nature – theblindwoodchuck.com

And to Think That I Wanted a Mulberry Tree! (again)

(with apologies to Dr. Seuss)

(Can’t believe it’s time for the annual posting of this homage to Theodor Seuss Geisel. The little suckers are three weeks later than last year, which means they had time to gather their internal lethal juices so they explode with a spatter range of maroon that puts Quentin Tarantino flicks to shame. It would be amazing if it weren’t so awful.)

When I was much younger and without a clue,
I bought a big house with a big backyard, too.
I gazed at the plants and the flowers and bees,
And said “Look over there! It’s a Mulberry Tree!”

How lovely the shade a Mulberry makes.
Berries galore! All the pies that I’d bake!
I’d hang colored lights in the twigs oh so tall –
Such thoughts fill your head when you buy in the fall.

But then comes the spring and the branches are full,
Of the tiny green berries that soon will be mull.
And you stare at the many and think “Surely not!”
There can’t be — it couldn’t! — but it sure seems alot!

And, finally, summer, and the fruit overhead,
Gets heavy and turns a dark ominous red.
And before you can say “Happy Fourth of July!”
Their stems all let go and they plunge from the sky.

In bunches! In torrents! In great globs they fall!
‘Till you can’t see the ground or the grass not at all.
And you wonder if Prince wrote the song “Purple Rain”,
When he witnessed his deck become one big red stain .

Then the dog goes outside and they get tween her toes,
In her fur! In her paws! On her head! In her nose!
And so back in the house, she goes in a sprint,
Leaving a trail of maroon doggie prints.

And the birdies all come here to snack and to pick,
‘Till the yard looks like some kind of Alfred H. flick.
And they screech and they poop and they make such a mess
That you wish they’d go find someone else’s address.

So you get out the hose and you wash off the sauce,
And you say to yourself “Guess I showed them who’s boss!”
As you settle back into your deck chair to snooze,
And they pelt you, you see they are laughing at you!

“It’s a war you can’t win!” they all seem to say,
As they merrily bounce both this and that way.
“We’re with you till August and longer!” they tease,
“And nothing you do can get us to leave!”

And the sad thing is that you sure know they are right,
As they land with a thud both by day and by night.
You’ve tried pruning and cutting and various sprays
That would kill buffalo but not a berry was fazed.

And to think that I wanted a Mulberry Tree!
Long ‘for I knew it would just bring debris.
But I won’t let them win! I’ll lay down the law!
My next major purchase will be a chainsaw!

I may not have shade. I may broil in the sun.
But I have to admit just the thought of it’s fun!
All those quivering berries as I cut down that tree,
It’s the last time that fruit will be laughing at me!

The Blind Woodchuck does not appreciate being hijacked by some wannabe poet, and wants to emphasize that she quite enjoys mulberries, especially the ones that gush when you bite into them. Sometimes there are bees attached, which gives the berry an extra crunch when you pop it in your mouth. Texture is everything in a well-balanced bite.

We Are All Florida Now

She glided through the turquoise water as if born with gills, her sleek fins covered in green and gold paillettes that reflected the admiration of the fish who watched her swim. What had once been a furry haunch was now a tail meant for speed; it whipped back and forth and pushed her through the water as silent and deadly as a barracuda. Her top half was encased in two scalloped shells tied together to create a fetching bra, and while she wasn’t exactly Ariel, she could certainly pass as a mermaid at Weeki Watchee Springs*.

She was wrenched from her sea fantasy by the realization that she couldn’t actually breathe underwater and sat up in her burrow, gasping. Her cousin Shirley was standing over her, having just thrown a cup of water in her face. “What the hell did you do that for?” screamed the woodchuck, realizing that her sequined mermaid tail now ended in two dirty paws.

“You were choking in your sleep and I had to wake you up,” pointed out Shirley. “I saved your life! You really should use that CPAP machine.”

“It’s so cold,” the woodchuck whined, now damp and shivering. “I should be deep in hibernation, but my anxiety keeps waking me up. I want to be somewhere warm!’

