Startling moment earlier today. Writing it up now before I forget it ever happened.
10am. Ambling along on my first of what would be four daily constitutionals. Wide sidewalk. Overcast skies. No concerns.
An object lands on the sidewalk in front of me. It landed with a scampering thud. Whatever this was it hit the ground and started running. I thought it was a football or a coconut or a small child hurled from the adjacent Queensview buildings.
I screamed a little. Raised my arms. My body jolted back.
It took only a ½-second instant to see that this scampering gift from the sky was a SQUIRREL. That poor thing must have fallen 15 or 20 feet from a tree up above, although from the instant in which I had to interpret its body language that squirrel seemed to have known exactly what it was doing. S/he seemed neither shocked nor surprised to have fallen so far from the tree above to the pavement below. A hearty, streetworn chest on that little beast. Squirrels FLY.
My initial alarm subsided. I heard the voice of someone. I turned and saw a man sitting in his car, parked right next to where I stood.
He had rolled down his window and yelled “DUDE!”
I asked “You saw that?”
He said “Fuck yeah!”
I was happy to know this moment was not mine and mine alone.
The man in his car said “I saw the whole thing. That would have scared the hell out of me, too! Animals falling from the air!”
I said “I’m glad you saw this. If I’d walked just a few steps further that squirrel would have landed splat on my head!”
Dude laughed and said “Yeah! Seriously. Right on your head. I saw the whole thing. Fucking incredible.”
I laughed and said “Beware of flying squirrels.”
He laughed, the squirrel scampered off, and we all went about our separate ways.
