Chakik – A Whale of a Squirrel Tale

Category: Story

  • The Beginning

    This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series The Black Dragon

    In the early spring of one year, a little squirrel was born in a tall, tall oak tree in the Smokey Mountains. The little squirrel had two brothers and two sisters and spent most of his days chasing them about in the forest.

    The little squirrel’s life was good in the forest on the mountain side. Water was plentiful, there were more wonderful trees than a squirrel could ever run on, and the sun shown down brightly on the canopy of leaves overhead. Often, when his brothers and sisters were out helping to gather food for the family, the little squirrel would spirit away, run up his favorite pine tree, and find a quiet place to snuggle among the soft needles in the sun.

    When his mother found out, she would get angry and scold the little squirrel.

    “You know how important it is for us to gather food, Chakik.” his Mother would chirp at him. “Things won’t always be as plentiful like they are now.”

    Chakik knew his mother to be wise and she had taught him many, many things, but there were acorns, berries and other delicious things all over the forest. His brothers and sisters seemed to gather plenty of food for them all, and Chakik was embarrassed.

    His sisters laughed at him when he tried to help carry food. “Your cheeks are so small, you might as well just eat the acorns! We won’t stay fed with that!” they would giggle. He was the smallest of all his family, even his sisters were bigger. When they went out gathering food together his cheeks could only fit half the amount of his siblings.

    “What difference will my 3 acorns make?” He thought. “I’m not helping so why should I even try? My family gathers enough food without my help.”

    To make matters worse for the little squirrel, his tail was much too long for his small body. Once he heard one of the older squirrels call him a “monkey”, he had no idea what that was, but he knew they didn’t mean it as a kindness.

    On one particularly beautiful day the little squirrel skipped out gathering food again, and ventured out further into the forest than he ever had before, finding a new pine grove to explore. He climbed the thickest tree and sat lazily daydreaming in the pine branches. The sun warmed his body as he stretched out, making his tail as long as he could, something he only did when he was alone.

    Some of the other squirrels called him “little cheeks long tail” and he hated it.

    As he sat warming in the sun, while the rest of his family scurried about the forest floor searching for food and carrying it home in their cheeks, his mind wandered to the clouds in the blue sky above.
    “I bet they don’t have to gather food,” he thought, as a fluffy cloud passed overhead, “even if they did, I bet they can carry as much as needed. I bet they always make their families proud.” Chakik wasn’t sure what kind of food clouds ate, nor where they stored it, but he was sure of one thing; they could carry as much of it as they wanted.

    He stretched himself out as long as he could on the branch, reaching his paws in front of himself. “If I could carry as much food as I wanted in my cheeks,” he thought, the sun baking down on him, “my family would never go hungry. I could carry a hundred berries in my cheeks! Maybe even more! Then I’d be useful. They would see how much I can help.”

    The little squirrel dozed off.

  • Entering into the Next

    This entry is part 8 of 8 in the series The Black Dragon

    Chakik felt a twinge of compunction as they left the sheep outside, as he had begrudgingly agreed to keep an eye on her. The turtle didn’t look back as he silently moved across the opening and into the darkened room, Chakik bound quickly behind, it had been the turtle who had asked him to look after Sunny in the first place. Sunny let out a final bleat of protest as the tip of the squirrels tail disappeared into the darkness. “How did we end up here” Chakik puzzled silently to himself as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. It smelled of rotten things and other unpleasant odors the squirrel could not discern. “All this to see a whale?”

    [to be continued]

  • Into Darkness

    This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series The Black Dragon

    Since adding Sunny the sheep to their ‘pack’ things had taken on a much more hectic pace. FastPile, as always, seemed unchanged by external things, the turtle did what he did, and that was all. Somehow it was always enough though. This impressed Chakik to no end. For Chakik, Sunny was a test of endurance and patience. She was too young to know much, so the squirrel was given the task of showing her. He now spent, what seemed like all his free time, gathering extra food for Sunny, or telling Sunny about people, or showing Sunny what not to do, or trying to tell Sunny what to do.

