HIGHLIGHT

We sat atop the picnic blanket, the black and white buffalo check patterned quilt we designated as the superior and exclusive seating option for our lunch dates. We sat and ate ham and cheese sandwiches and yellow bag chips, watching the ducks in the pond. We used to feed them our sandwich edges, but we had recently read that it was harmful to our senitively-stomached friends, so we decided instead to dispose of them by wadding them into a ball. We rolled the rounded crusts to the edge of our picnic blanket to have more room for our pens and pencils and poem and sketchbook. We drew and wrote and hummed and sang until we were interrupted by an unusual guest. We had an unspoken pact of peaceful coexistence with the squirrels, and the harmony had never been tested before today when one dared to wander into our domain. We hadn't noticed them until we caught a glimpse of him sauntering towards us from their side of the territory. We sneered at him, eyes warning of the consequences, but he continued his jaunt with a cunning face. He reached the edge of their property and raked his pesky claws across the border, taunting us with the unkown potential of his next move. We stared at each other in a glower, pens and pencils sheatered in white fingers and the soft of our hum turned to a battle cry. He scampered to us, brown of his legs blurring in the swiftness of his advance. We readied ourselves for his invasion, ready to prtect the remainder of ham and cheese and chips with our entirety as he charged our camp. He bobbed at the edge of the blanket as we grew weary of his anatagonizing, taking to fling sticks at him in hopes of tumbling the Goliath before us. He weaved through our projectiles and reached our feet; we feared for our lives. We stared at him in submission, eyes pleading for clemency after our futile aggression. He plodded past us towards the edge fronting the lake and seized his war prize - the rounded lump of discarded crust.