On Hiatus? Not Really.

While working on my first book, I will be sharing stories and interviews from other writers. Maybe a little unconventional from my usual style of blogging memoirs each week for the past year, but I think you will enjoy it. When I mentioned to a reader I will be going on a blogging hiatus, she balked and said I couldn’t; she counted on and enjoyed reading them. Out of that conversation came the idea to keep up with this weekly blog in an interesting way while I focus my brain on the book.

As a high school teacher, I appreciated a respectful student over one loaded with intelligence, creativity, leadership, or drive and no respect. The young man featured today had most, if not all, of these qualities. But his calm, respectful nature was immediately noticed by my colleagues and I. He was not a follower nor did he have the need to be followed. Gabe Motsinger marched to the beat of his own drummer then and now. When I asked if I could feature a story he wrote way back in high school in a blog, he was first surprised I still had it, then felt it would be subpar if he read it these many years later. I promised I would make sure the readers knew he wrote it as a high school student for a creative writing assignment. It and he still make me laugh.

Gabe Motsinger’s bio: Ever since I was a little babe, barely tall enough to reach the handle of a door, I’ve always been fascinated with a good story. Something that was able to effectively communicate a certain idea or mood that the author was trying to get across. Be it a sense of horror, nostalgia, love or comedy, a good author is able to transcend any culture or time period with a simple idea put to paper. Now, while I mostly like to marvel in the works of other much more talented than I, every once in a while I enjoy booting up the old Lenovo and flexing my own creative muscles. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything though, other than a couple of reviews on Craig’s List and the odd text to a family member but I’m still building up my personal story bank everyday flying the friendly skies as a Flight Attendant. Every day I’m able to meet new people and experience a little piece of their story, be it ever so brief. So even though I’m not putting them down in visual form, I’m still accumulating and cultivating new stories every day, taking lessons from them any way that I can.

A Very Strange Squirrel by Gabe Motsinger

Have you ever wondered what the animals say, have you ever thought about why the wolf is actually yelling at the moon or what song the birds are singing? People have guessed and pondered over this for thousands of years. But me personally, I don’t have to guess, I know.

Since I was twelve, I have been different. It started when, on my twelfth birthday, my parents brought home a little dog. I thought he was the most beautiful thing in the world. He had a shaggy golden brown mane that dragged the floor when he walked and a yep that would put a fire truck to shame.

The first time it happened I was outside playing, minding my own business when I heard someone yell my name. I looked around and saw no one, so I went back to my activity. Then I heard it again, louder though. I decided to go inside to see if my parents were calling me. They said they weren’t, so who is yelling my name? Again I went outside and again I heard my name; it sounded close, very close. I could hear the voice better now; it was high pitched, like nails on a chalkboard. I looked around but all I saw was my little dog, sitting there looking at me. I bent down and scratched behind his ear and rhetorically asked, “Do you know who is saying my name?” The dog looked around then back at me, opened his little mouth and said, “I am, you idiot.”

So that was it, I can talk to animals. But not like Dr. Doolittle or Eliza Thornberry, it’s very selective. I can only hear them when they want to be heard. It has only happened a few times. That once with my dog, a very mean penguin at the zoo, and a few years later I overheard two cows discussing the taste difference between hay and grass.

Today I am twenty-one years old and am attending SIU for the fourth year. I haven’t heard an animal speak for about five years now.

You see now, SIU has a strange problem. They have a large population of squirrels here that aren’t afraid of humans, and those squirrels will sometimes get addicted to nicotine by chewing on cigarette butts the students throw on the ground.

So one day I was walking through the campus yard when I heard a deep raspy voice yelling just every curse word you could think of. I looked for the man doing the cursing but I saw no one. I started to think maybe it was an animal, but no, it couldn’t be. Then I heard the smoker’s voice yell, “What are you doing just standing there like an idiot!” shouted the voice, “I’m trying to talk to you.” I looked toward the sound of the voice, and sure enough, there on a low hanging branch stood a squirrel looking straight at me. He had a brown coat of fur, a tail twice as long as his body, and held in his right hand the butt of a cigarette, covered in lipstick.

“Are you talking to me?” I asked the squirrel.

“Well, I’m pretty sure you’re the only human that can talk to animals in these parts unless I have the wrong human!” shouted the squirrel back at me.

I asked the squirrel, “How did you know that I could talk to animals?”

The squirrel threw his hands in the air and said, “What do you think animals are, stupid or something, that we can’t talk to each other, because somehow everyone knows about you!”

The squirrel started to get on my nerves; I mean who does he think he is yelling at me for no reason? “Squirrel, what is your problem!” I shouted.

“Don’t you take that tone with me, you hairless baboon!” The squirrel jumped from its perch in the tree, ran up to me, stuck out one of his fingers, pointed up to me and screamed, “It’s bad enough that I have an exam in biology tomorrow and the teacher has decided to pull the blinds down so that I can’t see in, but now I have to deal with a smart-alecky human who might just have a royal beat down coming his way!”

It was then I realized the squirrel thought he was a student attending SIU. To test my theory, I asked him what classes he was taking.

“Oh, oh the usual, World History, English 2, Applied Sciences, Business, and my favorite, Biology,” replied the squirrel. “I should graduate in the next month, but if I fail this exam I would be too far behind and might not graduate in time.”

“In time for what?” I asked.

“I start nicotine addiction classes in two months in Harrisburg and if I don’t graduate I can’t go and I have already paid for two months of class!” The squirrel looked at me and laughed, then flicked away his cigarette butt. He looked at the big clock on the board, and it was quite comical watching him yell and scream at me for making him late for business class. Then he turned tails and ran for the south wing with his tail waving me goodbye.

This was the last I ever saw of the cigarette chewing squirrel. I later heard a squirrel was caught during the graduation ceremony attacking the dean. I would bet my lunch it was the same mean squirrel I talked to in the campus yard that day. I have to say, that was the strangest squirrel I have ever met.

Photo by Demi-Felicia Vares on Unsplash