So there I was, staring into his beady little eyes and him staring right back into mine. We didn't move for what seemed like days. People walked by, but still we held our deathly gaze. I felt so uncovered as he stared through my eyes like they were shallow pools, and I just waited as he seemingly watched my fear being revealed to him underneath the clear liquid. I stayed still, trying to deny that he could see the fear eat me alive.
This wasn't the first time that this has happened, I remembered, as I thought back to this morning. I sat in front of my tent with the flaps open so that the heat from the unyielding sun could not reach me. I sat in peace until I saw something move in the distance. A ruffle of grass, then a few pieces of gravel kicked out from behind a boulder, then a tent flap swinging. "Was it just the wind?" I thought to myself. "No, it couldn't be," I told myself as I tried to peer around the side of the tent trying to see my stalker. Suddenly, there, he apeared as he almost joyfully hopped around the corner. his attitude surprised me at first, but as he sat there in the grass we locked eyes, and he began to gather my inner most feelings of terror, almost feeding off of them. Satisfied with the anxiousness that he had solidified in me, he left in much the same manner in which he had come, with nothing but his head and cartoonistic figure for me to see before his departure was complete.
With this image burning furiously in my mind, my present dilemma was made even more real. With his eyes he beat down my soul until I had nothing left to be subdued. As he jumped down from his crouched position upon the neatly stacked wood against a brown stucko building, he began to crawl towards me poised as if he was about to pounce upon his prey. This, although he was in plain view of me, struck a terrible fear in me to where I could not move or run to safety. Trembling in my seat, I could only watch as he pounced in all of his fury upon the acorn and run off into the bushes with it. He left only an image of his bushy tail and those black beady eyes to haunt my every thought. I live today in the knowledge that the two counterparts are eating their spoils just beyond the corner of that house or in the high grass outside my tent. I, my friends, am doomed to a life of running and hiding from persuers with one horrible thing in their minds. To instill fear in men.


These events are real. None of the names or places have been changed to protect the innocent. If anyone feels the need to bring to my attention any grammatical errors they will be accused of having no since of humor and will be immediately and soundly punished.