The Alleged Squirrel

One day in the park, I came across a squirrel that was clearly up to something that had very little to do with being a squirrel. She kept darting around a tree, disappearing behind the trunk and popping back out again, generally giving the impression of a creature with some sort of plan. What that plan was, though, was entirely beyond me. Judging by the faces of the other passersby, they were in roughly the same informational predicament.

I watched her for quite a while. After a bit, it became clear that I was observing a process whose meaning I was simply never destined to grasp. So I just took out my camera.

And right at that moment, the squirrel stopped by the tree and went completely still. It looked like a runner poised at the starting line. Which, by all appearances, is exactly what it was.

What happened next was so fast that my camera seemed to document the fact of the squirrel's existence rather than the squirrel herself. A second later, she was gone. Perhaps she'd simply finished whatever business she had in that particular spot. Or perhaps, on the contrary, some terribly urgent business had suddenly come up somewhere else. I never did figure out what any of it was. Anyway, this squirrel vanished into the depths of the park at such speed that I began to suspect she wasn't a squirrel at all.

Kalemegdan Park, Belgrade, Serbia.
May, 2024.
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