    Crossing the road with the young Sheep had been an ordeal. Chakik was still amazed that the three of them had all made it successfully across. His time with the turtle had exposed him to the perils of the human roads for animals, especially it seemed squirrels. All too often they came across the flat remains of squirrels when they crossed roads, and every time, to his horror, the turtle insisted they cross near the body. FastPile would always say something about “karma of the road” and “bad things had already passed”, but Chakik always felt sadness and uneasy when they would cross near a fallen friend. He would look up to the sky and say a little prayer he had made up for just these times. “May your spirit rest with the clouds.” Chakik imagined that on beautiful, clear blue days, the clouds must be resting somewhere even more beautiful and thought it would be a nice place to spend time. It was here that he sent the energies of the dead squirrels and other animals they saw.

    Some crossings were much worse than others.

    While Chakik’s first real introduction to “the Black Dragon”, now simply named “roads” had been an adventure in itself, the third crossing with FastPile would forever remain etched into his squirrel brain. Squirrel’s don’t give a lot of thought to what is inside of them, unless you are talking about nuts. As a species of animal they are not all that introspective, very few squirrels would be considered Great Thinkers among the animal community at large, fewer still give thought to what is physically inside of them. Squirrels just are, as far as they are concerned, and there is no need to delve deeper into what makes them up, either mentally or physically. On this unforgettable crossing day, Chakik saw first hand what squirrels were made of.

    The “karma crossing” point that FastPile had identified was near a freshly killed squirrel. It was a cloudy, overcast, and generally gray day already, the sun had been hiding somewhere beyond their vision since they had woken up. The morning had an unusual chill to it, and Chakik noticed that everything smelled more of itself than normal, as if things had decided to make themselves more of themselves during the night. They had a planned crossing ahead that was routine to the squirrel by now, a simple two lane road, calling the Black Dragon a road still seemed odd, but the turtle would have it no other way.

    Approaching the edge, the now familiar smell of death greeted the duo. The morning crispness amplified this scent as it had the other, more pleasant, smells that day. Cautiously the turtle and the squirrel crawled out onto the road, Chakik being very alert, and looking both up and down the road as FastPile had taught him. As they crossed, the source of the smell became all too apparent. Right in the center of the road, trapped between both sides, was the destroyed body of a squirrel. Unlike any they had crossed near before, this one had not flattened, but seemed to have burst and spread strangely shaped swirls and curving, overlapping tubes over the black surface. The totally alien nature of these things, which clearly originated from inside the body of the dead squirrel, stunned Chakik. He stopped. In the middle of the road. Something he had not done since the first time he had tried to cross one alone.

    The parts spiraled and cascaded over themselves, shining with a bizarre color that Chakik had never seen before. It felt as if they were trying to tell him something important in their shapes, but his ears could not hear their voices and his eyes did not understand. He reached a paw down to his belly, touching it at the same spot the twisted and grotesque shapes emerged from the body that lay on the road. Crossing near bodies of fallen animals always saddened Chakik, but this time was different. It felt deeper. He could feel things inside himself, bits and pieces, that had previously just been of him, now they took on a life of their own. His breath seemed to slow as he felt the air crossing from his mouth to his insides. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa. His heart beat inside his chest. Both breath and heart beat he was familiar with, but this, now, felt entirely different.

    A sharp pain and yank to his tail completed his journey across the road, FastPile dragging him quickly out of harms way. The turtle said nothing as the squirrel quickly regained his composure and scampered into the grass at the road’s edge. There they stayed, motionless, only breathing, for what seemed like ages. The turtle understood what the squirrel did not yet, and waited for Chakik to make the next move.

    “Is..is that what’s inside me?” the silence finally broken weakly by the squirrel.

    “We are all made of the same things.” replied the turtle in his usual unanswering fashion. There was a pause, as they looked at each other silently.
    “Similar things are inside of you, yes. They keep you alive.” sensing the squirrel’s uneasiness the wise turtle continued, “they are not what you are. They are just parts.”

