sciuridae raze some of my best friends are dead. newsom is buried in my back yard. little_guy was laid to rest not far from the tree that could have been his home. jimmy, timmy, sniper, greyson, boxer, chatterbox, curly, q, auburn, skeeter, bouncer, monk, frederick feathertail, baby grey, tiger bomb, dusty, brown-brown, scarface, and tortellini two-tone all just disappeared. i don't know if they chose a quiet, hidden place to drift into forever-sleep, or if they were carried off by hawks or mashed beneath the tires of uncomprehending cars. i was sure i saw red_tail earlier this year. i think it was just a grief-induced hallucination. he was gone before i could get close enough to tell him how much i missed him. i have a painting of the magnificent_six beside my bed. all but one of them are ghosts now. there are new friends. sneaker. elfie. doc martin. paulie. curb stomper. speed racer. simon birch. scrappy. tapioca. offshoot, whose brilliant burning staff must be a genetic hand_me_down from red_tail himself. junior, who i'm almost convinced is newsom's daughter. tiny didn't make it through the christmas blizzard. he was the smallest black squirrel i'd ever seen. even little_guy would have dwarfed him. his eyes were enormous. he looked like an anime character. i watched him try to crack a whole walnut once. i don't think his teeth were strong enough yet to pierce the shell. there was something beautiful and sad about his doomed persistence. i was afraid lil' bit didn't have enough meat on her bones to survive the cold either. but she's proven she's in it for the long haul. i don't know if she'll ever be as big as the others. what she lacks in size she makes up for in grit. she won't back down from anyone. she used to take her treats off the tip of my shoe. now she plucks them from my fingers with her mouth. sometimes she reaches out and lays both her hands on me. butterscotch, moonshine, wavy, brownie, and bailey amaretto are all still with us. and patches has become the senior squirrel of willistead park. when i met her the fall before last, it was tough to tell what colour she was supposed to be. that's how much fur she was missing. you wouldn't believe it to look at her now. if she didn't have such a special face, i probably wouldn't recognize her. it took a year and a half for her to trust me enough to let me feed her by hand. that's the same way it was with newsom. patches used to flinch every time i tossed her a nut. now she runs to my feet to be fed. almost everyone's pretty scarce right now. breeding season has a way of thinning the ranks for a while. but i always see at least a few of my comrades on walking days. patches is around more often than i thought she'd be. just like she was this time last year. i brought my camera with me yesterday. there was a grey squirrel in the middle of the road. flat and twisted and dead. only the colour of the coat covering what used to be their stomach let me know what i was looking at. and then i wished i hadn't seen anything at all. i hope it wasn't anyone i know. it wasn't patches. i know that much. she showed up around newsom's old tree near the end of the walk. she let me get some great shots. but i think my favourite picture of her was taken a little over a month ago. she's standing with her arms extended. fingers curled inward. the soft pink pad of one palm showing. eyes cast to the heavens. a silver seraph admiring the world she weaves her way through like she's meeting it for the very first time, and all that's come to feel familiar has been made new again by the simple act of being seen. 230531 what's it to you? who go blather from