I can sit, with­out pause, star­ing at squir­rels carry out their mock­ing games. They scut­tle and bounce and run like honed ath­letes. Mov­ing with grace, they dash along weath­ered wooden struc­tures and hop from tree to tree out­side my win­dow. I feel like I’m look­ing into a lit­tle squir­rel arbore­tum, where they cul­ti­vate their world with­out me.

I just saw one van­quish any fear it might have and leap, unbound into a tree beside my house. Like that it cleared a fence divid­ing and took a new path and a new adven­ture to some­where I don’t know. And it’s not enough that an adven­ture, in our eyes, it some­thing worth­while and beguil­ing; some­thing we endeav­our to expe­ri­ence thor­oughly and rec­ol­lect at a later period. For the squir­rel it seems enough of an adven­ture to sim­ply dance across a nat­ural land­scape on a man made stage.

I’m envi­ous of the squir­rels out­side. Those lucky fuck­ers get to prance about and look cool, suave and enig­matic as they toss snappy turns and phys­i­cal quips at one another like gun­slinger metaphors. Of course dan­ger does not elude them and some mighty, fly­ing bas­tard would seek to rav­ish their fluffy hides and bring death to the actors of my desk-side show. But for now, it’s wow­ing to watch them.

I chose a tune to play; of a moment in a movie I saw and own and watch reg­u­larly. I watch it because it sym­bol­ises beauty and brings to my mind thoughts and feel­ings I lack — and miss — in my daily rit­ual. This music, this won­der of the audi­ble sense helps brings grandeur to my view on the squir­rels. It causes my mind to speak about the tena­cious ideas that I some­times try to ignore for fear of los­ing my san­ity — those beyond my com­pre­hen­sion and com­plete comfort.

The squir­rels and this cre­ation of music bind together and force me to con­tem­plate my own place in this uni­verse — on this plain. I look upon them through a board of glass and won­der if not some­one is watch­ing me through the same. They walk like they know noth­ing more than what they are and this causes me to won­der if we are not the same. We may ask ques­tions and look for answers and make up our own when the truth fails us but what do we know? What evi­dence and impres­sive con­coc­tion of fates have inter­twined to pro­duce an un-twitching hon­esty and trust? I see none, but I want too. I try to think beyond my means and imag­ine some­thing larger but that grasp­ing hand can­not find an ounce of sub­stance to hold.

These squir­rels — so sim­ple as they are — are crea­tures liv­ing in their real­ity, in a real­ity they do not try to expunge or erad­i­cate for the free pur­pose of attain­ing some­thing more. As far removed from us as that may be, are we much dif­fer­ent? Do we try to go fur­ther than what some may dream our lim­i­ta­tions to be or do we look for answers to bind us down and tell us every­thing will be okay so long as we wait, and hope for it?

For all that we are worth — and the worth I know in this world — we have not found a road to the stars, a path to some other, all know­ing exis­tence. Some may say we have, but per­haps it is only they who have. Say one thing for one, but that does not stand for all.

Maybe one squir­rel finds it’s way across the busy road by ascend­ing and over­com­ing. Another how­ever, may expect it to be read­ily more attain­able. It goes direct and finds itself turned to a sheet of fur by the side of the road to enlight­en­ment. For those left behind still watch­ing, what do they see?

They don’t see what hap­pens to the one that tried and endeav­oured to find the oth­er­side, they see the one that got splat­tered along the way. This is the evi­dence we have; cold evi­dence and no evi­dence of any­thing beyond what real­ity we know, no mat­ter what side of the glass we’re look­ing through.