“Maybe we should move south,” mused Shirley, as she trod on a frozen lump. “Damn, what did I step on?”

“Be careful, that’s Steve. Look, you broke off his tail! Steve! Wake up!”

A mess of iguanas had wandered into the meadow at the end of the summer, tired of politics and fearful of immigration rumors. Originally from Mexico, they had lived in Florida for hundreds of years but that didn’t seem to stop anyone from trying to deport them. They loved the intense heat of the midwestern sun in their new home and could frequently be found sunning themselves on rocks.

The woodchuck adored the iguanas. She thought they were alligators when they first arrived, but soon discovered they were herbivores and not interested in eating her. They were big card players, and the woodchuck had spent many happy hours winning all their insects and leaves. Her favorite part was when they tried to bluff and did not seem to realize their tell was when they turned bright blue. Shirley insisted that wasn’t possible because they were iguanas, not chameleons, but the pile of dried cicadas the woodchuck had won disproved that theory.

Unfortunately, the lizards had not realized what the geographical difference in the climate would eventually bring. The frozen bodies of iguanas were strewn about the floor of the burrow as the temperatures dropped and so did they.

“Don’t worry, they’re not dead, just a little stiff,” the woodchuck reassured her cousin. “Why are you in here?”

“I think we should have a party! Let’s celebrate Groundhog Day and the fact that you don’t have to go to Punxsutawney now because you’re retired!”

The woodchuck could think of several reasons why she hated this idea, but apparently Shirley had already invited everyone in the meadow and animals began pouring into her burrow. As the tunnels filled with the hot breath of furry rodents, the temperature climbed and the iguanas stirred. The dancing started when one of her cousins dragged an old boombox he had found at the dump into the burrow, and the CD stuck inside blasted out the opening brass of the Miami Sound machine. “Come on, shake your body baby do the conga!” they screamed along with Gloria. An otter was keeping the beat on the shell of a turtle that had wandered in as the skunks and raccoons serpentined in and out of the tunnels in a conga line. The song stopped abruptly at “let your body feel the . . .” and then started over, a continuous loop of never-ending bongos. The party raged on, as the opossums shared some fun mushrooms they had found and the rats kept holding up the beaver’s tails to look like they had Micky Mouse ears. The iguanas shouted “ratoncito mickey!” and the revelers erupted in cheers.

The woodchuck watched, not sure if she could summon the energy to join in with this manic crowd. Outside a dumpster fire raged that would soon spread to the meadow, scorching the dry grasses and causing the trees to erupt into tikki torches. A Musky odor seemed to float over the fields like a warning and the air felt charged, as if a hurricane was forming in the Gulf of Meximerica or whatever the weasel was calling it now. The world was terrifying; was it really a good idea to dance and party in denial?

On the plus side, the iguanas had thawed out and Steve’s tail was already growing back. Maybe she could find a few moments of joy with this sweaty, hallucinating group of freaks. A squirrel wearing a French maid outfit passed by with a tray of psilocybin canapés, and the woodchuck popped one in her mouth.

“Ratoncito mickey!” she giggled and merged into the congo line.

• • • • •

*I have no plans to visit Florida soon, as I hate humidity and get sick on roller coasters. Also it feels like I will never sleep again as I keep waking up in despair,
but one day I would love to see the mermaids of https://weekiwachee.com/park-attractions/.

As long as I don’t have to go to Florida to see them.

A Holly, Jolly Pranksgiving

Twinkling lights were strung from end to end of the burrow, creating an electric grid effect that caused the woodland animals to shriek with joy as they jumped over and climbed through the strings of tiny lasers. In one area, there was a piney-fragrant fur tree that a friendly beaver had gnawed down and then dropped into the tunnel, laughing about how it was “going to be a lot harder to get it out than in!” The sweet voices of young rodents rang out as they joined in perfect harmony to warble A Holly Jolly Christmas for the twenty-ninth time.

