The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater obstacles - Rainier Marie Rilke

What are you doing?

Oh...um...nothing much....

You're watching them...again, aren't you?

Well, I....

You fool. You know the greatest thinkers of all times have tried to figure them out—to no avail.

Well, they're fascinating. That's why the greatest thinkers of all times have studied them.

Fascinating? They're stupid, if you ask me.

That's a little narrow minded, isn't it?

Well. What have they ever done for me?

They put out food.

Not for us, they don't. For the flying ones, yes.

They provide us with challenges, obstacles to test our creativity and resourcefulness, our agility.

That's crazy.

That's what they always say about great thinkers.

Oh, ho! Well, great thinker, I think you're crazy and they are, too.  I mean, look at them. They run around like maniacs.

Well, so do we.

Yes, but we're collecting nuts and seeds for the winter. They don't seem to be doing anything most of the time, and when they do collect stuff, it's not good for anything—not for eating or nest building. Then they toss it all into a big stinking pile and leave it to rot. Now that's crazy!

That's a little strange, it’s true. But I feel sorry for them running around like that. I feel like that myself sometimes, like I'm on a hamster wheel.

Your running around just wears you out. Their running around is destroying this beautiful place we all live in. They put that terrible stuff on the ground that kills life for miles, destroys thousands of other creatures' homes, then they get into their little shells and go zooming around making bad smells.

Yes, but...

Sometimes they shoot us and eat us but when they hit us with their shells they just leave us lying there.

Well, I don't understand that...

I think it has to do with the fact that they lost their tails.

Their tails...?

That was foolish. My tail is my best feature. And can you imagine—giving up swinging from the trees? It's almost like flying! Our species evolved for millions of years to be able to fly, and they just, literally, walked away from it. What's so great about walking on two legs?

Well, it surely has advantages....

You couldn't prove by me.

But wait—look at what they do for us—they put up these obstacles to test our ability to get to the seed. Their ingenuity is phenomenal! I get such a wonderful feeling of cooperation and comradery when I find a new test, find that one of them has come up with something really unusual, like the  plastic swimming pools, the metal trash can lids...

Are you nuts? They're not doing that to help us. They hate us.

They're not? They do? Maybe that's why they don't seem to appreciate my success...why they get angry. But why don't they create the obstacles for the flying ones?

They love the little flyers—well, some of them anyway, the ones with the colors…they don't seem to like the brown ones.

Hmmm…they don't seem to like their own brown ones, either. Why do you suppose they're like that?

Maybe it's because they're so isolated. When they lost their tails they forgot how to communicate with the rest of us.

Now that's tragic.

Don't pity them too much. They're ruining things for all of us.

Yeah, I know. I just keep thinking, hoping we could find some way of the getting through to them.

Right, like we're so close. How could we get through to them?

Well, they're not all the same. Some of them really seem to care about us and the other wild ones. There's one who puts the seed right on the ground so we can all get to it and there's plenty for everyone.

No challenging obstacles?

Funny guy…. This one even seems to like the little brown flyers. Sometimes there are close to a  hundred of us and it's like the ground is alive with little wings and tails, and she sits there with a big smile on her face.

Well, maybe you have the right idea, watching them, studying them. It would be good if we could communicate with them, make them understand what they're doing—before it's too late.

© copyright Maggie Wilson, 2/11/2005