harmony raze two women wandered into the park. they had a black lab with them. patches was standing at the base of the tree auburn and brownie share, waiting for a walnut. we did this thing we do now whenever we see a dog coming while we're feeding one of the squirrels. we built a barrier around her to make her feel safe. the women stopped and watched patches eat. the dog watched too. one woman had blonde hair. the other had black hair streaked with red. "thank you for feeding them," the blonde one said. "i always feed the ones who come to my backyard." "it's good to meet another friend to the squirrels," i said. we caught up with the three of them a little later. the dog was lying in the middle of the path, hugging the pavement to stay cool. he didn't feel like walking anymore. "that's bower," the woman with blonde hair told me. his name was what he was too tired to look for. "he thinks he's an old man," she said. "he's only four years old. i just want you to know — he would never chase a squirrel. he never chases anything. sometimes he'll see a squirrel through the window, and the two of them will just stare at each other." she impersonated bower's baffled face. i laughed. she said her name was cheryl. the woman with red in her hair told me her name was alex. we held hands for a few seconds to introduce ourselves. maybe they were friends. maybe they were more than that. maybe they were sisters who looked nothing alike, or siblings born to different mothers who found each other when they were old enough to understand a family doesn't need blood to make it strong. i didn't ask. i told cheryl about all the squirrels we feed, and how some of the regulars haven't been around over the last few weeks. she said she'd seen a lot of hawks in the area. she noticed one with a mouthful of bones that were picked clean. i thought of the grey squirrel i saw on chilver road a few days ago, dirty and dead on its back after being crushed by a car. one small hand was reaching out, frozen in the act of begging for help or an act of mercy that never came. i know these squirrels won't live forever. but i don't want to believe any of my friends are going to die like that, alone and afraid. i would throw myself in front of any hawk or heap of rubber and steel that hoped to harm them if i thought it would keep them all alive a little longer. cheryl said her son gabriel met a black squirrel here a few years ago. the squirrel would jump up on him. he would climb the skinny little leafless tree of the boy's body and eat right out of his hand. "i was scared the first time it happened," cheryl said. "but the squirrel was so gentle with him. he never tried to hurt him. it's like they know." i remembered jimmy taking three shelled peanuts from my fingers. i remembered feeling all the strength he was holding back out of respect for me. the squirrel who climbed gabriel had to be the same guy. gabriel called him alfred. "i told him, 'there must be fifty squirrels in this park. how do you know which one's him?' but the squirrel knew his name." she said gabriel hasn't seem him in a long time now. but he always looks for him. just like i still look for the ones i know are gone. last week i saw the green cloth we used as a burial shroud for little_guy, jutting out of the dirt where we laid him to rest. the next time around the park, it wasn't there anymore. i found it just past the place where he died. like he moved it there himself as a way of saying, "as long as you remember me, i'm never far away." "things are so simple for them," cheryl said. "they eat. they run. they climb. they sleep. they play. they seem to just enjoy their lives." "and we look for ways to complicate ours," i said. "exactly. they seem to understand what's important. it makes you wonder. do we really need to do all we do?" her black t-shirt was covered with a collage of white words. understanding. knowledge. compassion. love. share. space. experience. mind. quiet. elements. it made me think of this place. at the center of it all, one word was twice the size of all the others: harmony. "sometimes i see them fighting," she said. "and i wish they would be kinder to one another." i told her about auburn and brownie. how auburn gets territorial over food, but the two of them sleep in the trunk of the same tree. how i've seen them standing shoulder to shoulder. two dark angels who've lost their wings but refuse to fall. how i can feel the love they have for each other. "there's a connection there," alex said. cheryl told me her favourite squirrel is grey. she comes to her house almost every day. "i keep hoping she'll eat out of my hand," she said. "but she hasn't yet." hope and fear fought against the fine lines wrought by middle age and made a smile on her face that let me see the child she was a few years before i was born. "she will," i said. "animals know who the good people are. they're wise that way." 220424 what's it to you? who go blather from