The woodchuck woke up screaming, her paws clutched to either side of her face like a furry Macauley Culkin. The burrow was dark and silent. The burned-out Christmas lights she had thrown over some twigs had fallen and become a hazard; she tripped over them every single time she got up to pee.

It had been a nightmare, one so real that the chant of “Hey, Ho, the mistletoe!” ricocheted around her sleep-deprived head and cause her to paw frantically at her ear to get it to stop.

The woodchuck had been in a bad mood for most of her existence, but the past six weeks had been particularly terrible. With the election of the Weasel and the non-election of the Muskrat who seemed to be in charge, every day brought new angst and fear about what they were planning for the forest. Merry, she was not.

She put a paw out to feel her way to the bathroom, when it suddenly sank into the hairy belly of a zombie who screeched in her face, “I AM THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST!” The woodchuck dropped to her knees in terror, something warm and wet running down her haunch, when the booming voice of her cousin Shirley started laughing hysterically. “I got you!,” she shrieked. “You peed on yourself! Hahahhahaha!”

Shirley had been trying to get the nickname Prankenstein trending around the forest since she had started jumping out at others, but it hadn’t stuck. The squirrels had suggested Prank Zappa, which caused them to giggle hysterically and choke on their nuts. There was one duckbilled platypus who kept pushing for Pranklin Shepherd, Inc. but there weren’t enough Sondheim fans around to appreciate it.

“I hate it when you jump out at me!” sobbed the woodchuck, sitting in the spreading puddle of hibernation pee. “You scared me; you never knock before you sneak in, and you are not funny. Your stupid nickname should be Prank Lloyd Wrong!”

Shirley was immediately contrite and apologized profusely; she then climbed out of the burrow to get some vegetation to sop up the moisture. She was gone for so long that the woodchuck assumed she had pranked off to scare the Dickens out of other animals. She was grateful to be alone again, but still churning with anger at her cousin and all the other animals she felt had wronged her that year. Spreading her Walmart bag quilt over the wet spot, she was about to settle back to sleep when a long stick was suddenly shoved down into her burrow. It was followed by Shirley and the beavers and several other animals, including the weird platypus.

“I’m so sorry,” yelled Shirley, who never seemed to say anything at a normal volume. “I know you’re mad at me, so I brought you a Festivus pole! You can Air Your Grievances at all of us, because nothing makes you happier than complaining.”

The woodchuck tried to find something wrong with that statement, but nothing came to mind. Her cousin knew her well. “I got a lot of problems with you animals . . .” she started.

For twenty glorious minutes, she ranted about the beavers chewing with their mouths open. She shouted at the platypus, “Are you a duck? Are you a beaver? Make up your mind!”

She pointed at Shirley. “And you . . . your jokes are not funny. Stop punking me. You are not Prank Costanza!” She paused for a breath and to appreciate how good her pun had been. She felt lighter than she had in weeks.

Taking advantage of the momentary pause, the crowd cheered and hurriedly moved on; seeing the woodchuck in a good mood was a Festivus miracle. They shared a delicious meal of berries and freeze-dried cicadas, with the squirrels chipping in some pre-chewed acorns. They were happy the rant was over before the woodchuck had got to them.

After too much eating and celebrating, it was time for the Feats of Strengths. The woodchuck and her cousin and all the beavers and squirrels participated, but the duckbilled platypus smoked everyone. Whatever combo it was, it was really strong.

At the end of the evening, the woodchuck waved goodnight to everyone and settled back in her cozy burrow, full of yummy food and the glow of being with good, if flawed, friends. It was time for a nice long sleep, and hopefully when she woke up in the spring, the weasel and the muskrat would have eaten each other and no one would be singing A Holly Jolly Christmas. God, she hated that song.

I hope your holidays are lovely and contain as much complaining as is necessary to get you through the coming weeks. It’s going to be a long, dark winter and we are all going to have to share our nuts to stay sane. Whether you are celebrating Festivus or bringing Prankincense to a manger, I hope it is as warm and cozy as a Walmart bag full of duck feathers!

