Unusual workday story.  W. Pathirana. Former Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy, Colombo Medical Faculty.

Another bright day had dawned and as usual I dressed up myself for the day’s official duties. It was time for me to leave for the 10 kilometers drive that takes 45 minutes across the City of Colombo through the grid lock traffic to the work place. The fence on the side of the garage had two letter boxes painted with bright post office red. One of the boxes was dedicated to generations of squirrel families who over the years chose to bring up their new born baby squirrels in this box. One box received letters while the other received food and succor for the squirrel babies from the mother squirrel. On this day I was unaware that the letter box had a baby squirrel.

As I walking up to the car unexpectedly a baby squirrel emerged from the letter box with unusually bright shades of brown color. It was looking around in excitement at the new world around and was hesitating to move afar from the letter box. It reminded our own child’s excitement in his tender years to see all that was around him. I kept back so that the baby squirrel can move about undisturbed and find its way in to the new surroundings. It was a great pleasure to watch it as this was a new experience to me and to the baby squirrel too.

It came down the fence to the ground and all of a sudden climbed on to the wheel and vanished in to the undercarriage of the car. I could not drive away fearing that the baby squirrel may be harmed. If I started the engine generating noise, vibration, heat and motion of belts and cooling fans it could have been like a thunder bolt for the tender animal. Time is running out for me. I could not mess around and spoil my clothes either. I took a broom pushed it under the carriage and moved it around making noise to frighten the squirrel so as to chase it away from impending danger. This I repeated from different sides of the car. I did not see the squirrel leaving but in a bout of self deceit thought to myself that it must have moved away fearing the movements and the noise made by the broom.

Almost ten minutes lost and travel time squeezed, I started my journey anxiously to the work place lest I may be late. All the time I was feeling a little guilt that the baby squirrel may be still under the carriage.  Half way through the journey at a traffic light hold up I heard the baby squirrel’s cry ‘Ching, Ching, Ching’. The animal is still under the carriage and I was feeling too bad about this. The helpless baby squirrel just out in to the world may have had a brutal experience precariously hanging under the fast moving under carriage so very close to the tarmac with wind blended with smoke and dust blasting against it relentlessly. In the middle of the traffic where everyone was busy reaching their work places I had to keep driving as cautiously as I can. This in any way is of no avail for a tender animal against a huge moving hot vibrating noisy metal giant.

The vehicle was driven to a side lane where I knew there were few garages for help. The staff was still changing over to their uniforms and not yet geared up for work. I explained to them that there is a baby squirrel under the carriage and requested to hoist the car to remove it. They said they did not think that a baby squirrel could travel such a distance undercarriage and there is no purpose in hoisting the car. All persuasions failing, I left the garage and went to the closest office building with a large garden where some of my friends worked. I told them about the problem. Few of them walked up to the car, bent half way not low enough to see the undercarriage and pretended that there cannot be an animal in the undercarriage. With the hope that the baby squirrel may quietly find its way in to the garden around, the car was parked there for the rest of the day and I took a taxi to my work place.

At the end of the day in the evening, I came to collect my car this time assuring myself that the animal must have left the car in to the garden since it could hear the noise of other squirrels in the garden. It had a good eight hours to leave the car and go out in to the garden. I said good bye to my friends and left for home feeling relieved that the baby squirrel is now safe.

Returning home parking the car in the garage, I refreshed myself and sat relaxed in a chair close to the window. To my surprise I saw a big squirrel darting around in the compound near the car that was just parked. After a little while it was joined by a second squirrel. They appeared to be desperately investigating something and once in a while looked towards me as if I could help them. I thought these two must be the parents of the baby squirrel lost from their custody. There was something unusual as they dared come very close to me. I slowly pulled a stool, placed it in the compound and sat as close as possible to the two squirrels. I wondered if the adult squirrels were sensing my good intentions and appreciating me for having taken trouble to save their young baby squirrel by releasing it to the garden.

Their movements took a different twist when both of the squirrels took turns and stood on their rear feet reminding of kangaroos reaching as far as possible towards the undercarriage. Moments later the tip of the tail of a third squirrel appeared protruding under the buffer of the car. One of the two adult squirrels climbed in to the under carriage and dragged down the third squirrel. I thought to myself that they must be a pack of wrestling squirrels which is a familiar sight in our gardens. Just then I realized that it was the baby squirrel that was hiding in the undercarriage, it had not left the car and travelled all the way back home in my return journey. The parents must have desperately searched for the baby squirrel all day. One of them held the baby squirrel by the neck, climbed on to the fence, moved up the telephone post close by and then on to the other side of the road along the overhead wire and disappeared under the roof of the house across the road. A herculean task instinctively accomplished with much ease for the size of the animal.

It was with sadness that one thought about the circumstances of the tender baby squirrel that forced it to travel undercarriage of a vehicle against the fast shifting brutish tarmac soon after it emerged in to the world. Equally heartbreaking is the fact that the parent squirrels were separated from the newly emerged baby squirrel for ten long hours not knowing the fate of the young one. One is overwhelmed at the determination of the animal to have resisted hot blasts of exhaust air, dust, the jerks, growling noises of the traffic around, loneliness and motion sickness during the episode that lasted over ten hours. It was a great relief to realize that the baby squirrel had survived to happily join the comfort of the company of the family in the end.

W. Pathirana.

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