    “If we put them back in would it…”

    “NO. That squirrel is gone. He was what you saw, but he was also more.” the turtle tried to explain. “Inside me, I look the same as you, like the squirrel on the road.” Chakik winced at the thought of such strange curved things inside of him. “They are WHAT you are,” continued FastPile, “but not WHO you are.”

    Chakik gave him a puzzled look as they continued through the low grass, seeking out a trail to help their journey along.

    “I don’t understand” said the squirrel.

    “When you need to you will.” was the turtles cryptic reply, and they continued on in silence.

  • Easier to Spot

    This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series The Rock Squirrels

    A squirrel is pretty good at hiding. They are born with the ability to put a tree between themselves and any unwanted observer, such as a human. Turtles, they are used to hiding too. A turtle understands blending in and has eons of evolutional camouflage built in. Sheep know how to run away, but they don’t have a hiding mechanism, nor a good way to disappear like a squirrel or a turtle.

    As Chakik the squirrel and FastPile the turtle travelled with Sunny the sheep, the three animals came to realize this all too well.

    Crossing a ‘road’ as the turtle put it, or ‘the black dragons back’ as the squirrel still thought of it, became much more of an adventure, now that Sunny the sheep had joined them, expanding the familiar duo into a trio. Crossings and any appearance near humans had to be much more calculated and planned. Chakik was not good at planning. He resented Sunny for this. FastPile enjoyed the friction between the squirrel and sheep, he had to be more aware and careful, but he knew it would be good for the both in the end.

    Sunny the sheep was mostly oblivious. Being a young lamb, and only recently having a chance to explore anything besides her pen, she was smitten with every new thing the trio found. Cars, roads, buildings, and everything else human made fascinated her to no end. For FastPile these were well known and he helped to explain their names and purposes.

    The squirrel wanted nothing to do with them. Not the things people made, nor the strange sounding names they made for them. Across their journey together, the turtle had introduced and explained may of the people things to Chakik. The squirrel understood most of them, as FastPile was a great teacher. Now with this sheep along, the turtle was retelling stories already known to the squirrel. Instead of helping or adding to them, the squirrel scoffed at the lambs ignorance, and usually scampered away up a tree when the turtle told a tale Chakik already knew.

    Trees were a safe place for Chakik. Neither the turtle nor the sheep had figured out how to climb them, and given their lack of interest in climbing, Chakik knew trees were a safe place to escape. He tried to be patient, like FastPile, he really did, but it was impossible for the little squirrel to empathize with the lamb. She was quick witted as he, but the rest was far to foreign; short tail, crazy fluffly white fur. It had taken him a long time to accept the strangeness of the turtle, but FastPile had won the squirrel over with his wisdom. This sheep said only a few words, and Chakik felt they were mocking. “Tree. Chakik also tree.” Who was this strange animal to speak of the trees? And now they had to travel together.

    Chakik prided himself on his ability to blend into the trees. Or even the grass and lower things when necessary. FastPile naturally blended in with everything, as if he didn’t even try. Now they had this lamb, this sheep. Loud and noisy and bright white! She could not climb a tree, much less hide in one.

    “What is the point of being so obvious?” Chakik asked of the turtle.
    “Hiding where you can be seen is sometimes the best spot.” replied FastPile, obtuse as always.
    “It’s going to get us crushed on the dragon.”
    “She. And the dragon is just a road.”
    “She.” Chakik replied obstinately, “and the dragon is not just a road. You have not seen it. I did. Its nothing like the ‘roads’ here. I can see far here.”
    “She can help us.” the turtle ignored his dragon comment as always.
    “Maybe she can not be so spotted?” Chakik spoke of the recent times they now had to sprint and dive to cover to avoid humans and try to blend in with the three of themselves.
    “I see no spots on Sunny.” FastPile enjoyed these conversations.
    “SUNNY SPOT ALSO” Sunny happily offered.
    “You could have taught her ‘shadow’ as easily as ‘sunny’.” Chakik gave the last point he’d been holding onto for a while.
    “She is too easily seen to be a shadow.” Chakik swore he saw the greediest of smirks on FastPiles face as he said this.
    “Crossings are much more dangerous now. I can’t go at your speed and hers.” this ploy to the turtle’s need for a safe crossing, Chakik felt was sure to work. If FastPile had to lumber out of the way of people, Chakik was sure he would finally see his point of view.