Present: Tense

The anxiety was unbearable, like when hundreds of bees had burrowed into her fur and were all screaming at her at once because she ate their queen. (She didn’t mean to eat their ruler; it was just that all bees looked alike.) Every moment felt like hours, and the cacophony of who said what felt like it was at full volume. The rabbits in the meadow kept chanting, “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats” like it was a hilarious joke, not realizing that they could be next in the food chain. It felt like everyone had lost their damn minds.

Her cousin Shirley dropped by unexpectedly to recruit her to be a poll watcher. The woodchuck assumed that meant the polecats were going to be putting on another show, but watching those skinny little freaks dance made her feel bad about her thighs and she had enough things to worry about.

When was this madness going to be over? The animals in the forest were constantly going on about who they thought should run the woods, and every species seem to have a different idea of who was the scariest. Anxious chatter filled the skies from the bluebirds and the redbirds seemed to be completely divorced from reality, and now the muskrat was offering to pay people to vote for the weasel. The woodchuck felt that was extremely unfair, because no one on her side of the meadow was doing anything like that and she could use some extra cash. She didn’t really know what she would do with money, but she did love to win things. Also, how was that not illegal? She hoped the meerkat named Garland was looking into this.

She needed to distract herself, because if she saw one more clip of that weasel dancing to YMCA, she was going to gnaw off the paw holding her phone.

She tried watching Netflix, but the thing kept buffering and freezing. Reception in her burrow was never great, and it could always be counted on to go out just when you finally managed to lose yourself in the latest episode of Love is Blind, where the people were all terrible and no one talked about Arnold Palmer’s dick. She lay on her back in the dark, watching that little circle go endlessly around and around but never quite completing itself, not unlike this election cycle. She tried not to think about the reports that the polls were tightening, because she knew that had nothing to do with the stripping ferrets, or the fact that Pennsylvania —home of Punxsutawney, where she had faithfully predicted the weather for all those Groundhog Days!—might let her down.

Her head was going to explode if she kept thinking about this. How was she going to get through the next fourteen days? What she needed was a sure-fire distraction, a completely reliable streaming service that worked in a dark burrow and would provide enough mind numbing content to refocus her brain and force her amygdala to process only big-lipped housewives, badly-behaved yacht crews, and whatever Alan Cummings was wearing.

The woodchuck sat up, suddenly clearheaded. This was a great idea! Finally, a project that would focus her mind and keep her from endless checking her phone for updates on whether the former leader Bushy the Squirrel had endorsed someone. The woodchuck started sketching a logo for this new app and realized she should immediately apply for a patent before someone else could grab her concept. She would call it — TunnelVision!

Unfortunately, when the woodchuck applied for the trademark, she discovered that someone else had already patented the idea. It was called Bravo TV.

It was going to be a long two weeks.

Fourteen days to go. If anxiety and nerves could power vehicles, we would never again need to drill, baby, drill.

And to Think That I Wanted a Mulberry Tree! (again)

(with apologies to Dr. Seuss)

When I was much younger and without a clue,
I bought a big house with a big backyard, too.
I gazed at the plants and the flowers and bees,
And said “Look over there! It’s a Mulberry Tree!”

How lovely the shade a Mulberry makes.
Berries galore! All the pies that I’d bake!
I’d hang colored lights in the twigs oh so tall –
Such thoughts fill your head when you buy in the fall.

And, finally, summer, and the fruit overhead,
Gets heavy and turns a dark ominous red.
And before you can say “Happy Fourth of July!”
Their stems all let go and they plunge from the sky.

Then the dog goes outside and they get tween her toes,
In her fur! In her paws! On her head! In her nose!
And so back in the house, she goes in a sprint,
Leaving a trail of maroon doggie prints.

And to think that I wanted a Mulberry Tree!
Long ‘for I knew it would just bring debris.
But I won’t let them win! I’ll lay down the law!
My next major purchase will be a chainsaw!

The Cicada Parade-A!

