Strange Tails

The rear of the spaceship sat deep in the field, its hind quarters stuck in the Ohio mud as if it had not fallen from the sky but crawled from the earth. Red heat loosed from its dying engines and browned the wild corn. Thermals billowed up, making birds swoop and dive.

Squirrel looked on.

“What do you see?” said a voice from below.

“Spaceship. Dead one. Seems recent.”

“Worth a look?”

“Nah.”

In rhythm with the thin maple branch he clung to, Squirrel’s body trembled. The trapped ship, at least a hundred yards away, let off another useless blast, hot air spiraling in all directions. He gripped harder, adjusting his small weight to keep balance.

“You sure?” persisted the voice.

“Potbelly, this cute bushy ass gets toasted for no one. You want curiosity, get a cat.”

Potbelly growled something he chose to ignore.

“I do see something,” he continued, ascending to a higher branch as the air plumes subsided. “Plaza, maybe a half-mile away. Big flat top, could be a grocery store.”

He clambered down and leapt the last few feet onto Potbelly’s back. “I say we skirt this whole mess and go steal something to eat. I’m jonesing for a Twinkie.”

“But someone in the spaceship could still be alive.”

“Exactly.”

“They might need our help.”

“Exactly.”

“It could explode at any moment.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

Potbelly furrowed her already-wrinkled brow. “I just don’t think it’s right,” she said.

“Potbelly, it’s been three days since we cleaned out the Walmart. Duran Duran are calling me.” He rubbed his stomach and it growled back. “See, hungry like the wolf.”

“We could forage.”

“For nuts and berries? Please. Meals that while away their days dangling under the backside of a pigeon.”

“Just say there’ll be dog food this time, and in foil sachets. Watching you wrestle a can opener is like watching an eel play the xylophone.”

“Potbelly, packaging is how we know God hates us. That, and his positioning of testicles. You’re right though, we will can the can. No more flipping our lid. Come on, walkies.“

Potbelly twitched. “Don’t say that word,” she woofed.

“What word?”

“That damn word—you know.”

“You mean … walkies?”

Twitch.

“But I thought you liked walkies?”

Twitch.

“Walkies walkies walkies—“

“Raarrrfff! One more time and I’ll shake you like a rag doll you goddamn flea-bitten ear muff.”

Squirrel laughed. “Hell Potbelly, it’s like you’re voice activated. What kind of circuitry did they put in you? Was it from a walkies talkie?”

“I mean it bog brush. You’re bringing a spoon to a knife fight.”

“OK, OK, my little hound of the basket cases.”

“Just say proceed or stroll or perambulate.”

“Ah, but where would be the fun in that?”

A low abdominal rumble pattered through the soil and danced amongst the corn. Squirrel, briefly impressed by Potbelly’s sonorous underside, looked up when he realized it wasn’t from an absence of Kibbles. He nodded to the spaceship from where the rumble grew louder, and again rippled up his short furry legs.

“I think this soda can’s about to pop,” he said. “Suggest we begin our perambulation tout de suite.” He settled into Potbelly’s withers, first taking time to adjust his fluffy rear end for maximum comfort. They restarted their journey, navigating a path between two farmer’s fields.

“It can’t be right, just leaving what’s in there, in there,” continued Potbelly.

“Girl, the fact you can’t define what’s in there is all you need to know about not wanting to find it in there.”

“Something human could still be alive. I say, when it’s cooled down, we come back.”

“You do that Potbelly. I’ll pin a medal to your ashes. You’ll be the bravest smudge in Christendom.” Squirrel ruffled her ears. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you girl! Eh, a medal? Eh? Wouldn’t you? Eh girl?”

“Quit it, kebab bite.” She made to buck the troublesome passenger from her back. Squirrel dug in his small claws, laughing again.

“You really need to quit this man’s best friend shtick. They’re gone. Deceased. They are an ex-species. It’s just you and me now Potbelly. You, me, and a glorious world full of deliciously sweet and carcinogenic foodstuffs.”

“You mean just fiddle while Rome burns?”

“If you enjoy a good fiddle darlin’, who am I to judge.”

“No, I mean, play the violin. It’s a saying.”

“Better the violin than the violence. Give me Reese’s Pieces over blown to pieces any day. My modus operandi is candy. My—“

A loud pneumatic wheeze interrupted Squirrel a second time. Potbelly stopped to look. The noise grew louder until the spherical center of the stricken spacecraft rotated and rose to form a camel back some fifty yards across. The parent ship remained static, still spanning the length of the corn field, while its new forbidding arch loomed darkly over the two small onlookers.

Lights blinked and popped and the wheeze grew steadily to a roar. Potbelly whimpered as the sound burrowed deep into her sensitive ears, and Squirrel, wincing too, thrust his head as best he could into her thin brown fur. A few seconds passed and the camelback rose farther, soaring into the bright blue sky, a tubby ballerina in a shiny metallic tutu. Far too heavy for the weak arms of the air, the object listed, keeled heavily to one side, and promptly exploded.

They watched as a million white-hot shards fell gently to the earth like sparks from an ever-decreasing Catherine Wheel.

“Well that can’t be good,” said Potbelly.

“It would definitely smart,” agreed Squirrel. “Not sure who you’re saving now girl, but you might want to bring a dustpan and brush.”

She nodded. Squirrel brightened. “Well, on the plus side, I am still hungry. Let’s eat and save the human race later. Like, for dessert.”

“Do you really think they’re all dead? Mankind that is.”

“Man-kind? Whoever told you that? You’re talking about a species that invented the unsalted pretzel, Potbelly. Did you ever meet the bastards?”

“I think so,” she said, ignoring Squirrel’s curse. “At least, I remember something. A scent. Kinda unpleasant. Like they were made of plants.”

“Plants?”

“Yeah, like lavender. Sometimes roses. One of them reeked of it.”

“Oh, right, they called it deodorant. Strange, considering how much it odored. But then the whole species was inbred, you know.”

Potbelly nodded her reply. Squirrel hooked his tiny claws beneath her fraying pink collar and settled in as she trotted off. The tag on her collar read “Lucy” but he never used that name. She couldn’t see around to read it anyway. He preferred “Potbelly” on account of her small, bony, somewhat listing frame, with its saggy little belly slung low underneath. He was gentle with his claws, always avoiding the scar barely visible through her fur. Some ten inches long it ran in a perfectly straight line all the way down her scalp and neck, just like a river doesn’t. He patted her affectionately.

“Time to get you some moist chunks in gravy old girl.”

“Less of the old, fleabag. I just had my third birthday.”

“Then less of your flighty impertinence young whippersnapper. Time for your walk … I mean, carry on.”

Together they left the spaceship quietly breathing its last, slowly settling into the ground, its hot engines cooling, a mammoth stuck in a tar pit. Above them the cawing birds no longer wheeled but settled on its lengthy frame, seeking out desirable penthouse locations. They admired their reflection in its shiny surface, enjoyed its rhythmic death rattle, and didn’t mind at all when one small part of it clicked, wheezed, and silently floated aloft.