Squirrel Nam

It was dark...so dark. You could hear the squirrels chattering in the trees, calling to one another and plotting...always plotting. The bugs - the awful, biting bugs - were everywhere, as was the humidity and heat - baking us and causing sweat to roll off our noses like rain off a roof.

We were trying to protect the plants - not so much their leaves, but their fruit - from the four-legged Communist predators. We'd naively tried goodwill; we'd desperately tried negotiation. Now we were left with no choice - no choice, that is, except to build the DMZ (Dunham Menu Zone) as a frontier and boundary between our two competing powers and passions to stay alive.

This is our life now - forced to deal with metal and mesh in order to desperately cling to our hope for home-grown veggies. This is our struggle - to withstand the guerrilla attacks of various varmints in an effort to lower our food budget.

This is our conflict. This is Squirrel Nam.