    Cars speed across the widest ‘Dragon Back’ Chakik had yet seen. Some were going one way and some roared and zoomed in the exact opposite way. The close direct parallel deeply disturbed the squirrel. “Things on their ways to other places should not pass so close.” Given the turtles non-reaction to the noise of things, he surmised this thought was his own.

    “You will watch over Sunny. I am capable of myself.”
    “She’s so easy to spot!” lamented Chakik.
    “You will watch over Sunny.”

    Chakik was not happy.
    Sunny bounded joyfully and licked his face.
    Chakik was less not happy, but he tried to hide it.

  • Sunny the Sheep

    The trails always lead somewhere.

    “That’s why they are trails.” FastPile enjoyed saying. “If they went nowhere, no one would follow them, and they would not be.”

    The trails that FastPile the turtle was leading the group on, were mostly visual trails. Chakik the squirrel could see many other routes through the trees and among the undergrowth, that sometimes he knew would be faster. At least for him. The squirrel had no desire to leave the turtle behind. It was the sheep, Sunny, he could do without.

    The sheep called itself Sunny. In her defense, Sunny was as lost as her new friends. She had been living happily among her flock for as long as she could remember, which wasn’t long, Sunny was very young. When the turtle and squirrel first approached the fence surrounding the sheep, the sheep had no idea what these new creatures were. Very quickly rumors spread that they were magical and could only be appeased by a sacrifice of some sort. From her birth Sunny had been rather practical for a sheep. Many of the rest of the flock though her strange for this understanding, and were somewhat frightened by her. When the chance of sending her away with these new strangers, especially if they were witches, made the thick wooled flock very happy. Her father had gotten to the fence before the Major could, but thankfully he spoke only a few words of non-sheep. The Major arrived in time to steer the witches through and give them Sunny as an offering.

    She was slowly learning the words of these strange animals. Sunny had never seen a turtle before, but the slow movements and predictability of FastPile immediately endeared him and she felt safe near him. She tried to tell him how she felt, but her only outside words were of her clan and identity. “Also sheep.” She wanted to say “Thank you, what are you?” or “Where are we going, why is the long tailed one so fast?” but all she could say was “Also sheep.” After trying their words and muttering gibberish, Sunny decided to listen and observe.

    Their names she had understood, but not yet tried to voice out loud. The slow, furless one was called FastPile, she liked him a great deal. He reminded her of her great-grand-papa, but with a strange hard fur, and stubby legs. And he was shorter, and maybe meaner. She really wasn’t sure why he reminded her of her great-grand-papa, but there was something.

    The quick one with the long tail was much more of a mystery. He seemed young like her, but showed no interest in playing games. His crazy long tail was always busy, twitching this way and that, standing right up at other times. He seemed to try and avoid her, which only made her want to play with him more. He ran up the trees most of the time when she approached and she could only watch in awe. Many times she tried to follow him, but her feet did not grip onto the trees as his, and she remained grounded with the turtle.

    So she stayed on the ground with FastPile, who spoke a bit more of her language, and who seemed very intent on teaching her new words. “Tree” was her new favorite, and she found herself repeating it as often as she could. Every time the squirrel ran up one, she learned to say “Chakik also tree.” This made her ground bound friend the turtle smile immensely, so she made sure to say it frequently.

    This made Sunny happy.
    It drove Chakik insane.

  • Lessons to Learn

    The group, now three, the squirrel, the turtle and the young sheep, continued their westward journey, eventually hoping to reach the ocean and find ‘The Whale’. The longer they journeyed, even now distracted by the young lamb that now dubbed itself “Sunny” Chakik questioned the success of their journey. So far they had seen and met many different animals and things, but to find ‘The’ thing of things, ‘The Whale’, not just any whale, began to seem improbable if not impossible.

