User:Violetampersand
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I don't know why I picked this name.
Well, actually, a lie. I do. I like the color "violet" and I am a lover of the &, also known as the "ampersand".
The part I love best about this piece is that never once did I mention their name.
We see them as road kill every day.
I have mixed feelings about these creatures. They’re friendly, if skittish and flighty, most of the time; and as a part of the overall human population, I agree that they are rather adorable by the sheer virtue of their soft fur. Or so we would know if we ever got to pet them and stroke them.
But few are ever so daring.
There is an album of digital photos from a walk in Harvard Yard two years ago on my father’s laptop. One picture I chose for his desktop decorations months ago was one of the innumerable denizens of Harvard Yard. In this frame, his miniature beady eyes are lively and shiny, his small paws grip tightly an upside down acorn, and the entire figure is motionless, fraught with tension. That’s how they always look. They’re quite possibly one of the only animals which can be accurately described as immovable yet quick as lightning at the same time. Have you ever seen one racing its way up a tree or a telephone post? I’ve seen more than my share.
As an eighth grader, I chased them in the Commons for fun with my best friends. One of my best friends could almost outrun them. Almost. But not quite. They were always too fast to catch. For humans on foot, anyway.
While walking home one afternoon in sixth grade, I saw the sad remains of one adventurer. Whoever he was, he had either been too slow, too distracted, or just plain indecisive, like poor Jeff Suppan. Now, however, it was of no consequence how he had come to be flattened like a pancake on the dark gravel. It was simply a fact of life that had come to pass. It wasn’t the first time I’d passed by such a sight. It was merely a memorable one because I walked past it five times that week, and each time, restrained my curiosity with Herculean effort.
Maybe I should talk about a happier encounter.
About three years ago, my parents and I visited an Ivy League university campus. The small college town of Princeton, New Jersey seemed like one of the most comfortingly small, warm and cozy corners of the universe. I immediately fell in love with the intimate atmosphere of the whole campus, which was filled with nooks and crannies, small bookstores and antique cafes beneath each ivy-crowned building. Three years later, it has left me with the best impression out of all the Ivies, and it still is one of my favorite colleges, but the most memorable thing about that particular town was their infestation of these aforementioned bushy-tailed rodents. They were literally everywhere. Princeton had the aura of an elite northeastern Ivy, all right, but they were also overrun with students as much as they were by these miniature troublemakers. I recall seeing small brown shadows hopping from branch to branch, leaving slightly rustled leaves in their wake, and even streaks, blurs of motion racing up vine-covered walls. Usually, the presence of animals anywhere can be ignored, but even my parents couldn’t help but notice this overabundance. However, at least they were suitably meeker than their wildly audacious cousins in Boston Common.
Those small devils like to chase you for food, and once they have cornered an unwitting pedestrian at an intersection, the combined saccharine innocence of the inquisitively tilted head and fluffy tail is enough to send anyone into diabetic shock. I have seen my own mother succumb to their siren call on more than one occasion. She would bend and reach out a gentle hand with a raisin at her fingertips. In a single instant, one from the scheming crowd would dart out to steal away the prized morsel. The next thing you knew, this small ball of fur was be yards away, safely perched on a branch and savoring his reward.
They always leave you slightly frustrated, somewhat like cats because they stare at you while you coo, call, snap your fingers, entreat, beg, and generally make embarrassing pleas for them to come closer, all the while not moving an inch. They are only different from cats in the respect that they do not blink lazily with pretension. However, they are not better. I feel slightly downcast when I see one lying in the way of tragedy, but for every one that is found with wide, unseeing eyes and a stiff tail, there is always another, seated in a throne of twigs and leaves with his cherished acorn, laughing at us in the shadow of an oak tree.
