Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Possible Omen

Today I saw a squirrel spontaneously fall out of a tree. I was talking to Alison out the window when it happened. She was wearing her bike helmet, getting ready to ride over to our friend Krista's place. A man and his young daughter were also there, having stopped strolling down the sidewalk to talk to me and Dave's cat through the open window. So there were plenty of witnesses, is I guess what I'm saying.

The squirrel fell about two stories and landed with a splat on the road behind the little girl. Then it got up, looked around, shook itself off a little, and scampered back up the tree it had just fallen from. It might have fallen from one of the power lines. I'm not sure. I'd never seen anything like that before. But it definitely happened.

Another guy happened by too, right afterwards, and he was laughing and shaking his head. It was one of those weird, friendly, apocalyptic, deus-ex-machina neighbourhood moments that crop up in magic-realist novels and bad horror movies. But it really happened. I swear.


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