    Recently the squirrel and turtle acquired their young sheep companion, now self named “Sunny”, from a large yard of many, many sheep. Was Sunny ‘The’ sheep, or just a sheep? Was Chakik ‘The’ squirrel or just a squirrel, what about FastPile? Where any of them ‘The’? How could they possibly hope to find ‘The’ Whale? Chakik didn’t even know what a whale was. The turtle had tried to explain it, along with ‘The’ ocean that it swam in. The squirrel knew of water, and he could swim, but what the turtle told him was ridiculous. Swims under the water longer and deeper than climb time and the trees were tall. It just did not sound possible. ‘The’ ocean made as much sense to the squirrel as saying ‘The’ tree. He’d met and played with some amazing trees, but none were ‘The’ tree. Trees were made of wood, as ‘The’ ocean was made of water FastPile explained. Chakik thought FastPile made things more complicated than necessary.

    Since the moment Chakik heard the turtles voice and helped FastPile out of the round pool, he knew the turtle was wise. Much more than he ever imagined had been easily explained to him by this strange, small tailed and hard shelled friend. “The shorter the tail, the less the trust.” was a squirrel motto instilled into him from his first days. The turtle had a tail, but it was very small, and served no purpose that Chakik could distill. A squirrels tail was it’s life; balance, warmth, communication, direction and more. The turtles tail, and for that matter, Also the sheep’s tail, seemed rather useless to Chakik. “The shorter the tail, the less the trust.” The words echoed in his mind as he scampered above his two friends on the trial below.

    Sunny the sheep had taken a great shining to the squirrel, much to the squirrel’s torment and the turtle’s great delight. Previously when Chakik leapt off to run on the trees, FastPile would leave him alone, knowing he needed to explore and would return soon. Now that they were joined by the young sheep, Sunny, the turtle took a great interest in the squirrel’s high flying antics. FastPile would stick his neck out as far as he could to look upward and always point out where the squirrel was to Sunny the sheep.

    This made the lamb bleat with joy, and to the squirrels horror, the next word the sheep spoke, beyond “also sheep” was “Chakik”.
    Followed very shortly by “tree”. Chakik didn’t mind that Suny said his name, but trees were sacred to the squirrel and it got his fur in all kind of bunches every time the lamb uttered “Chakik also tree!”.

    The turtle took such great joy in these exchanges that often he would have to stop, working so hard to hold in his laughter that he could not walk. Before Sunny joined their excursion, FastPile only stopped as a necessity. Chakik noticed.

    Chakik was not happy.

  • Using Human Words

    Chakik looked back at the highway as they left it. How recently he had thought of it as magical and demonic. The black dragon was not a monster, but a vehicle the humans used to transport themselves quickly. It’s body and tail now relegated to the simple knowledge of it being a ‘road’ as the turtle called it. The depth of wisdom that the turtle possessed never stopped amazing the squirrel. Chakik had been bold in his knowledge of understanding and now almost every day felt humbled by FastPile.

    As they worked their way westward, the squirrel had ample time to reminisce about his naivete. Before he met FastPile, all he knew was from his small forest and the trees around him. Thankfully for the squirrel’s sanity, the trees had remained consistent. No matter how much new knowledge of the world the turtle shared, Chakik always knew more about the trees. And the trees where always there. Chakik began to realize that his ability to climb the trees gave him a special knowledge of them, but at the same time, it narrowed his knowing of the rest of his surroundings. The hot, dark, back of the Black Dragon was a very common thing outside of his forest. FastPile’s long and deep vision of the greater world amazed the squirrel with every revelation.

    As they carefully and speedily crossed many roads on their quest to The Whale, Chakik’s understanding grew and grew. FastPile used the words the humans used, which Chakik thought boring and unintuitive, but they became the norm. The Black Dragon and its fearful face became ‘cars’ and ‘roads’. (Chakik still preferred to call roads Black Dragons, which annoyed the turtle to no end). Their more frequent encounters with humans themselves made the squirrel wonder how they created such marvels as the Black Dragon. Individually they did not seem to comprehend half as much as the squirrel knew.

