Updated: Nov 11, 2021
Despondent and a little broken, Marvin ambles through the front door of his den home and slouches over the kitchen counter. It is quiet and dark, and he is about to cry when Cherie appears next to him, her bags full with her afternoon shopping.
She spits and puts an arm on her husband’s shoulder. “Rough day, Marv?” she says, but Marvin gives no answer. He rubs his face with his two hands and sniffles. He has had a rough day, and Cherie’s meaningless chatter isn’t going to help him. Sensing this, Cherie shivers and gathers up her shopping before giving him a side-eye glance and leaving him to cool down.
That night, after a fit of hysteric, urgent lovemaking, Marvin and Cherie snuggle. Nuzzling, they become one, and Cherie tries again. “You know I don’t hold it against you, Marv,” she says. “We’ve got plenty already, and—”
“I know that!” Marvin interrupts. “Don’t you think I know that?” He leaps out of bed and scampers off, out into the cold November night.
When morning comes, it finds him on the highest branch of the tallest tree he could find. Panting, he sits, eyeing the end of it all. He is not a flying squirrel, but he’s thinking he’ll be one today. He stands on his haunches and is preparing to jump when who but Cherie, from far below, shrieks.
“Don’t you do it, Marv!” she says. “Don’t you go leaving me alone!”
Enraged, he shouts back. “I can’t do it, Cherie! I can’t do it anymore!”
Cherie is surprised, but she knows exactly what he’s talking about.
*flashback to the moment they first met*
Marvin to Cherie, over coffee: “I just don’t like having nuts in my mouth.”
*flashback ended*
Cherie thinks on her feet and has an epiphany she should have had ages ago. “Then don’t!” she says.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t put the nuts in your mouth!”
This frustrates Marvin, who has obviously thought of this thousands of times already. “Then where will I put them?” he shouts, annoyed.
“Up your ass!” Cherie answers.
Marvin sighs angrily. “Cherie! The moment I put a nut in my ass, it’ll break! How’s that going to work if all I do is bust my nut all day?”
Cherie hadn’t thought of that.
Though to be fair, Cherie hadn’t thought of anything. She’s a goddam squirrel for Chris-sake, with a three-quarter-ounce brain. Under the cognitive weight of Marvin’s question, she blinks, forgets everything, and skitters off.
Marvin, atop the tree, leaps. When he hits the ground, he gets up and skitters off too. Squirrels can survive their own terminal velocity, after all.