Mr. Scruff and the lady in heat

Mr. Scruff, the chipmunk, popped out of his hole. A dry wind swept the field, carrying a strange, familiar chirping shriek that reverberated inside his tiny head and stirred inside his tiny loins. He shivered. He lowered his head and licked the red blotch on his front paw. It tasted salty and metallic and filled him with a hazy shame over some undetermined struggle the previous night. His friend, Petr Rabbit, had no doubt bitten and ejected him from his den for defiling it in some way, through vomit or urine or humping Petr's lame drunk (soft, bunny) cousin/den-mate to climax. Or all three. Rotten apples always made Mr. Scruff act that way.

The wind died down, but the chirping shriek remained. It tugged at him from the nearby orchard. He hobbled towards it. It grew louder, resonating in his skull with such intensity that he had to lie down, easy prey should a fox or hawk spot him.

"Fuck a fox or hawk," he thought.

He closed his eyes. His heartbeat quickened. His underbelly tingled, and its white hairs stood up on end, and that was not all that stood up on end. The shriek, in swirls of sound that would make more sense if they were colors, continued.

Mr. Scruff vomited apple peel onto a patch of crab-grass.

Half-conscious, he had a vision. He lay trapped in a corner of his childhood burrow with his sick and patchy-haired brother, under a dead leaf, unable to come out, unable to play any games, lest his mother nip him. That same shriek sounded off the walls, along with another sound, a deeper, male squeak. Then a musky stench and hours of interminable quiet, and finally peeking out from under the corner of the leaf, he saw a fat stranger with a big fat stripe nibbling on his mother's ear. Was he going to eat her?

Mr. Scruff tried to vomit again, but there was nothing in his stomach. The shriek had stopped. A fat, younger chipmunk scurried past him without acknowledgment.

"Asshole," Mr. Scruff squeaked, and wandered into the orchard in search of a rotten apple.

Up next: Mr. Scruff prepares for winter

Mr. Scruff and the new mushroom

Mr. Scruff, the chipmunk, popped out of his hole. The late morning sun shone hot on his black back stripes. A breeze ruffled the prairie grasses and the fur on his tail. The deafening din of the cicadas' song reverberated through the air, a strange white noise.

From the pit of his stomach, Mr. Scruff felt a deep craving for the smoky, earthy button mushrooms that grew at the base of the Great Oak, so off he dashed into the forest. He plowed through the soft carpet of dead leaves, occasionally stopping to eat a fallen cicada, carefully unwrapping the wings to reveal a nutty treat with a juicy center.

Mr. Scruff pummeled the Great Oak's trunk with his paws, his black and beady eyes reflecting the sun falling through the leaves. Some jerk had eaten the caps off all the button mushrooms, completely ignoring the stems' perfect complementary flavor.

"Squirrels did this," he muttered. "Fucking sexy-tailed rats."

Mr. Scruff looked around for another suitable snack. About a quarter of the way up the Great Oak's trunk grew a new mushroom. Mr. Scruff recalled the childhood rhyme:

John found a mushroom on the Oak.
He took a bite and rose alight
Into the sun, John had his fun
And fried his mind, a brainless joke.

"Bullshit," thought Mr. Scruff and climbed the tree towards the labia-shaped delicacy.

Some time later, Mr. Scruff found himself under the shady bush, nauseous, paranoid, and euphoric. The cicadas' song seemed to be foaming, no, forming, no, foaming words.

"MUSHROOM, WE LOVE, MUSHROOM, WE LOVE," they sang. A drop of water fell from one of the shady bush's leaves, slowly, so slowly, glitter in the afternoon sun, a million colors and no color, a million shapes and no shape...splash.

"Eee!" Mr. Scruff squeaked.

"YOU DIE, TODAY, YOU DIE, TODAY," the cicadas sang. Mr. Scruff felt like he had eaten pine needles. He pulled one of the great, broad leaves down with his tiny paws and hid under it. He squeezed his eyes shut. Dark crimson spirals twirled against a black sea, forming hideous rodent faces. He opened his eyes. Dark green worms crawled all over his leaf blanket.

