A Christmas Fable

It was a cold & wintry night; the snow had been coming down since noon but did not turn serious until dusk. By suppertime there were only three inches of accumulation, but the threat of more during the night grew with each falling snowflake.

Three inches of snow may not seem like much to a human, but to a chipmunk it can really be a pain in the bum fur.

Claire was just such a chipmunk. She shuddered as the snow mounted up around her and she shook it from her brown pelt. She should have been out weeks ago gathering food for the upcoming winter season, but she had been partying with a squirrel who lived up the tree. The snowfall had caught her off-guard and now she was paying for it: alone in the wilderness along the side of the road, foraging for food that had long-since been picked over by the other woodland creatures.

She cursed her situation and briefly thought about giving up and going home to cuddle with her husband in their nice, warm den. She shook her head and tried to shiver the rest of the snow from her back. No, she needed to find food for herself and for her family. If she did not, then she and her husband would be forced to eat some of their 30 children, and that prospect didn’t exactly fill her with that warm Christmas Spirit.

Claire dug along the side of the road for a while, picking up the odd stale Frito or a bit of something that a human had tossed out the window of one of those dreaded moving vehicles. She stuffed these precious morsels into her enormous cheeks to save for later, but she was desperately hoping to come across something of sustenance, something that would keep her brood full for a while. She was running out of time; the snow was coming down at a furious pace and was really starting to pile up. The trek home was going to be difficult at best; she needed to get going soon.

She half-heartedly dug in the snow and thought she might have brushed against something. She dug as fast as she could, and to her bewilderment she uncovered a full-sized apple. Sure, it was old and rotten – not to mention frozen, but she was a chipmunk, hardly noted as connoisseurs of the Animal Kingdom.

It took her nearly 15 minutes of hard digging in the snow to unearth the apple. She was dangerously overdue at home, and she was sweating so hard icicles hung from her twitching whiskers, and she was unsure as to how she was going to push the apple up and over the 4-inch burm and onto the blacktopped road.

Claire vowed to bring that damn apple home.

For her kids, all 2 ½ dozen of them.

Somehow.

Claire put her furry little shoulders into it, but the apple was frozen to the ground and did not move easily. Finally the apple was released from its frozen crater with a faint plop.

Claire was proud of herself, and her mouth began to water in anticipation of this tasty morsel.
The next – and biggest – hurdle would be getting this nourishing treat over the burm and onto the road. Her den was located at the bottom of a small Elm just across the road. Once she made it across, then it would be smooth sailing!

She gave the apple a giant shove and slowly pushed it up the small grade towards the pavement beyond. Her hind feet got good purchase in the snow, but the apple did not skim or roll over the top of the snow like she had hoped, but rather plowed through it. For every inch she pushed the apple, she was also pushing the snow in front of it, and such a weight was much too strenuous a task for such a tiny creature, and as she neared the top she was pushing 7 times her own weight. Her forelegs were trembling with exertion.

With just scant millimeters to go Claire lost her footing and both chipmunk and Macintosh fell back down the incline.

She dug herself out from under the snowy wreckage, wide-eyed and breathing heavily, but thankful to be alive.

Claire tried 8 more unsuccessful times to get the apple up to the road, but the only thing she accomplished was creating a nifty little luge rut in the snow about 5 inches long. Each attempt brought new and colorful additions to her language repertoire, but the apple was no closer to home than when she had first started. In fact she had lost ground.

The next time she took it slowly. She made sure of every footstep, and even though her exhausted body should have deserted her long ago, her muscles pushed on.

An inch.

Two inches.

She was taking her time to make sure; she would not be foiled again.

Halfway up, her entire right hindquarters cramped in massive spasms. She teetered on one foot momentarily and almost went down, but maybe someone was watching out for her that day because gravity seemed to take a break for a brief moment; she regained both her balance and control of that @*#~%$! Apple. She waited to catch her breath, realized she was too tired to catch her breath, and pushed (literally) on.

Another inch.

So close now. Claire could see over the edge of the embankment. The road was there, somewhere, underneath the perfectly smooth snow that covered the blacktop. So close, but the apple refused to move any more; she had reached her limit.

Claire looked to Heaven for the answer, and prayed to The Big Guy Upstairs, Oh God, if I lose this apple now, I swear I’m going to jump in front of the next 18-wheeler that comes along! So could You help me out a little here?
And then, so as not to be rude, added, Please?

As if in answer to her prayers, her front paws began to go numb from frostbite.

Claire gritted her cute buckteeth and grunted, “Thanks a lot.”

Not that there was any shot of Claire actually following through with her threat to jump in front of a semi; cars were few and far between on this road. It was so deserted they didn’t even bother plowing it anymore.

She was way beyond reaching down to draw upon some inner strength; her body was past its breaking point and all of her inner strength was used up.

By sheer will power alone she was able to push herself and the apple over the crest and onto the snow-covered pavement.

Claire should have been exuberant, but was so emotionally drained that she could not move at first. She lay there a while, sprawled out on her belly with the apple beside her. She thought she was too tired to move, but a jubilant cry arose from her throat and she voiced her joy with a triumphant wail. She rolled over and pumped a fist into the air as she whooped it up.

Things would be easy from here: there was a gentle downward slope across the road to her den beneath the tree, and the apple was sure to move more easily over the hard, paved surface of the road. Once she got started, momentum would most assuredly take her the rest of the way.

Claire wept too. To overcome such overwhelming odds was testament to the belief that Good Will Conquer All. A tear fell from her adorable furry cheek; her 30 children would have a merry Christmas after all. The joy within her heart was almost buoyant enough to cause her to float.

A green Ford Explorer being driven by a man in a hurry to complete his Christmas shopping careened around the corner and crushed Claire the chipmunk beneath one gigantic tire, and then continued on, towards home and his family. The apple went skidding off the road and settled back into the little divot in which it had been resting for so many weeks.

AND THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS:
Only through hard work & tenacity will you achieve great things.
No, that’s not quite it.
How about, What goes around comes…
No.
Early bird catches… Nuh-uh.
Oh, I know!
Get your Christmas shopping done early so you don’t horribly maim innocent woodland creatures.
Merry Christmas to you, your spouse, and to your 30 (or less) offspring.

From one sick little elf.