THE NUTTY HAILSTORM

Sebastian Schmadlak

 Every now and then I look out of my window to the garden, but this particular day I observed something very special. Beside the few bushes and flowers, there is one chestnut tree and one walnut tree about eight feet apart. Each tree has one inherited squirrel which I named Chestnut Charlie and Walnut Walter. While Walnut Walter is quite lazy and mostly just lays around on his tree, Chestnut Charlie is quite busy as he collects many seeds and nuts to pile them up in his tree hole. But as days grew shorter and winter coming closer, I witnessed Walnut Walter oberving his neighbour waiting for him to leave to fill up his stocks and steal them. It worked out for a couple of runs until Chestnut Charlie noticed his decreasing pile, so the next time, instead of leaving his stock, he ambushed close to them, hiding behind a few branches, waiting for the thief. When Walnut Walter finally came back, Chestnut Charlie jumped with a huge leap on him, and they started to fight while tension between them rose as they continued to square off. They stumbled upon sticks, their tails twitching, their fur getting fuzzier. Walnut Walter then tried to escape and climbed up a bird bath, but Chestnut Charlie was faster and reached him immediately on top and with the remaining momentum he had from his sprint he grabbed him by his neck and swung him face down into the water that made a funny little ‘blub’ sound. Chestnut Charlie stood on his spine trying to hold back against Walnut Walter’s vain attempts to gasp for air. This went on for around twenty seconds until there was no more movement from either fighter. Walnut Walter lying face down in the water while Chestnut Charlie stood on his back, posing like a triumphant boxer. After a little while he jumped down and disappeared into his tree hole as if nothing happened. I thought about a fitting name for the brawl because every great fight needs one and I came up with ‘The Nutty Hailstorm’.