A musty odor permeated the dirt of the burrow, as if someone had left a pile of wet towels on a muskrat in the toilet. The blind woodchuck was a tidy animal and hated the mildew smell that accumulated when it rained, but it was hard to keep everything fresh when water gushed down the walls and pooled on the floor. Her paws were always dirty now and she had to wash her feet before she went to bed at night.
It had been a summer of record-breaking storms and heat, and although she hated the constant dampness, at least her meadow wasn’t on fire like many other places. Still, her burrow was often filled with the choking smoke of wildfires from far away, and she found herself constantly refreshing her weather app to see what the air quality number was.
Anxiety about the unpredictable weather had made the animals tense. The beavers had started a gang war with the otters about who controlled the flow of the river. The flat-tailed tree-chewers kept damming up the streams that were nearly clearing the banks in hopes of controlling flooding, while the otters preferred the white waters raging as they body surfed across the surface. Technically, the beavers were being responsible, but they had to admit the otters seem to be having a lot more fun.
The most upsetting thing about the weird weather had been the way it affected the woodchuck’s favorite food. The annual movable feast of tasty cicadas had emerged as usual in the spring, but after each big storm, there were hardly any to be found. The thundering winds uprooted hundred-year-old trees and shook the branches free of the clingy insects. Just last week, the woodchuck had stood at the entrance to her burrow and watched her hibernation stash get blown out of the state. She shook her tiny fist at the swirling husks of her lunch; and then sneezed delicately.
Now she lay in her damp burrow and sneezed fourteen times in a row. Shirley put her paw on her cousin’s forehead and shook her head. “You’re more than warm-blooded now —you’re positively hot.” The woodchuck would have taken that as a compliment if she hadn’t felt so miserable. “I’ve put out a call to the duck docs but they seem to have flown the coop,” said Shirley. “The weasel and the ferrets have been after them lately to distract from this stupid bear war they keep prolonging.” The mallards were the ones with the most medical knowledge and one in particular was considered an expert. His name was Tony, but everyone called him Dr. Fowl-ci. This water bird had been professional and clearheaded during the years of the pandemic scare and was a trusted source of advice.
Steve the Iguana poked his head into the burrow and handed Shirley a note. The duck doctor had refused to speak on the advice of counsel but had written down a diagnosis on a scrap of paper.
“My dear woodchuck, you appear to be suffering from a new heavily mutated subvariant of the Covid virus*. It mimics the behavior of certain insects—initially emerging, going dormant and then resurfacing months later. Therefore, we are calling it the Cicada variant. There is no proof this virus comes from eating cicadas, but it wouldn’t hurt to cut down. You do have a tendency to hog all the ones found in the meadow. You will be fine in three days. Love, Tony.”
The woodchuck and Shirley had decided a few months ago that they would not worry about the upcoming elections until the fall; they would soak up the heat of the endless sunshine and bask in the joys of a summer abundance of berries and crisp greens. They would gorge on cicadas until their bellies could barely fit down the tunnels of their burrows and they would be wild animals as long as they could, even if it meant pretending everything was just fine. The woodchuck sneezed again, and Shirley started coughing.
Somewhere in the meadow, a dumpster burst into flames.
• • •
Thoughts of a glorious summer often fill our heads as we shiver in the cold months, but those fantasies are not always fulfilled. A full 90 days of summer is not promised to anyone, so gather ye cicadas while you can and for God’s sake,
don’t eat any lettuce. We’ll be in the middle of midterms soon enough, so put on a shitload of bug spray and go outside.
*The “Cicada” variant (officially BA.3.2) is a heavily mutated Omicron-related subvariant of SARS-CoV-2 that has been circulating globally and across the United States. It earned its nickname because it mimics the behavior of cicada insects—initially emerging, going dormant or quiet under the radar, and then resurfacing months later. [1, 2, 3]
• • •
The woodchuck has a new burrow! You can still hang around here with the other woodland animals, but the iguanas and the platypus have moved over to Substack, where they hope to reach millions of new readers and possibly amass a fortune in cicadas! Look for her at The Blind Woodchuck on Substack.
theblindwoodchuck.com 