs, you never seen so many dogs they’ll chase you right up a tree. So I don’t know. Things have changed a lot and hopefully somebody will come along and make it great again. And the people well a lot of them got real uppity, like they didn’t want us living in their attics no more when there wasn’t enough tree space to go around, and they got all possessive about their rasberries like they didn’t want us to have none.  There’s enough for everyone people. And tomatoes. Heck you never seen somebody so mad as when they see one of us has taken a couple bites out of their little stinky tomato. Sometimes we just do it to piss em off. its not like we even like tomatoes. At least I don’t.

Being a squirrel can be terrifying. It’s not all fun and games chasing each other around the tree. You hear stories of somebody’s mom being trapped and taken across the river or a  friend getting stuck in between the walls of a house, just adyin’ there real slow. Starving. Or getting caught in a trap and then being hooked up to a car exhaust pipe and
exterminated. Some folks, I heard, even think that’s a “humane” way to get rid of us. Since we heard that, we had a council meeting and decided we can’t let our brothers and sisters be marched off to the gas chambers just because some uppity homeowner doesn’t want us chewing through their screen windows. So we devised a plan to set them free whenever one got caught in the trap. I mean we give them a hard time first before letting them out. “Didn’t you notice you were walking into a trap, Stanley?” Yeah, yeah the
peanut butter smelled good and it was your favorite kind, the one with little peanut chunks in it, not too big not too small just the right size. But the metal cage, Stanley. Pay attention.” After shaming them a little bit but trying not to go too far, we let them go. Now how do we do it? Well early one morning while you were probably layin in bed, we got up real close to one of those traps and studied it very closely, and Becky went into the garage through a little hole we had chewed in the door and found the manual a lyin’ there on the shelf. Now we can’t read so don’t get any ideas about that, but there were some rather hard to decipher illustrations in that there manual. How do you guys even figure out how to assemble things? Anyway, we passed them around and discussed what they meant and pretty soon we had figured out how to operate the trap.

So then we became the release squad. We signed up for shifts each night going around releasing our brothers and sisters in need. We were discouraged, prohibited even, from signing up for too many shifts so that we would still have energy for our real life activities, such as nest repair, birdseed thieven, burying acorns. and making baby squirrels. One night we found a pair of turtles in a trap. How they got in there i have
no idea. We debated leaving them in there but in the end we let them out. At last we tried to, e opened the door and tried to motion to them to turn around and exit the death chamber but they just stayed there staring at us with their beady turtle eyes. Ah,, it was late so we decided to call it a night and just went back to our drey.

Anyway, those are the kinds of things we do to adapt to life in the city. It’s always a changin but our forebears decided to come here and make a new life for themselves and that’s what we are going to keep on doing. Sometimes change can be a good thing. Like all thee new foods being tossed out that we aint never tried before. My son Johnny really has a thing for bulgogi. Well, all Korean food really.

March is one of those months, significant somehow, a notable time in the calendar. In some places, such as in Iran and Bali, March signifies the New Year. Winter is ending and Spring brings the gift of renewal, and the life cycle begins again. Except, however, in the Southern Hemisphere, March is when Summer ends and things die.

March falls under the astrological sign of Pisces, the Fish. Pisceans are, according to the Hindu Vedic astrology, a romantic and sentimental people, sensitive to the needs of others, and are generally selfless, tolerant and willing to suffer silently for the common good. However, Pisces are also signified by two fish swimming in opposite directions, showing their duality and adaptability. These characteristics are perhaps emblematic of the duality of the month itself, with its “In like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion” reputation, warranted or not. Or is that the other way around? See, there’s that duality.

Here in the Minnesota, March can be unpredictable for sure. Last March, for instance, there was no snow on the ground at all. In fact, it was so warm that the bats woke up prematurely from their hibernation, washed their faces, brushed their teeth, combed their hair and flew out of their caves looking for bugs to eat, of which there were none since it was still only March. I don’t know if they perished of hunger, or got wise to the lack of food and went back to sleep before it was too late. I haven’t seen any bats around town lately to ask them about what happened.

This year’s March is quite different, with waves of snowfall blanketing the ground, and no sign of letup in sight. The plows rumble by, piling it up on the curb, as we grab our shovels wearily, hopefully for the last time of the season.

March is also the month of St. Patrick’s Day, the feast day of the patron saint of Erin, who brought the Word of God to the pagans and thus condemned them to an eternity of depression, misogyny, sodomy, guilt and self-doubt. But we celebrate him, the old codger; the liquor conglomerates do so most affectionately. And we all play along, we do, by waving our flags and saluting the pipes and drinking our bellies full and having a merry good time.

And, of course, what is March without that recent branding triumph of “March Madness”. Aha! Woohoo! College Hoops. Bets. Brackets. Beers and Ballyhoo. In the age of One and Done, the illusion of a college education having been finally tossed away like a sweaty towel, these Spartans of the court, having been bred from birth to drive the lane and shoot threes with their eyes closed, revel in their exalted glory for the length of the tournament and, they dream, beyond.

Just as Pisceans are keenly aware of the beauty in life, the lure of possible NCAA tourney upset victories and last second Hail Mary shots reminds those who are constantly busy with “life”, that miracles are all around, waiting to be noticed.

In celebration of their triumph, the fatcats at the NCAA take this time of year to lower their hog-like bellies into vats of warm butter while call girls massage their teats with honey. It’s for the good of the game, by golly; and for the good of the nation.

Downtown, where the water goes, where the knotweed grows, where Philip and Sven and John take out their money and count it out to see who has the most. Seventeen dollars is the winner. Walk around the corner to the window and pawn some gold, aluminum, some copper wire. It adds up and the seventeen is now twenty-four. Eight bucks a piece and a boxcar to sleep in. The goal is to get out to Walla Walla, Washington, where the willows weep more gently and the worms burrow a little more intently, making the soil soft as a pillow.

The basil and purslane get chopped up fine, add a little lamb’s quarter as well. Then you have a nice green mix. Add some olive oil or, if you’re on a budget and out in the trainyard, then rainwater will do. Spread that on some Saltines, maybe add a can of beans if you got one, that’s all you need.

Without wine, things were moving a little smoother. Of the three of them, Philip had the hardest time making the switch, but once you get over the hump then everything gets easier. Jesús had turned the water into wine and then Sven came around and turned it back into water. He also brought about a new day by introducing the other fellas to the sauna. They would sit around finishing their saltines and greens and beans, and then build a little fire and find some big rocks and heat them up all nice and hot.

You may have seen them featured in Healthy Hobo magazine, the web edition.

Once upon a time, John the Scotsman had been told to share his story with people, open up, lose that dour expression. “People will see you as just a bear or a bluejay or a buffalo. Uncross your arms, open up. Relax your face. Loosen up.” This was way before the Mindfulness Movement and way, way before Taco Tuesdays. It took the Scot a long time to slowly and somewhat deliberately believe in the absence of self. He rejected the idea of a lifelong identity, a spirit animal.

It, the self, was more like a library for him, many rows of qualities and characteristics that one could access. Some you could check out and renew, others you had to return, or more aptly, you wanted to return. One could be a bear and a bluejay, and also a whale or a wolverine. Sven poured some water on the rocks and the steam and heat flew at them. They were sitting tightly together inside of an empty refrigerator box. The rain kept falling and the water ran through the fields and the mud, into the gutter, the sewer and back into the river, flowing on.

Now or Never