Elissa was angry. She had dumped me what, a year previous? And still sniping. “Chris, you shouldn’t have turned right around and gotten involved,” she said.
“Well,” I replied, “you got involved with someone even before you dumped me.”
“That’s different,” she said. “Besides, Becky’s nine years younger than you.”
“Well,” I said, “you’re eleven years younger than Ande.”
“That’s different,” she said.
“Haven’t we had this argument already? It seems familiar.”
“That’s just like you,” she said, a bit more angrily. “Of course it seems familiar to you! I’ve been saying the same thing over and over to you for the seven years we’ve been together! You never listen, you only hear me say the things you want to hear! Why don’t you ever just listen! Do you think I like to have to constantly harp on you?”
“No,” I said.
“Then why do you keep tuning me out? It’s like everything I say just goes in one ear and out the other. It’s like you don’t want to hear!”
There was part of me that had to admit she was right. I found myself tuning out even as she berated me for not listening. Each word became more and more a staccato bark, conveying emotion alone, its meaning lost. I wanted to pay attention. I strained to pay attention. But it was no use. Her scolding became atonal and remote, the barking of a dog, only higher-pitched. My gut started to twist.
And then I woke a little more, and remembered I had not spoken to Elissa in a year. But the scolding continued! Confusing. A breeze played with the hair hanging in my face, and there was the faint scent of pine, and coffee.
I opened my eyes.
I was on my back in my sleeping bag, beneath a contorted pine growing at 9,800 feet in the Emigrant Wilderness, and it was morning. The noise continued! The world was blurry. I rubbed my eyes, opened them again.
A Douglas squirrel, Tamiasciurus douglasii, eater of pine nuts, had decided I was invading its territory. Or maybe I was sleeping on top of its food cache. Either way, it was angry, and scolding me relentlessly from a low branch perhaps three feet above my head. I laughed.