    “How can they have made this?” Chakik asked about the roads to the intelligent turtle.
    “Many make up more than just the one.” was the obtuse answer.
    “I know many squirrels, and none of us would want to put such a thing through the forest.”
    “The humans don’t look at the forest the same as we do. They see it as something to go over, not with.” again the turtle’s answer was a riddle to the young squirrel. The trees were by far the best and fastest way to travel. Chakik felt bad for the humans, as he did for the turtle whom many times he tried to teach to climb a tree.

    Running on trees is as natural to a squirrel as breathing. Chakik tried to get the turtle to climb one every time he found a wonderful tree. Every time the turtle had to remind the squirrel he could not. FastPile enjoyed the squirrel’s enthusiasm and persistance for this one thing. Nothing else seemed to stay in the squirrel’s mind longer than a few seconds. But, like clockwork, any oak tree they passed that was more than 20 years old, Chakik insisted the turtle try his climbing skills a new.

    Being the patient turtle he was, and hoping this might be the last time, FastPile would diligently reach his thick arms up and flex his turtle toes into the bark of the tree. This always made Chakik squee with glee. Seeing the turtles move his toes as individuals, not just a foot to step on, brought on bouts of cheer from the squirrel.

    “Thats it! You have to use each toe to find the right place!” Chakik ineffectively encouraged the patient turtle.

    “Turtle toes do not work the same as a squirrel’s, my long tailed friend.” dutifully replied FastPile.

    “Ok well, we can always try the next one, you just need to use your toes…” and off bounced the squirrel.

    Often and repeatedly during the journey FastPile questioned the wisdom of his tutelage, but he knew what he had to do. This phase, would hopefully pass, and they might continue their journey in peace. But, without fail, every aged tree they passed, the squirrel offered his climbing suggestions. More often than not, the turtle simply plodded on, towards food and water, and towards their ultimate goal.

    The Whale.

  • Always Moving

    Chakik was always amazed at FastPiles perseverance. The turtle just kept going and going, through the heat, rain and everything. As he scampered around and over him, Chakik puzzled over the energy the turtle seemed to have. “Maybe its because he goes slow?” was the first thought Chakik came up with. So he walked slowly next to the hard shelled beast. But this only lasted a minute or two before he had to run up a tree, or dart across a sunny field of grass that lay before them waving in the wind, inviting a squirrel to jump in.

    “Maybe its his shell?”
    Chakik puzzled long and hard to figure out how to figure this one out. Sometimes he would lay across FastPiles shell, flat on his back and pretend he was a turtle. More often than not, he was startled awake when he slid off the turtle’s shell and tumbled to the ground. Other times he would sprawl on his stomach across FastPile and focus intently on each footstep the turtle took.

    FastPile put up with all these antics, always on the way to their goal; The Whale.

    Chakik was still not sure if he believed all the stories about The Whale. Nothing as big as that could climb a tree, or run through a field. It was beyond the comprehension of Chakik’s brain to process anything so big that could move. Trees, his favorite thing in the world, could become very large. But they only moved when the wind told them to. What FastPile’s tales told was entirely different, something moving, more than twice the size of trees, by its own will. From his time spent with the turtle, he knew that he knew very little, but the idea of something so big out there still befuddled him.

    So the squirrel followed the turtle.

  • Stuck at a Rest Area on Highway 21

    The noise was deafening. Roars and wooshes of inexplicable sounds.
    (more…)

  • The Squirrel meets a Girl

    Most human children chased Chakik or could not understand him. Neither was true of Grace.
    Chakik meet Grace in the park where he lives with 41 other squirrels, 14 miles north of Detroit. It was a nice park where children played, lots of oak trees grew and a nearby house left out sunflower seeds and cashews.

    When the squirrel and the girl first met, they both just sat on the grass and stared at each other. Neither moved a muscle, afraid of scaring the other off. Finally Grace said “hello”. “Chakik” said Chakik. Where most humans just heard a squirrel making squirrel sounds, Grace knew it was an introduction. She smiled and said “Grace.” “hello” said Chakik. Grace was called back to play by her friends and Chakik went back to burying acorns, neither giving any thought to what had just happened.