Nature Always Wins

The bright, green, polypropylene bat ricocheted off the decaying spruce’s trunk with a strange thud, leaving a noticeable dent in its barrel. Such a bat wasn’t designed to collide with solid wood, of course, but the man wielding it was overtaken by what could only be described as pure, unadulterated rage.

He was a denizen of the ritzy Lincoln Park neighborhood, on Chicago’s North Side, though he certainly didn’t look the part. The man wasn’t Caucasian — in fact he was pretty dark — and sported an entire wardrobe from Costco. His eyes were baggy, and his face was six days unshaven, but he sported a kempt undercut befitting a Peaky Blinder.

With the bat dangling from his left hand, he scanned the lowest branches of the thirty-foot tree, which floated six feet above the ground. A four-week-old baby was tucked under his right arm.

At first, eerie calm.

A few fleeting seconds after dodging the man’s admittedly half-hearted murder attempt, the source of his apoplexy, a small furry creature, peered at him from around the other side of the tree. It was a fox squirrel, the largest tree squirrel species in North America. Its exaggerated eyes, voluminous whiskers, and pointy ears made it (allegedly) cuter than a rat, but no less a nuisance.

The animal looked curiously at the man, who was now pointing the melee weapon right at its face and mouthing obscenities in an indecipherable tongue. It was early afternoon on a Tuesday. The man’s residence was situated across the street from an opulent church and sat adjacent to two primary schools on the cusp of dismissal.

Unfazed by the interminable excoriation, the small Burberry-clad rodent concluded the urban primate must’ve wanted to feed it. It rubbed its claws and wiggled its tail in anticipation.

The audacity! the man thought, incredulous. Now he faced a dilemma.

The obtuse critter failed to see him as a threat, despite being a member of the most destructive species in the known universe. In theory, the man could’ve easily crushed the squirrel’s skull from this distance — even with a child’s toy as his bludgeoning instrument — and ended, once and for all, what had escalated into a monthslong conflict.

But engaging in single combat wasn’t without risk. The man’s newborn son was still snugly secured in his dominant arm, and the wily beast occupied the high ground. What if the man attacked — and missed! — exposing his vulnerable, unsuspecting child to a surprise counterattack?

When the man himself was just a wee latent psychopath, he’d had his own run in with a squirrel in the dense jungles of Miami. He knew they possessed razor sharp claws and flesh-lacerating teeth. Some specimens were also suspected carriers of the Black Death.

Choosing an intermediate course, the man gently jabbed the green plastic tube into the squirrel’s face. Startled, the animal nevertheless stood its ground. It knew the human, pampered by modern technology, lacked credibility. He’d thrown a frisbee at the squirrel a few weeks prior — and missed — and he’d threatened to assassinate the creature and its whole family countless times before. The man had even, unbeknownst to the arboreal hamster, considered an elaborate kidnapping scheme, where he would ascend high into the tree and snatch his sworn enemy’s newborn kittens from their nest in the dead of night.

Despite these antics, the (allegedly) advanced primate had yet to present himself as a legitimate threat. All talk, no action. This meant the expected value of this entire charade would still be net positive, as long as the glorified chimpanzee eventually produced some peanuts or sunflower seeds.

In this instance, however, the man’s refusal to compromise under any circumstance, and his “I lose, you lose” philosophy, triumphed. After rotating his body clockwise ninety degrees, thereby shielding his helpless child, the man swung the recyclable club at the squirrel once again, this time failing to connect. More annoyed than frightened, the cosmetically enhanced ferret darted three branches up. The two combatants glowered at each other while parents and their children strolled past.

“Stay off my fucking bird feeders!” yelled the man, who was now unequivocally demonstrating the type of neurological deterioration associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). He then stormed back into his abode, progeny in tow. The infant remained fast asleep throughout the entire ordeal, and the homo sapiens returned to their reclining chair in the living room to snuggle.

Awoken an hour later, and sensing victory, the man glanced through the bay window to observe the birds. Defeat consumed him. Hanging upside down from the metal cage, like a Furry doing Cirque du Soleil, the fox squirrel feasted.