King of the Squirrels

It was a cold morning when I woke up, one of those mornings when the duvet world almost wouldn't let me go back into the real world, it kept me prisoner for a good ten minutes after the alarm clock had gone off. When I finally dragged myself out, showered, shaved and ran out of the door I was still groggy from sleep but awake enough to be aware that something was wrong. I locked the door firmly and strode down towards the garden gate before having a moment's indecision and running back to check if I really had locked the door.

It was then I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, a flash of red disappearing in the trees at the far side of next door's garden. That was the moment that my worst fears were confirmed.

It's propaganda, you see? The newscasters have been waging a war against me and people like me for years now. They have been 'informing' us of the decline in population of the red squirrel, how the aggressive old American grey squirrel is taking over and eating all of poor old red's food. It's bollocks of course. The red squirrel never went into decline, it just saw its chance and instead of going the way of the dolphin and ending up doing party tricks at 'Squirrel World' to earn its daily bread it went underground.

We all have imaginary friends don't we? Well, alright some of us do the problem is my imaginary friend wasn't so imaginary after all. I mean, admittedly he was a squirrel but we used to have such fun together - playing in the garden, boyish tumbles in the autumn leaves, fighting over nuts, that sort of thing. Perfectly normal. Then it all went wrong, they tried to take Gerald (my squirrel's name was Gerald) away from me. Neither of us wanted to be parted but the Grand Squirrel Council had decided. All red squirrels underground.

It turned out that Gerald was part of a squirrel militia, a crack band of nut gatherers that were on a mission to infiltrate wholesalers to provide food for the hoards of underground squirrels. In retrospect I can see why they came after him. He had jeopardised the mission and I was an accessory to it. I really used to panic about those squirrels coming after me but then, all of a sudden, it all went quiet.

Of course, apart from you, I have only ever told one other person. A woman I became very close to; loved even. Told her the whole story, opened my heart and she just took one look and walked out the door. Never seen her since. I soon learned that it wasn't an easy thing to accept and so I'd better keep it to myself except now it doesn't matter does it? So where was I - ah yes, leaving the house.

All day at the office I felt eyes watching me; from the air conditioning grill, from just behind the window ledge, just ducking out of sight as I brought them into my field of vision but always there on the periphery. It was a quiet day, I didn't have any meetings so I just sat at my desk and worked. By the time it came to five o'clock I felt physically drained, like I had just spent the day chasing my tail.

I arrived home exhausted, tried to watch a program about zoos in Russia on the television, rapidly gave up and went into a deep and troubled sleep.

I dreamt. About things I can only half recall; a fog, a room with no windows and the eyes watching me, always the eyes. When I awoke the sheets were drenched in sweat and I felt twice as tired as when I had gone to bed. It was still quarter of an hour before the alarm was due to sound but I got up anyway, not feeling like I could really rest in the state I was in.

Then it happened, I saw one sitting at the end of my garden. As I stood in my dressing gown with my coffee grasped firmly in my right hand the little bastard wandered out into the middle of the garden, jumped on the bird table and started eating the seeds I had left there.

Needless to say I was horror-struck, he chomped away for a good ten seconds before looking towards the window, winking and then running off. I sat down. I tried to compose myself, but I knew they had come for me. I didn't know what I could do, there was nothing else to do, if I stayed here I was a sitting duck, at least if I was in the office people could help me, see them coming and stop them from getting to me.

*

I looked fixedly out of the office window at the small piece of parklands the contractors had decided to dump in the middle of the city. It was no more than twenty metres square, a couple of benches, a bird bath and a scrawny looking tree. It was supposed to give you somewhere to sit on your dinner hour and eat your sandwiches. Unfortunately with space running low, towards the end of the construction the builders had decided, in their wisdom, to turn it into a park-cum-roundabout.

My secretary Anne walked in.

"Mr Jones," she cooed politely.

"Morning Anne," I didn't turn around to face her, I wanted to make sure they weren't out there first.

"There's a meeting at half past one but with Mr Todd but until then you're pretty much free." She waited expectantly for an answer but my mind was a blank. After a long, uncomfortable pause, she added, "I'm going to get some coffee for myself, would you like some?"

"Yes," I replied, turning around. "Yes please Anne, that would be lovely."

I smiled the best I could and that seemed to put her at ease, she went about her business and I tried to go about mine.

I switched on my computer and with a stuttering whirr, it slowly came to life. It was an irritating but familiar sound and a sound that, this time, wasn't right. I walked around behind the computer and listened. It was a scratching noise, like claws on metal. But it wasn't coming from the computer. I spun around and surveyed the office; the wastepaper bin, my filing cabinets, in the stationary cupboard. None of them seemed plausible. And then it struck me.

Just above my desk was a grille. It was no more than twenty centimetres square but it pumped a constant supply of not-quite-warm-enough air around and around the office. I pulled my chair under the grille, it wheels gliding smoothly across the smooth carpet tiles. With one hand steadying myself against the desk I tried to balance on the chair to look into the grille. It was dark up there, very dark but there was a definite scratching coming from inside I reached up to remove the grille and...

"Here's your coffee Mr Jones," I turned too quickly to see Anne come through the door, and suddenly everything was movement.

I woke up ten minutes later propped against the desk with Anne apologising profusely and trying to mop my brow with something brown and damp. I had hit my head on the desk on the way to the floor. "Are you ok Mr Jones? I startled you, I'm sorry, how's your head feeling?"

"It's alright, I thought..." I mentally retraced my steps, knowing she would call more than an ambulance if I told her the truth. "I thought the grille was loose, I was just checking. Stupid really. I feel an idiot." That much was true. I really did feel an idiot.

"You need some fresh," she looked over to the windows. "The windows in here don't open. Why don't we wander out to the park? You can compose yourself out there."

"No, really, I'll be ok," but I had checked the park. They weren't there. They were in here. I was safer outside. "Oh, alright, but just for a few minutes."

*

The post-rush hour air was crisp but murky outside, every time I breathed out it felt wrong, almost like I was breathing water instead of air. We reached a bench in the park and I took a big, long lung-full of the city air. Maybe it was just me, maybe it was all just a fantasy that some learned psychiatrist would be able to talk me out of. First thing tomorrow I'll call up the best one there is and make an appointment. I opened my mouth to tell Anne the story but she had vanished.

I stood up and spun around but she was nowhere to be seen. One second she was there, the next - gone. The scratching started again, but not on metal, this time it was on wood, on concrete and getting louder. I looked up into a tree and some fifty or sixty red squirrel began to emerge, each tree I looked at, the same thing happened. More and more of them until I was surrounded.

It was then I began to seriously panic.

"ANNNNNNNNE!" I screamed, hoping that if she didn't answer then someone would at least come and see this gang of squirrels. "SOMEBODY HELP!"

As one, the squirrels quizzically cocked their collective heads to one side as if mocking my screams. I dropped to my knees, unable to think of anywhere to run. This was it, I was surrounded. I began sobbing, my hands jerked up to my head. The squirrels began to advance and...