The pyramid of groundhogs reached high into the sky, five layers of furry cheerleaders with an unbalanced center of gravity that made the tower impressive, but precarious. At the very top, wearing long, lacy tendrils of moss that fluttered in the wind, stood the blind woodchuck. She’d had glow worms for lunch so the fur around her mouth was stained green, and she was singing at the top of her lungs. As she reached the crescendo, she leaped off the back of the stack of her cousins and soared into the air, the cloak whipping out behind her as she flew into the ether and then landed with a thud about eight inches from the pyramid. “Everyone deserves to fly!” she shouted.
While the woodchuck was not an experienced cheer flyer, she did consider herself a musical theater savant. She could quote obscure Sondheim lyrics and entire Original Broadway casts. She was still mortified by the memory of a trivia contest where she had shouted out the winner of the 2004 Tony Award for Best Musical as Wicked. Her team had been embarrassed and demoralized when all the others had answered correctly with Avenue Q, and jeered at them for forgetting one of the biggest upsets in Broadway history.
In spite of that embarrassing faux paw, she still knew all the words to Wicked and had been acting out the flying scene for the past year. She had substituted chipmunks for the flying monkeys, and they wore tiny hats made of acorn caps. She couldn’t wait for the sequel, Wicked: For Good.
Shirley wasn’t quite as invested in the movie as the woodchuck, but she was a good sport and wrapped herself in a tutu made of pink insulation to cosplay Glinda.
The nearby AMC theater had a back door that was frequently propped open with a brick to accommodate the weed vaping ushers on their breaks, so the woodchucks could choose any theater showing Wicked. They avoided the one in 3D because it made Shirley nauseous. The floor was littered with a variety of quality snacks, and they found a flannel scarf that had slid between the seats to curl up on. The movie was quite long, and Shirley dozed off about halfway through the film.
“Shirley, wake up!” hissed the woodchuck. “I just realized this story is not about finding your power within while singing fabulous songs—the wizard is a lying dictator who is trying to capture and jail animals and make them lose their ability to speak out against injustice. It’s not a fairy tale at all–—it’s a modern-day morality warning about the weasel and how gullible most of us are!”
Shirley sat up, startled, just in time to see the scene where the animals were stampeding out of the forest. “Hey, is that your cousin Kevin next to the wildebeest? I had no idea he was doing extra work now.”
“Yes, I’m really annoyed he got a part and I didn’t, but you’re missing the point. The Wizard was fake and had no real power, just like the weasel. He lies all the time, but animals believe him because he has a good PR team. Also, vicious flying monkeys, which are more intimidating than ferrets.”
Shirley yawned and pulled a gummie she had been lying on out of her fur. “Honey, you know I like it when you’re involved in current events, but you may be reading just a little too much into this comparison. But at least the movie is almost over— I was about to go into hibernation.”
“It’s also got a Christo fascism undertone to it! Did you see the part where they beat up Fiyero and then hung him on the scarecrow pole like it was a crucifixion? He represented Jesus! And the Holy Trinity of Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Lion brought him Frankincense, courage, and a heart in a bucket of water.”
“Did you drink all the brown liquid in that cup? You seem a little overcaffeinated to me. What am I sitting on?” The woodchuck giggled and said “You have gummie bears stuck all over your butt. I’ve been eating them through the movie!” She peeled one off and popped it in her mouth.
A bright light suddenly blinded them and a voice whispered, “Wow, tiny animal friends living under the seats. Cool.” The two woodchucks froze, not sure if they should flee or attack, when the disembodied voice (which was attached to a very stoned usher) continued. “Have you possums seen my bag of gummies? They fell out of my pocket and there’s so much junk on the floor I can’t tell them from the Milk Duds or Junior Mints.”
The woodchuck hesitated and then slowly turned Shirley around; her furry haunches were covered with gayly colored gummie bears.
“There they are!” As he plucked them from Shirley’s hind quarters, he started softly singing, “Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? But because I knew you . . .”
Shirley turned around in horror as she heard the blind woodchuck harmonize “. . . because I knew you . . .”
They finished in unison: “I have been changed, For Good.”
Shirley started slowly backing away, dragging her cousin by her stubby tail. The usher stood up unsteadily and muttered “Did that really just happen? Damn, that squirrel’s harmony was spot on.”
The two woodchucks were out of the theater and halfway home before the credits were over, Shirley dragging the limp body of her cousin. The blind woodchuck looked up at the starry sky and said dreamily, “Do you think he’ll marry me?”
“That dude at the theater? I certainly hope not. He probably makes $11 an hour, he’s a different species, and he thinks you’re a squirrel.” The woodchuck had passed out by the time Shirley pushed her into her burrow and made sure there was a glass of water and an aspirin next to the snoring body. As she climbed up and out to head to her own burrow, she heard the blind woodchuck muttering “you were there . . . and you were there.”
Shirley smiled to herself. The material from this little excursion was going keep her going for months.
• • •
What’s your favorite obscure Sondheim lyric? Mine is “Such lovely Blue Danu-be music how can you be still?” from the underrated Do I Hear a Waltz?
• • •
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! (The woodchuck doesn’t really expect you to hand over your tasty bugs—she’s just hoping for new eyes to read about her adventures.) Look for her at The Blind Woodchuck on Substack.
theblindwoodchuck.com 