Jattu was a small country located east of nowhere and west of everywhere. Twenty years ago, there were no inhabitants; well, actually, if you include squirrels, there were thirteen.
The squirrels thrived in this paradise. They excitedly explored their land, constantly discovering new stores of the things they valued most – food and shelter.
But soon, the thirteen squirrels grew to thirty, and in another generation, thirty became fifty one, which became eighty seven and so on until no one was quite sure what the exact population of Jattu was. Not that it mattered, because the land was vast and the squirrels had room to spread far and wide.
While the squirrel population became larger, the land saw other changes as well. The bounty of green fields, succulent fruit trees, and delicious nuts and seeds attracted the inhabitants of other lands. Birds, being the most mobile and exploratory, came first and took up residence in the towering trees along with the squirrels. The squirrels accepted them since they were no threat to them, their homes or their food. But soon came the predators – foxes, coyotes, snakes, wildcats and weasels – and all manner of danger for the historically peaceful squirrels, who now lived in a state of constant and vigilant caution.
While the older, wiser squirrels recognized the changes as part of natural evolution, like the changing of the seasons, the younger, more idealistic squirrels longed for a return to the days when their kind roamed worry-free, excited by the possibility of discovery each day presented. This was the moment of the rise of the Seekers. They were a band of squirrels led by Cooper, a devastatingly handsome black squirrel whose oiled fur coat and perfectly coiffed tail, combined with his natural charisma, completely entranced his followers.
Cooper, and by extension the Seekers, believed the squirrels of earlier generations had erred in allowing other species to settle in their lands.
The Seekers decided that it was too late for Jattu, that the land was too overrun with undesirables to ever return it to its past glory, so over the objections and pleadings of the older squirrels who urged them to adapt, they set out to find a new home. Keeping to the trees in order to stay out of the reaches of the multitude of predators, they moved slowly towards and eventually across the borders of Jattu into the unexplored wilderness.
The dense forests soon thinned, and the squirrels found progress difficult as they zigged and zagged in order to stay in the trees. From their high perch they knew they needed to keep moving on as the ground beneath them was littered with carcasses of the dead, obvious victims of their despised predators.
Until one day there were no trees in their forward path. As they looked west, they could see strange gray rivers which did not flow, winding alongside and into great mounds built by craftsman of skill exceeding that of the ant and the bird. They saw small patches of grass that apparently did not grow from birth.
But most importantly, Cooper saw the answer to their problem, for running along some of the gray rivers, suspended high in the air, were black vines, the perfect pathways for these wary travelers.
Cooper ordered the squirrels onto the black vines, which required a leap of some ten feet from the nearest branch. Quickly, the brave travelers coiled their back legs and with all their strength, propelled themselves from the high branch towards the black vine.
After the first ten attempts, which yielded four successful landings and six motionless bodies floating on the gray river below, a squirrel named Bradley squealed, “Maybe we could climb down this tree and up that very straight one to get to the vines.”
Cooper, in despair over the loss of six of his comrades, grasped the wisdom of Bradley’s suggestion. “Bradley is right! But rather than risk all of our lives at once, I will climb down and run from this tree to that to make sure it’s safe. We can do this, my friends.”
Cooper wound his way down the tree, twisting around the trunk as he descended so he could view all directions before he reached the ground. Once he reached it, he took a deep breath and then sprinted in a most un-squirrel fashion, bounding in the directest of paths for the very straight tree. When he was three feet from it, he leapt onto it, landing in a vertical position and then quickly making his way up the very straight tree until he was some fifteen feet off the ground.
“Come, my friends. It is safe, but move with haste in case danger appears.”
The squirrels followed their magnificent leader down the tree across the baby grass and up the straight tree until they reached the narrower of the two black vines. One by one, they proceeded out onto the vine until all the Seekers were traversing it.
The black vine was very smooth and soft, but only a half an inch in diameter, small even for a squirrel’s feet to grasp firmly. Soon, three of them lost their grips; they managed to wrap their tails around the vine momentarily, but only momentarily as they too joined their fallen comrades on the gray river below.
This time, Cooper saw the solution himself: “Every third squirrel hold this vine with your back feet and stretch across to the thicker vine to make a bridge for the two behind you to run across. The thicker vine will be easier for us to travel on. Make it so!”
Every third squirrel simultaneously did as Cooper ordered. And as they did so, their little bodies lit up like fireflies and they shook in convulsions until their paws released and they too fell, blackened and smoking all the way.
The remaining squirrels stood paralyzed on the thin vine, shaking and weeping. Their ranks were now thinned by almost half and they were still in peril. Most were asking themselves ‘why did I leave Jattu? I could be sleeping in a warm nest and eating tasty nuts instead of clinging to this slick vine’.
But one glance at Cooper and their courage returned. He looked defiantly at the larger vine, solemnly at their fallen friends and then said “Our friends would want us to complete this journey, a journey they gave their lives for. So we will push forward to the straight tree ahead.”
“And then what?” someone shouted.
“And then we will climb down the tree and make this our home. Have you noticed? There are no predators in this land. Not a fox, snake or weasel anywhere in sight. We can stay here.”
The squirrels turned their heads side to side, looking closely for any movement on the ground, but none was seen. As they surveyed beyond the ground below them, they saw widely spaced trees amongst the new birthed grass and mounds, trees which could be homes for the new nation. Knowing they could not remain on the slick narrow vine forever, and seeing some promise in the new land, the squirrels slowly and carefully crept forward until they reached the straight tree, climbed down it and began to explore, careful to avoid the gray rivers.
After a few weeks, the squirrels had learned much. There were in fact no natural predators in the land, which was a great relief. The gray rivers were as firm as the ground under the grass and never flowed. The mounds were home to strange, upright giants who were mostly hairless and hideous in appearance and behavior. The trees, while few, made excellent homes for the squirrels, and the mounds made for easy travel from place to place since they were firm and wide. In some cases, the squirrels were able to enter the mounds and find places of warmth on cold evenings. The new land, which they dubbed Cahokia, indeed made an acceptable home.
Until one day, when they began noticing members of the community were disappearing. The squirrels searched every tree and every mound and could find no trace. Week after week, their numbers dwindled without a clue as to the reason.
One morning they heard a sound, the sound of a squirrel in distress. As they fanned out and followed the cry with their ears, in minutes its source was found. Bradley was calling out as one of the upright giants was carrying him in a see-through box from the top of one of the mounds down an unusual tree that had not been there the night before.
The other squirrels stood by helplessly as the upright giant reached the ground, and carried Cooper to one of the swift, shiny beasts that had crushed a few of the colony on the gray rivers. The giant put Bradley and the box inside and then entered itself. Soon, the beast roared and then began moving down the gray river. Bradley was never seen again.
This event repeated itself over and over – the upright giants carrying one of their kind from the top of a mound into one of the beasts and going away – until even Cooper had been captured. By then, the squirrel population had dwindled to only about fifteen, and those that did remain decided to return to Jattu and face the dangers of their homeland rather than live in this inhospitable land.
The journey back to the border of Jattu was far easier than the one that had brought them to Cahokia, as they knew the dangers of the swift, shiny beasts, the black vines and the upright giants. After a journey of four days, they crossed back into their homeland and the prodigal sons were warmly received by the Jattu squirrels with a memorable feast.
The surviving members of the Seekers dug a deep hole in the center of the forest and deposited into it a single acorn which in short order sprouted into a tiny oak tree. Over the years that passed, the tree grew and grew and served both as a memorial to the fallen Seekers and as a reminder to future generations of Jattu squirrels that the world away from home can be a very dangerous and unwelcoming place.
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