The blind woodchuck and her cousin Shirley sat quietly in the dark on the bank of the stream. The meadow and surrounding forest were silent, waiting for the light. Steve the Iguana joined them, and soon the chipmunks and the platypus and the beaver and the squirrels and several other groundhog cousins lined the edges of the water near the two woodchucks.
“I heard the ferrets got rounded up by someone in a truck with PetCo written on the side,” said Chip the chipmunk in a hushed tone. “They will spend the rest of their days in cages, being forced to run continuously on one of those wheels that has no end.”
“It’s not the destination, it’s the journey,” smirked his brother Dale.
“Now don’t be mean,” Chip admonished him.
“Why can’t we be mean?” asked the iguana. “They’ve been horrible to us for the past two years. I don’t see why we have to be civil to them.”
“I heard a rumor that they caught the weasel sucking eggs in the chicken coop and now he’s around someone’s neck with his tail sewn into his mouth.” The animals gasped at the platypus’s story, although Dale kept snorting and giggling. He had once been voted Most Likely To Be Eaten By Wolves because he kept taunting them and had obviously not learned his lesson.
A single mallard climbed out of the brook and limped past the crowd of animals as they watched in silence. His head was down, his feathers smeared with ketchup, as he muttered about the algae in his pond. “Well, that’s a pointed metaphor,” said the woodchuck.
“Just because most of the bad dudes have been run out of here doesn’t mean things will be that different,” argued the platypus. “That Muskrat is still around here somewhere, using his collection of cicadas and grasshoppers to bribe some of the stupider animals. The raccoons haven’t eaten enough of the vaccine cubes to get to herd immunity yet and the forest could be on fire tomorrow because of climate change! And I’m not sure about that woodchuck named Schumer who is supposed to be in charge of the Senate —didn’t he pick Haley Stevens? There is still so much to worry about!” The platypus was a combination of many things, but an optimist was not one of them.
“That is true,” sighed Shirley, “but just for now, the warming earth has given us this freakishly balmy November evening so we can sit together and allow ourselves a few moments to breathe and dip our paws in the cool, blue water. Can we please just take this moment and savor it before we analyze it to death?”
The blind woodchuck nodded and reached around to scratch at a rock she had been sitting on. It turned out to be a Snickers bar embedded in the fur of her haunch. She pried the hairy chocolate treat off of her backside and took a bite, then passed it to Shirley, who did the same thing and gave it to the iguana. One by one, they all shared a simple meal as the dawn spilled its molten rays over the edge of the horizon, drenching the meadow in pink and gold. Today was a new day.
• • •
The blind woodchuck was actually able to sleep last night and looks forward to hibernation.
