Ensquirreled
Seems like it has been ages since Indies Unlimited has given us an animal prompt for the flash fiction challenge. As always, it has proven to be a bit of strange hijinks, animal style. Well, I won’t stand in your way. Let’s get to…
Ensquirreled
Dr. Stanton had successfully transferred his intelligence into the body of a squirrel.
He realized that his whole human consciousness would not fit in a squirrel’s brain. It had neither the storage space nor the focus to accommodate his entire essence.
Photo by K.S. Brooks
As a squirrel was the only subject at hand, he proceeded anyway. Stanton pared his memories down to the bare bits he would need to accomplish his mission. However, he forgot that the squirrel also needed some squirrel brain to make his squirrel body function properly. The result was that some of the mission-critical information did not make the transition.
All Stanton the squirrel could remember was that he needed to follow that woman down there…
He jumped to the lower branches, in order to be closer to the woman. She glanced up into the tree when it shook. But he didn’t sense that she saw him. Dr. Stanton couldn’t shake the feeling that it felt wrong. He fought against an urge to pull away, to run from close proximity to the human.
It took all his will to keep the path as she approached the building. He knew he needed to catch her before she went inside, though he could not remember why. And then he reached the ground.
His nerves burned with fire and adrenalin, the oppressive openness without the tree to protect him, left him naked and alone. He saw everything through his peripheral vision, no predators but he still felt naked and alone. He scampered toward her legs. The power flowing through his nerves and bloodstream gave him a speed he never felt before.
Just as he reached her legs the world around him went dark. Light shone through a small window of the cage she dropped on him, then her eyes as she looked in on him.
“I didn’t think it would be this easy,” she said. “But you had to try out the formula, didn’t you?”
He hadn’t seen it. He couldn’t process it. The box she had held in her hands. She meant to catch him.
“Your research notes are now mine, Dr. Stanton.”
***