Flora & Ulysses

Okay. Sure. Let’s eat.

What wonderful words those are, thought Ulysses.

Let’s eat.

Talk about poetry.

The squirrel was happy.

He was happy because he was with Flora.

He was happy because he had the words from Tootie’s poem flowing through his head and heart.

He was happy because he was going to be fed soon.

And he was happy because he was, well, happy.

He climbed out of the shoe box and put his front paws on the door and his nose out the open window.

He was a squirrel riding in a car on a summer day with someone he loved. His whiskers and nose were in the breeze.

And there were so many smells!

Overflowing trash cans, just-cut grass, sun-warmed patches of pavement, the loamy richness of dirt, earthworms (loamy-smelling, too; often difficult to distinguish from the smell of dirt), dog, more dog, dog again (Oh, dogs! Small dogs, large dogs, foolish dogs; the torturing of dogs was the one reliable pleasure of a squirrel’s existence), the tang of fertilizer, a faint whiff of birdseed, something baking, the hidden hint of nuttiness (pecan, acorn), the small, apologetic, don’t-mind-me odor of mouse, and the ruthless stench of cat. (Cats were terrible; cats were never to be trusted. Never.)

The world in all its smelly glory, in all its treachery and joy and nuttiness, washed over Ulysses, ran through him, filled him. He could smell everything. He could even smell the blue of the sky.

He wanted to capture it. He wanted to write it down. He wanted to tell Flora. He turned and looked at her.

“Keep your eyes open for malfeasance,” she said to him.

Ulysses nodded.

The words from Tootie’s poem sounded in his head. “‘Flare up like flame’!”

Yes, he thought. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll flare up like flame, and I’ll write it all down.