"Eee!" Mr. Scruff squeaked.

He scampered towards his hole: a long, long, intolerably long scamper. He dove through the entrance.

"I am the one," he thought. Then, "It's filthy in here."

He lay down on his leaf-bed and tried for several hours to sleep.

Up next: Mr. Scruff and the lady in heat

Check out Mr. Scruff in image form at: Pat Guy

Mr. Scruff smells a predator

Mr. Scruff, the chipmunk, popped out of his hole. The sun had already disappeared behind the tallest of the trees, and the sky glowed lavender. Mr. Scruff had not eaten all day because yesterday he found a rotten cherry that some lousy kid dropped at the Picnic Site. He ate it alone in his hole, and he squeaked song after song, even the Christmas one.

"Al-VIN!" Mr. Scruff had yelled over and over, falling on his leaf-bed laughing.

And today he had a big, big ache in his tiny head, and he turned over and over in his leaf-bed, clutching at his face with his paws, crying and trying to squeeze out the throbbing. He slept away the afternoon.

Now there was scant time to find a meal before the night animals (a bunch of creeps) emerged, so he scurried out. Usually in this situation he would go to Lars Mouse's burrow to borrow some seeds, but Lars was still angry about the rotten-grape-induced ear-bite the other day. Fucking rotten grape. Fucking Lars. It was a love bite. All mice are homophobes.

Mr. Scruff spotted a snail between two blades of crab grass.

"Ugh," he thought. "This will have to do."

He grabbed the snail and bit off its head. He held his breath, pulled the slimy mess from its shell, and choked it down.

"Much better baked," he thought.

Musk filled the air. Mr. Scruff stood up on his hind legs and looked upwind.

A weasel skulked not ten feet away. It turned towards him. He ran.

Back in his hole, Mr. Scruff was sick with adrenaline. The snail had not stayed down, and he was not about to eat it twice. His stomach rumbled as he lay on his leaf-bed, counting the roots on the ceiling. So many roots, so many wasted days.

Up next: Mr. Scruff and the new mushroom

Mr. Scruff goes outside

Mr. Scruff, the chipmunk, popped out of his hole. He was thirsty and scampered across the sunny field to the shady bush, whose big leaves often held droplets of skunky tasting water. He reached up with his paws and pulled a leaf toward his mouth. The water went up his nose. He sneezed, then licked the water off the ground.

He lay down under the shady bush. His head throbbed, and he felt the first tender vines of shame creep into his chest. It was not a good idea to have eaten the entire rotten grape yesterday, or better put, to have eaten it in public. And to have run around the Picnic Site in his own mad glory, chattering whatever chirps popped into his head. And to have bit Lars Mouse. And to have tried to mount that strange rabbit, Petr's cousin. Edyta was her name. And she only had half a front leg from the Feral Cat attack. Jesus...that was sexy.

And then what? Someone must have dropped him back into his hole before dusk so he wouldn't become an owl's breakfast. Petr most likely.

A leaf caressed his head.

"This would all be terribly funny if it weren't me," he thought.

Up next: Mr. Scruff smells a predator

Mr. Scruff wakes up

Mr. Scruff, the chipmunk, popped out of his hole. The sunlight seared his little black eyes, and the roar of the wind hurt his tiny little ears. He ducked back in and made himself a cracked acorn for breakfast.

"Kind of dry," he squeaked to himself, "I wish I had some dew."

But Mr. Scruff did not wake up early enough to gather the dew, owing to a rotten grape he found yesterday near the Picnic Site.

His mother, Ms. Munk-Scruff, had always told him to stay away from rotten fruit. "If you eat it, your belly will swell up like a walnut, and then one day ten tiny mewling aliens will pop out and suck you dry."

Mr. Scruff believed this for a long time before discovering that his mother was crazy -- after she slumped over in the corner and told him that he was one of the aliens that popped out of her belly. This was after eating an entire rotten apricot. An entire rotten apricot!

Up next: Mr. Scruff goes outside