I.
The afternoon had grown
excessive, as though the sun had decided to overstay its welcome.
It smothered the skyline with its relentless shimmer, steeped every rusted pipe and forgotten balcony in a sepia-toned fatigue. The heat whispered — not loudly, but insistently — weaving through crevices with the slyness of old secrets. It made everything languid. Time, especially.
No one lingered outside. Except me.
And a squirrel.
Not the erratic, tail-flailing archetype darting through telephone lines. This one moved with deliberation — with a kind of unspoken nostalgia. Its fur was not pristine, but wore the gentle scruff of something familiar, like a sweater unearthed from a trunk of lost things. It approached the solitary tree in the courtyard like one returns to a long-unvisited childhood home: cautious, reverent, oddly vulnerable.
The tree was unimpressive by any botanical standard. Crooked. Almost sulking. Perhaps once known for flowering — but now surrendered to its own inertia. And yet, it possessed the peculiar gravity of objects that endure. Not majestic, but monumental in its quiet defiance.
I watched from my windowsill, cheek pressed into a sun-warmed cushion that smelled faintly of cumin and forgotten summers.
The squirrel sat by the bark. Not beside it — with it.
And I knew, inexplicably, that this was not a visit. It was a reunion.
II.
They didn’t speak. Not in syllables. But the exchange was audible if you knew how to listen.
The way the squirrel’s paw grazed the roots — not to disturb, but to remember. The way the tree shed a single, curled leaf, not from wind, but from recognition. It felt like the sacred quiet that descends when two estranged souls sit beside each other without explanation.
"You remained," the squirrel might’ve said.
"You returned," the tree might’ve replied.
I thought of how many times I’d passed this tree with my eyes on a screen and my mind elsewhere, numb to its perseverance. It had been waiting. And the squirrel — perhaps the last believer in this forgotten ritual — had come to pay homage.
Suddenly, I was intruding. Or maybe, simply witnessing.
The squirrel climbed the trunk, paused, and looked back. A blink. Not of fear, but acknowledgment.
I smiled. I don’t know why. But it felt like I’d been allowed in.
III.
The next day, I came down. Not to see, but to be.
Slippers flapping against concrete. A glass of chaas dripping condensation onto my palm. The sky was already beginning to bronze.
They were there. The squirrel nestled into the roots, the tree dappled in light like a patient sentinel. The squirrel had brought something this time: a browned petal curled like a fossilized laugh. It tucked it into a shallow nook at the tree’s base. An offering? A memory? Does it matter?
The tree dropped a small twig, and it brushed the squirrel’s back like a nod.
Something gentle settled in my chest — not joy, not quite — but a soft recognition. As though the world had tilted a little to show me a corner of itself I'd always ignored.
I sat near them, careful not to intrude.
And for the first time in a long while, I felt unlonely.
IV.
Some days the squirrel came. Some days it didn’t. The tree remained, as trees do — stubborn, gracious, ancient in its stillness. And I came, every time, because I had become part of something wordless.
I started talking to the tree. Not with expectation, but with rhythm.
"Do you remember when I climbed you and scraped my knees?"
"Do you still hold that kite string I lost in '18?"
It never answered. Not really. But its silence felt more like listening than neglect.
The squirrel, when it returned, always brought something: a button, a torn paper, once a feather. And each time, the tree responded. With a leaf. A rustle. A sunbeam caught just right.
Eventually, I realized the squirrel and the tree weren’t holding onto each other.
They were preserving something for the rest of us. Something about consistency. About memory. About quiet love.
One afternoon, I pressed my palm to the bark. It was warm. But not from the sun.
"You’ve been waiting for more than just one of us, haven’t you?" I asked.
And though no voice replied, I swear — for a second — I felt held.
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