Dear Evelyn,
Since last October we have been visiting you. We watch you from outside your window as you sit inside, watching us. All through last winter, heat from inside kept us warm, if we pressed ourselves to your window. When we did this, you would beat the glass, flick it with your fingernail, or, and this was by far the worst insult, you would throw a soft object with great force at the window, startling us from our huddle so that we would leap into the scraggly branches of a nearby tree, where a clan of militant crows made ragged by winter threatened to peck out our eyes.
It is nearing October, again. Again we approach the ledge outside your window and you pound the glass. It is our Dark Night of the Soul. We beseech you: let us stay here on your ledge, or better, let us burrow into the wood of your window frame. We have already chewed a nice, squirrel-sized hole for our family.
SQUIRREL MANIFESTO
We wish that our motives would no be so misunderstood by you. To this end, here is our MANIFESTO, first drafted on the inside of a discarded cereal box.
Point 1) We are squirrels. We will not deny the truth of ourselves.
Point 2) As squirrels, we are creatures of the street, of the urban dumpster, and as such we exist symbiotically with you.
Point 3) We don't ask to eat from your hand, but if you offer, we will
Point 4) We want nuts, if you're offering
Point 5) Our aims as urban creatures are often misunderstood. We do not "slink", "creep", "cajole", or otherwise act deviantly. Our brothers, the rats, have motives and methods completely separate from our own: do not conflate ours with theirs.
Point 6) We are essentially harmless. Just look into our eyes.
Point 7) We deserve to exist unmolested by you. We just want to gather, play, and huddle near your dissipating heat.
Point 8) The simplicity of our demands should not negate our intelligence. After all, we managed to draft a manifesto.