(Still not the woodchuck, although she enjoys them as a snack)

I am a proud participant in the Cicada Parade-A, a public art project happening around the city of Chicago and neighborhoods. As the real heroes emerge from the warming soil, so will these 18 inch plaster casts painted by anyone who is as fascinated by the bugs as I am.

My cicada is called “Monument with Flying Beast”; it is a tribute to the piece of public art by Jean Debuffet that stood in front of the State of Illinois building downtown for forty years. Now that Google has bought the building, the sculpture will be moved to the Art Institute. The original piece was called “Monument with Standing Beast” and the abstract work represented an animal, tree, portal and architectural form, which also kind of applies to a cicada, amiright?

Public art endures as long as humans create! #cicadaparada

The Wings Beneath Her Wind

The meeting room I sat in had one wall that was all glass, which would have been a lovely diversion if it hadn’t looked out onto a parking lot. Sealed in like vacuum-packed salmon, I couldn’t even hear the drone of cicadas, which had been loud and constant that summer. Bored by the droning inside, a flash of white caught my eye outside. Abandoning any pretense that I was paying attention, I moved my chair closer to the window and was suddenly nose to nose with a tiny white creature. Its mouth was opening and closing silently, but it was clear the sound coming out was a pitiful meow.

“Look, it’s a kitten!” I shouted, completely disrupting the meeting. I grabbed a cardboard box and immediately ran outside. People at the window were pointing and shouting directions as I crawled under the bushes trying to find the cat. Their mouths opened and closed silently, and I realized this was the view the kitten must have had of us. Finally spotting it, I gently lifted it into the box. A silent cheer went up inside the room.

I took the tiny beast to my vet to get her checked out; he reported she was about six weeks old, skinny but in good health, probably abandoned by her mother. Amused, he said the fact that she survived on her own was amazing, but the truly astonishing thing was that her food source was cicadas. The proof was in the poop, which was full of insect exoskeleton. Eww. Trust me, you don’t want to be downwind of a cat who has been subsisting on these bugs.

That was 2007. How could I not keep a kitty with an origin story like that? My fascination with cicadas began when I learned that the kitten had been smart enough to hunt them as dinner. I use the term “hunt” loosely, as this was the last time the Brood XIII bugs emerged and there were so many of them scattered about the forest floor that it must have made a crunchy noise when she walked. Entomologists say that even the hungriest predators eventually get sick of eating cicadas, because the sheer number of them is mind-boggling and animals get tired of gorging on them. I’ve been told that works for pizza, too, although I have not found it to be true.

Seventeen years later, here they come again, and this time they are bringing friends. They are meeting up with the younger thirteen-year-old BroodXIX for the first time in one hundred years, and who knows what kind of party these guys are planning. The giant bugs are a bit creepy when you consider they will number in the billions, but aside from the ick factor, they are mostly just really loud. I am always stunned by the amount of exoskeleton left behind as they crawl out to mate for a swinging couple of days. At the last cicadapalooza, I collected cannisters full of their discarded shells, unsure why I wanted them but certain in the knowledge that I could do some kind of craft project. They are quite delicate, but with patience and a little shellac, I discovered that I could make fanciful earrings and necklaces out of them. I know what everyone is getting for Christmas this year!

The return of the seventeen-year Brood XIII cicadas is how I measure my cat’s time with me, like an oversexed bug growth chart with glowing orange eyes. That kitten is now old and fat and has outlived all the other pets in the house. She prefers her meals served from a can now, but we both look forward to the return of her former food source.

I may bring some live cicadas into the house just to see how she will react. Purina has a complicated formula that suggests she is the equivalent of eighty-four human years old. Some fresh, crunchy snacks might be just the nostalgic trip through her kittenhood that will make her forget how much her knees hurt when she still jumps up on the counter.

