The Inevitable

/ Jeff Cann

The chipmunk that lived in the downspout behind my back porch died today. Tommy murdered it. Does that sound hyperbolic?  Do cats commit murder? If he had any intention of eating it, I would say he killed it, but eating wasn’t part of the plan. He offed it for sport. He dropped it on my bedroom floor and howled until someone (Susan) came to witness his kill. Chalk an outline, dispose of the corpse. I’d call this murder first-degree. Tommy’s been stalking that bugger for a month.

Susan was upset about the death. She said she wished we did something to prevent it. I say the chipmunk had it coming. Tommy caught it and brought it into the house twice before. Both times, Sophie found it running around, trying to escape, so she rescued it. How do I know Tommy brought it in? Roz doesn’t play with critters, she eats them. Roz would have shredded it. Just two days ago, I saw Roz guarding the downspout, eyes glued to the opening. The chipmuck scampered through the garden behind her. After all these warnings, all these close calls, the chipmunk should have moved away from our house. That little guy had to know his days were numbered.

The skies above Gettysburg are filled with smoke. I can smell it when I exit my house. See it in the dimness of the sun, the grayness of the sky. Wildfires burn in Canada pumping smoke into the north eastern United States. Millions of hectares (whatever that is) have burned in Canada, an area the size of Maryland. Yes, Maryland is a small state, but it still takes five hours to drive across. That’s a lot of trees.

I can’t remember the last year when wildfires weren’t a major news story. Recent years: California, Colorado, Australia, Canada. Year after year we watch in shock as neighborhoods burn to the ground and terrified senior citizens outlast the flames by hiding in their swimming pools. The swampy wooded area behind my house is bone dry. Do I need to worry about a wildfire consuming my neighborhood? Is it just a matter of time? I don’t own a pool.

Humans, like our chipmunk, have an enormous capacity to deny our inevitable fate.

I live with a distinct feeling we’re all marking time. Waiting for the hammer to drop. Overbuilt vacation cities line the outer banks of North Carolina awaiting the hurricane that will erase miles of coastline. Since it last erupted in 1980, people have built homes directly on the dried lava flow on Mount Saint Helens, ignoring the fact that it’s an active volcano. Throw in megacities San Francisco and Los Angeles with their long overdue earthquakes. And the population of the entire southwest continues to expand despite its drying rivers and aquifers. New Orleans, Miami, New York. These cities are all temporary. Susceptible to storms and sea level rise.

Americans must be the most optimistic people alive.

Over the past month, everyone in my family has discussed the folly of a chipmunk setting up house under the hopeful gaze of two cats. There was only one way this could end. The only surprise is how long it took those cats to kill the chipmunk. Eventually, all the catastrophes listed above will occur. Some sooner, some later, but as we learned from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, as soon as the ground dries, the rebuilding will start.

19 thoughts on “The Inevitable”

  1. Lots of councils here (Au) are banning cats outside, especially at night. We’ve many of the problems you discuss, but it looks like we’re happy to rein-in the cats, not ourselves.

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    • Hmmm. Sticking my cats outside on Friday and Saturday night is my strategy to be able to sleep past six am on weekend mornings. No poking at my sleeping face with claws to get me up to feed them.

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  2. I was out walking my dog yesterday ironically after having just attended a virtual Traumatic Brain Injury support group and we happened upon a newly dead squirrel 🐿️ that looked like it just missed a branch and fell to its death probably expiring because of a TBI. Thankfully my dog didn’t notice it. Your chipmunk story reminded me of this.

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    • And your comment reminds me of the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) who lived in the New Mexican cliffs. I always wondered how many of them fell to their death just going about the mundane routine of their life. Thanks for your comment. I love free association. We should all do more of it.

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  5. Maybe it’s the female cats that eat and the male cats that play or kill without eating🤷🏼‍♀️
    Our female would catch and consume mice… leaving only the tail for me to find. Our male leaves dead bugs mostly… he’s kinda dumb, can’t catch the mice. He plays with them but never eats them.
    I know the haze from fires all too well. Fires, floods, quakes, and the extremely high cost of living in CA, yet people are still coming🤷🏼‍♀️ Is that optimism or people believing the lie about the California Dream?

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  9. I love the way you have linked story with the larger picture here Jeff, mankind is at least as careless and short term thinking as your rather foolish squirrel. He said the price, no doubt so will we. It makes me sick to think of all those trees burning

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