He was just sitting there.

I almost tripped over him.  It was nighttime, and the air sagged with damp heat. Cicadas trilled, their crying filling the air with a lonesome sort of buzz.  My t-shirt clung to my skin.

He was just sitting there, all alone in the middle of the sidewalk, pinker than the inside of a seashell and fuzzy as peach-skin. His eyes were open, slightly, as if he were just waking up and didn’t quite have the strength to face the world. His tail was tucked under his hindquarters, a wisp of dirty cotton.

I knelt next to him, bringing our faces close.  I looked at his lips, his two tiny incisors still pure white, untarnished by wear.  I could see blood coming from the corner of his eye, a tiny brown tear-slick. I guess he fell out of the tree.

He was just sitting there, and I felt my lips press together as I watched him. Did he have any brothers, I wondered.  Did his mother cry when he died?

When I got home from my walk, I did some research.  I found out that squirrels have large litters. As prey animals, they have more babies in order to obtain a better chance of genetic continuation.  So as it turns out, mother squirrels have an evolutionary understanding that at least a few of their children will not survive to adulthood. Chances are, this one wasn’t even mourned. 

He was still sitting there when I got back.  Crouching down, I scooped him up in the tissue I’d brought with me as I raced back to where he lay.  For a moment, I just held him.  He was heavier than I expected, and limp.  Life’s heat was leeching out of him fast.

I laid him at the foot of the tree, under its watchful gaze. I covered him in clover. 

--

The next morning, I woke up and made myself a bowl of cereal.  As I chewed, eyes still idle from sleep, I happened to glance out the window. On my deck sat a squirrel, peering inside with unblinking eyes.

He was just sitting there.