(The woodchuck is relaxing after her stressful eclipse experience, and will return later with her new art project, an installation that pays homage to Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party; only instead of vaginas, it will feature cicadas.
This essay is part of The Rude Brood, which is a subset of The Ripple Effect, which for some reason is occasionally part of the Blind Woodchuck. Don’t try to figure that out—at least it’s free!)
Cat Eating Cicadas illustration by Cheryl Welch

Part Three: Every Now and Then I Fall Apart (alternate title: Eat, Prey. Love)

Panic had broken out around her. All the forest animals were aware of the near miss the woodchuck had during the last eclipse and were terrified of not being able to watch for predators. Most had never even realized there were things happening in the skies above them—the only time they looked up was for hawks. Now everyone was suddenly Chicken Little when it came to the sky.

“The birds knew and they didn’t warn us!” screamed the field mice. “It’s a conspiracy!”

“The crickets are in on it, too!” wailed a hedgehog. “How did they know to start chirping? Did they have access to an app that’s only on Android?”

A groundhog, manically running in a circle with his eyes closed, tripped over a root and tore his ACL. He lay on the ground moaning, clutching his wounded limb and making such a racket that it caught the attention of a turkey vulture flying by. This was exactly the kind of eclipse content the bird was hoping for.

The woodchuck was stunned to see the entire meadow and forest had erupted into chaos. Scientists had predicted some animal behaviors might be odd during the eclipse, but not this level of weird. She was horrified to see one of her cousins lying prostrate on the grass, his naked belly exposed to the sky as he screamed incoherently about the end being near. The buzzard certainly seemed to agree with him.

It occurred to the woodchuck that some of the animals might be blaming her for this, which was, of course, ridiculous. All she had done was pretend to be blind for several years to get people to pamper her and bring treats; she never said anything about writhing around on the ground in plain sight of a very large bird with talons and a beak.

Oh. Well, perhaps they had a point.

The woodchuck ducked back into her burrow, uncertain of what to do about the carnage that was about to erupt. Shirley was fully awake now and could hear the screaming above ground. “Do something!” she shouted. “You’re the only one they will listen to!”

The woodchuck did not believe this was necessarily true, but her only other option was going deeper into the burrow and hiding in a tunnel. She glanced wildly around the cozy dark room, trying to think of what to do, when her eyes fell upon a metallic cold food shopping bag she had saved from her last trip to Costco.

“Shirley!” she screamed. “Help me tear this into strips!” The two woodchucks ripped the silver fabric into long pieces as fast as possible, and she scrambled up the tunnel gripping as many as her tiny arms could hold.

She paused at top of the hole. Outside there was terror and screaming and possible disembowelment; fellow groundhogs who hated her and felt she was responsible for the carnage that was about to happen. It would be so much easier to duck back inside and hide.

She flashed back on the last eclipse and the power she had felt course through her body just before her retinas started smoking. Maybe there was just a little bit of Captain Marvel still in her.

She dashed out of the hole and threw herself on top of her writhing cousin, flipping him several times until he fell into a nearby burrow. The turkey vulture was in a dive straight for the entrails but had to pull up before it hit the ground, zooming back into the air before readying another approach. This time it was going for her.

“Tie these around your eyes!” she screamed at the other animals, tossing the foil strips in the air. “You won’t go blind!” She threw the last ones at the other woodchucks just as the vulture snatched her by the nape of her neck and lifted her in the air. Shirley seized her foot and went airborne herself. One by one, all the now blindfolded rodents grabbed onto to each other and formed a furry chain that tethered them to ground; it stretched into the sky at least fifteen woodchucks high.

The turkey vulture gave up, as the groundhogs were all pretty chunky and probably kind of grisly. The chain plummeted to the ground, with the woodchuck hitting last with a wince-inducing smash.

She awoke to a cold compress of soothing leaves on her forehead and a crowd of doting animals trying to anticipate her every need, bringing her insects and delicious berries. It was just like the last eclipse, only this time she could see their grateful faces beaming at her. She was their hero, but now she deserved it. She would be as humble as long she possibly could, or at least until they stopped waiting on her.

She picked up a fresh cicada someone offered her and bit into it, the crunchy filling delighting her senses. There were two or three on the bark platter, and she popped them into her mouth as well. Were they early this year? It seemed too soon for cicadas.

