My encounter with squirrels

One early morning, after waking up from my bed, I strolled out to the veranda. Still drowsy, gazing around me. Birds were perched cosily on the trees in our compound, chirping incessantly. The morning zephyrs were drawing swarms of butterflies that flitted about around blooms joyfully. I was engrossed in eying these enchanting spectacles of nature, having shed my drowse, when all of a sudden, I was yanked out of my aesthetic delights with my gaze being drawn to our compound-wall, where appeared, to my immense amazement, a tiny creature, wheat-hued with black eyes, puny mouth, tender limbs and a bushy, constantly-swinging tail. A little squirrel squatted there with its beady, roving eyes riveted on me.

Suddenly, it began scurrying on the wall at lightning speed towards our guava tree. In no time, scampering into the leaves of the tree, it simply vanished. I presumed that it would not be spotted again, but surprisingly, it made its appearance once again on the compound wall. This time it had a guava clasped in its hands. The squirrel was uncannily spitting out tiny pieces from the bitten guava. I could not figure out why it indulged in such funny deeds, instead of eating the guava. While I was struggling to decipher this strange act, there came running another squirrel onto the compound-wall. The first squirrel, abandoning its nibbling, launched into chasing the new squirrel. In a few minutes, I noticed the swift chasing of the two squirrels on the wall. I wondered whether they were fighting for the guava, but I found no guava in the hands of the first squirrel. Now the squirrels, squeaking all the way, were racing up the guava tree, up to the terrace of the house, down the tree, into the foliage of the tree, on to the compound-wall. As I watched the two squirrels scampering on the ground, so near to me, I experienced a unique joy springing in my heart.

''What is all this? What are these squirrels doing?” I wondered. "Maybe, they are playing a funny sport, or they are courting each other, ” I surmised. Racing on the ground for a while, the squirrels clambered to the compound-wall and after making a few more rounds, both vanished. With the unbounded joy generated by this beautiful, morning encounter with squirrels--the tiny beauties of nature. I rose from the veranda of our house and stepped into a pleasant morning.