Whew! What a day! I thought to myself as I headed home. My office was conducting one of those training programs which I was a part of and I just hit home, tired but with the soda bottle high that one normally gets after attending an interactive training session, all bubbly and energetic despite a long day.
I lay on my bed musing over the events of the program when I heard my mother calling me for dinner.
Dinner was regular affair with rice, curd and papads. I was happily tucking in when mom questioned me about the day and I, in turn, asked about hers. Family was just mom and I you see; dad passed away when I was a little baby and I have a genius for a brother who was abroad, involved in his research. I had just finished my graduation and began working as an executive in a telecom company and overall life was looking good.
Dinner time, besides chatting about the day to life events to politics, was also the time when decisions were taken jointly regarding the domestic issues by mom and I and this time, it involved modifying our kitchen which looked a thorough mess and resembled nothing on this earth with its damp walls and grease, dirty floor one couldn’t step on and a clogged up sink. Mom mentioned that two men who were into civil work and had come over that day to take a look at things for remodeling.
In the course of the conversation, Mom spoke about an event which was to affect me more severely than what I thought it would.
Apparently, while mom was negotiating the price and showing the kitchen contractors the place, it turned out that there was a bucket half filled with water and a little baby squirrel had fallen into it. Mom had got the bucket of water ready to use it to wash clothes when she was interrupted by the men. One of the men emptied the bucket complete with water and squirrel out in our backyard and it lay there for a few minutes, shocked and shivering with cold and fright before bounding away.
The squirrel had escaped death for the first time that day.
The incident was dismissed and once mom was done with the contractors and her washing up she went outside to stand near a wall separating our house and that of our neighbor. As was the routine every evening, mom was gossiping with our neighbor next door a spirited old lady when there was a sudden movement and something that looked like a blur passed by her. Before she could recover, there was another movement just as fast. It took both for a minute to grasp that it was the same squirrel that mom had found in the bucket now being furiously chased by a cat.
My neighbor, a rather enthusiastic old lady, tried to chase away the cat that was excitedly mewing at the squirrel. As for our friend here, it had gone close to a pot kept close by and just sat there shivering with fright. The cat had to pass my mom and our neighbor to get to the squirrel. It mewed away in hope to cross but was also wary of the watchful eyes of mom and my neighbor, who seem determined to keep it away from the squirrel. After a while with a disgusted look at the ladies, the cat slunk away.
The squirrel had escaped death for the second time that day.
Mom finished relating this incident in time with me completing my dinner. I went to my room which was in the first floor of the house to listen to music, as is my post dinner ritual. As I entered my room, I opened the bathroom door and lo! There was the little squirrel dashing about the bathroom.
It had come in through a little window which had a tree growing by it outside. I was in a dilemma. Should I let it out? It was nearly midnight and how can I open the doors so late? What if it dint go through the door and starts jumping all over the house? What if the cat gets at it?
While I was thinking, I heard a mew just outside the door. That decided it! The cat was somewhere about outside and I decided that the squirrel was safer where it is than outside at the mercy of the cat. After all, it had shelter and it was safe from the greedy cat. I locked the bathroom door so it wouldn’t get out and bound all over the house.
Thus the squirrel had escaped death for the third time that day. I sure felt like a savior thinking of that.
Next day being a Sunday, I had my own plans. I hardly went to the first floor of my house. The squirrel was completely forgotten as I stayed in the ground floor. After finishing my chores, I set out to go on a shopping spree.
It was evening when I reached home and rather pleased with my purchases. I suddenly remembered the little squirrel still locked in the bathroom.
I rushed upstairs to the first floor and opened the bathroom door cautiously, half expecting it to dash out.
Unlike the previous night, there were no movements or noises in the bathroom. The room was eerily quiet.
“It must have escaped through the very window that it came in” I thought to myself and went into the room. A quick, accidental glance into the toilet made me freeze on the spot.
For, fallen in the toilet that was left open the previous night was the squirrel, lying there deathly still. There was only one feeling that I felt. It overtook all other emotions and seemed to match with that of the squirrel’s expression in its death– a feeling of sheer helplessness – that when death decides to strike, no one is spared.
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