The woodchuck sighed and relaxed. Spring was here, and it was calm, and quiet. She hoped there wouldn’t be any more extraordinary natural phenomena to worry about this year.

Part Two: The Dark Side of the Moon

She wasn’t really blind, of course. A slight singeing and some minimal scarring occurred in her beady black pupils, but that faded quickly. Shirley came every day and bathed her eyes with the juice of assorted berries, which turned them blue for a while. She thought it looked striking but her cousin sniffed and said it reminded her of one of those pale-eyed husky wolves.

More surprising was the outpouring of concern among the forest creatures. A steady stream of delicious leaves and bugs were left outside her burrow so she wouldn’t exhaust herself hunting for food. Get Well Soon! messages scratched into bark were dropped into her hole and she amused herself by sorting them into a scrapbook with the sincerest words at the front. The woodchuck beamed as concerned rodents came from all over the forest to check on her. She had never felt so beloved.

One day while she was out healing in the sun, she accidentally reached out with a lighting fast reflex and caught a grasshopper. It became obvious that she wasn’t sight-impaired and no longer need help. The attention stopped. The other animals had their own checklists to accomplish before winter set in, such as bulking up for hibernation and not getting eaten by hawks.

The woodchuck was not ready to let go of the scam. There is an old saying in the forest: once a narcissus, always a narcissus (animals have far more old sayings than most humans realize). Someone had whittled a long white stick that was the perfect height to use as a cane, so she perched the wire-rimmed sunglasses the guilty marmoset had left for her on the tip of her nose and felt her way around the forest. She knew she looked regal as she worked her way around, waving and tapping, until she realized it also alerted hawks to her presence.

The whole thing became considerably less entertaining when someone dropped a flyer down her burrow. It was a picture of the current weasel in charge in 2017, the one who liked to wear a severed fox tail on his head; he was staring up at the sun and pointing. Someone had scrawled moron across the picture. They were laughing at her.

She became reclusive and angry. The woodchuck had never been a particularly social animal but now she shunned the other creatures. She showed up late to work, bit the Mayor of Punxsutawney and lost her job as the weather groundhog. She said hateful things about the beavers, about grabbing them whenever she wanted and laughing at how she could do whatever she wanted because she was famous. She meant it ironically because her fame had become an albatross around her neck, but the beavers were still hurt by the comment. The woodchuck also wished she could get that damn bird to leave her alone.

Even Shirley, her most faithful and loyal cousin, had had enough. “So you made a mistake,” she said, “it was an extraordinary natural phenomena and none of us were ready. The eclipse glasses hadn’t come in yet and how were we to know how stupid it was to stare?” Shirley did not add that she knew enough not to but had enough sense not to mention it.

Cancel culture was real. Humiliated, she stayed in her burrow as much as possible and spent her days watching reality television on her phone. Love is Blind was her favorite. She began grinding her teeth at night, although that proved to be a good thing because it kept her incisors from growing through the roof of her mouth.

Hibernation came as a relief, because for six blissful months she could tune out the rest of the cruel forest and simply dream about being pursued by marmots and not think about the state of the world. As time passed, the weasel with the orange fox tail on his head was inexplicably still around, and she couldn’t help but feel this was all his fault. Perhaps if she had had better guidance, she wouldn’t have stared at the stupid sun. (She also had nightmare about the Love is Blind reunion and woke up in the middle of February wondering why they hadn’t spent more time talking to Chelsea, but was eventually able to fall back asleep.)

Seven years had gone by, a very long time in the short span of a groundhog’s life. And now here she was again, unprepared, with the sky flipping the script and the weird half-moon shadows flickering over the grass. She recalled what Shirley used to say to her: “Those who cannot not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” which was a pretty compelling statement for a groundhog. Actually, it might have been a lyric from a Carlos Santana song, but that wasn’t the point.

What mattered is that she alone had the power to take back her life—only she could change the course of her own history.

She grabbed her tiny sunglasses and turned to face the dark.

