Distance

At the far end of the playground a woman perches on a bench, visibly upset. She clutches a bag of pretzel shards in a frail hand. Scattered about the bench in several directions and distances lay a litter of lifeless squirrels. She eyes them mournfully, her shoulders sagging in a posture of defeat. Her body is wrapped in a dusty overcoat to shut out the autumn wind, the belt drawn tightly across her midriff. She instantly brightens as an animate squirrel bounds out of the underbrush and scurries towards her, balances on the metal rim of a trashbin, watching her with blank eyes. Her skeletal fingers dig through the bag and emerge with a fragment of pretzel, and crescents of pretzeldust buried under her nails. She offers this to the squirrel, who twitches a whisker, then hungrily accepts. It downs the pretzel in a frenzy of teeth and claws, then hops off the bin, staggers a few brief steps, nose raised as if sniffing danger. The squirrel gets barely a foot from the bench before collapsing on its side, breathing heavily until the breathing stops entirely. The look of anguish returns to the paper skin of the woman's face, her eyes yellow with moisture. "Why are you playing tricks on me?" she utters to the inert creature. She prods it with the tip of her shoe. Not harshly, just a gentle poke. "Wake up. Why are you pretending to sleep? Wake up!"