Coming soon: A Total Eclipse of the Heart

Part One: Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

The woodchuck startled awake, sitting up so quickly in her burrow that she banged her head on the dirt ceiling of her sleeping chamber. It was pitch black inside and she was disoriented and dizzy—but this wasn’t like normally waking from hibernation and waiting for your eyes to adjust; something about this felt sinister. She heard a voice whisper the darkness is coming.

“Shirley, what did you say?” Her cousin, who had slept over during hibernation, groaned and rolled over on her side. “Go back to sleep,” she mumbled. “It’s too early to get up. It’s only April.”

Ignoring her cousin, the woodchuck poked her head out of her hole and did a slow 360 degree turn around the meadow. The sky was still black and across the horizon the light was beginning to dawn, but on the other side, the sun was setting. How could that be? She thought she heard the rumbling bass of Johnny Cash singing about going down, down, down. Something was wrong. Something was happening.

The insects had gone silent. Even the birds were still, as if it were the middle of their sleep cycle. Tiny half moon shadows danced across the grass.

She reached for the dark glasses that were usually perched on her tiny forehead, but they were not there. It made her uneasy to not have them on, because you just never knew when you were going to be caught outside with proper eye protection and . . .

“Oh my God!” she screamed. “It’s another fucking eclipse!”

Seven years earlier: August 21, 2017

The woodchuck scampered playfully toward her burrow but paused to hide behind a huge catalpa leaf, looking back coquettishly to see if the large marmot was still following her. Most of her hind quarters were sticking out on either side of the leaf. Mating season was over, but you couldn’t blame a girl for flirting.

The marmot must have lost interest, for he stood frozen, staring at the ground. Tiny half moon shadows were dancing across the dry grass and the normal chatter of the birds had ceased. The silence was eerie and the woodchuck shivered slightly, wondering what had happened to the blistering hot day that she had been sweating through just moments ago. Why was it getting darker? Hadn’t she just eaten lunch?

Her would-be suitor the marmot began running toward her, glancing in terror at the sky. He grabbed her and shouted, “Look away! Look away! It’s the Rapture!” as he dashed off and dove into a burrow.

The woodchuck had hoped that was going to be her line but apparently not.

Suddenly, every cricket in the forest launched into a cacophony of chirping like someone had flipped on a switch. What was wrong with these stupid insects? They weren’t supposed to start that infernal noise until after dark.

Except that it was. It shouldn’t be, but it was.

She glanced up at the sky just in time to see a black disk slip in front of the fiery sun. A golden orange ring surrounded the circle with flame-like spikes pointing in every direction. All the other creatures had vanished down holes or were hiding in trees. She thought she heard the opening notes of Also Sprach Zarathustra off in the distant forest, or maybe it was Johnny Cash? She was alone in the meadow, transfixed by the movement in the sky, suddenly wondering if she was about to become imbued with super powers by the glowing orb that had been overcome by a simple circle. What could this mean? Was she about to become Captain Marvel?

As she stared at the black hole that had swallowed the sun, a brilliant point of light appeared on one side. She squinted a bit but was hypnotized by the sight and could not tear her eyes away as the inky sphere moved diagonally and the searing light of the sun burned away the dark orb.

Shirley was shouting at her, something about stop staring at it! and are you a complete moron? But if she was going to become the next Marvel hero, she didn’t want to miss a moment of it.

Suddenly the day became normal again. The heat returned and the crickets shut up, embarrassed they had been fooled by something as basic as a celestial event. Shirley dragged the woodchuck into her burrow and started screeching at her about crispy retinas, which the woodchuck thought sounded delicious until she realized what it meant.

She spent most of that fall and hibernation hiding in her burrow, rubbing a salve of crushed fireflies and tree sap into her sore eyes that did not seem to help much but gave her an eerie glow. A tiny pair of round sunglasses were left at the opening of her burrow, a gift from the guilt-stricken marmot who had apparently confused the Rapture with an eclipse.

From that day forward, she would be known across the meadow as the Blind Woodchuck.

Coming soon: Part Two: The Dark Side of the Moon