Ben Gibbons
Cate worked from home now, so she spent a lot of time sitting blankly at the desk in the bedroom she shared with Dan, her husband of two years. Cate, a Data Report Coordinator for PanOpticon—a startup whose algorithm helped vulnerable tech companies protect their time against plundering remote employees—could wake up at 8:15, roll out of bed, brew third wave coffee in the kitchen downstairs, eat a protein bar, and study Instagram, all before logging on to her various channels—Outlook, Slack, Teams, ListServ—at 8:30. She didn’t have to change out of her pajamas until her lunchtime workout and shower. The snug feeling of flannel hugging Cate’s legs reminded her of her cat, Lentils, who had died months ago from prolonged exposure to and hatred of Dan. Lentils used to wrap his paws around Cate’s calves when he was hungry. Instagram told Cate that unproductive emotions like grief could be hacked from the brain in three easy steps. Cate followed the steps, but still missed Lentils badly. Something must be wrong with her, she thought.
Dan, a Project Incubation Facilitator at SmartTreat—a startup whose algorithm helped vulnerable insurance companies filter out conniving high-risk applicants—spent his days at a shared workspace in North Beach. He biked over in the morning before Cate woke up, forgoing a helmet to protect his swooping haircut, fielded client calls, networked on the workspace’s adult playground, and returned in the evening to drink craft beer and play video games with his coworkers online while Cate made dinner. Instagram told Cate that true happiness could be achieved only through the elimination of gluten, added sucrose, red meats, and hams. Cate’s roasted vegetable and rice bowls cooled on the kitchen counter while Dan searched valiantly for appropriate cutoff points. Cate and Dan watched Netflix while they ate on the couch.
Cate and Dan had lived in their two-story house—located on a shaded hill in San Francisco’s trendy Hayes Valley neighborhood—for eight months before the first infiltration occurred in the wall behind Cate’s desk.
While interacting with an Instagram post that warned, “You’re the only thing stopping yourself from leveling up,” Cate heard an insistent scratch behind her computer. She looked up from her phone, shook her head in bewilderment, then returned to her productive worrying. Her gaze bounced between the small screen in her hand and the large screen on her desk, then through the window screen to her right. The tree outside looked flat and pixelated. A squirrel leaping onto a branch cracked the illusion and stirred the picture to life. The squirrel peered through the window with beady eyes and twitching whiskers, rotating an acorn in its paws. It was an especially frantic squirrel. Cate laughed. The squirrel spasmed up the tree trunk, out of the window’s frame, and Cate soon heard the scuffling sound again. According to Instagram, a serene workspace made for a serene hustle, while a distracted workspace made for a distracted hustle. Cate stopped laughing.
When Dan returned home that evening, Cate told him about the agitated squirrel and the sounds behind the computer. She worried that her hustle was being distracted.
“Bet the storm last week blew something loose on the roof, and the squirrel jumped over and got into the wall through the attic,” Dan posited through a frothy mouthful of pale ale, his eyes flitting across the TV screen as he made guffawing cartoon characters punch each other. “Probably just a one-off thing, babe.”
The squirrel could not be heard in the bedroom that night. Before the couple went to sleep, Instagram told Cate that she should keep her circle small. She wondered if two points even constituted a circle.
Cate had a video meeting the next morning. The meeting was an array of disembodied heads that hovered inside boxes and blinked at each other. Pupils bounced like yo-yos between computer screens and offscreen screens.
“You’re muted,” someone said to someone else.
During the meeting, Instagram informed Cate that a boss bitch was someone who ruthlessly cut toxic people from her life. Cate’s boss was a toxic person who liked to use the word “bitch,” but only about women, not at them, which was considerate, Cate told herself as she justified not being able to cut her boss from her life. As someone said, “Can you see my screen on your screen?”, Cate was startled by a series of sharp scratches, which came now from the wall behind the computer and from the ceiling. The wall and the ceiling tittered at each other. Cate turned to the window and saw several squirrels arguing on the tree branch. They flitted up and out of view. A minute later, as a glitching person on the meeting said, “M-mMm-Mm…b-bBB-b…ach..eEeEeAaRlrylryl,” the scrabbling and chittering sounds multiplied.
The meeting ended with a bleedleboop, and Cate typed, “How to get rid of squirrels,” into an internet search engine on her computer. The internet told her to contact someone who knew how to get rid of squirrels. Unsatisfied, Cate typed, “How to get rid of squirrels,” into an internet search engine on her phone. This internet told her to shoot the squirrels with a pellet gun, and asked her if she would like to have a smiling Shopping Professional deliver a pellet gun to her house in under forty-five minutes. Cate cringed and shook her head at the phone. She donned a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and returned to work. She looked at the ceiling and imagined that she could see little pawprints forming. She wished Lentils were there with her, then winced when she remembered her grief-hacking assignments.
When Dan returned home that night, Cate told him about the additional squirrels. From his perch in front of the TV, Dan yelled, “Shit, my fucking rocket launcher is out of rocket launcher sauce.” He took a sip of his boysenberry kettled sour beer and sighed, “I’ll schedule someone to come out tomorrow. You’ll be here, right, babe?” Cate didn’t know where else she’d be.
Dan used an app to set the appointment, adding Cate’s phone number as the designated contact. The squirrel man would arrive promptly between 9 am and 4:30 pm. While Cate made a healthy dinner, Dan searched for more rocket launcher sauce. Before she and Dan went to bed, Instagram told Cate that her life was a project, and that she owed maximum effort to this project at all times. She made a maximum effort to fall asleep.
When the squirrel man came the next afternoon at 3:30pm, the squirrels were hours into their stampede, and Cate was frustrated. She hadn’t clicked her mouse as often as she would have liked, despite the efforts of the noise-cancelling headphones. She could sense the squirrels’ mischievous presence, their desire to distract from her hustle. The squirrel man’s nervous hand movements, pubescent mustache, and buttonlike eyes made him look like a squirrel himself, which frustrated Cate even more. She showed him up to the bedroom, where the wall and ceiling teemed with activity.
“Can I see the attic where you think they’re coming in?” the squirrel man asked, rubbing his hands together.
“It’s sealed off,” Cate replied.
“Nothing about the sealed-off attic in the support ticket. You’re gonna need to put that in there.”
“My husband didn’t mention that you can’t access the attic?”
“Nothing about the sealed-off attic. You’re gonna need to put that in there.”
“But I’m not the one who submitted the ticket, and you’re already here. Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“Wouldn’t be here if the support ticket had mentioned the sealed-off attic.”
Cate remembered seeing an Instagram post that noted, “The lion doesn’t ask permission from sheep. The lion tells permission to sheep. Assertiveness is success key.”
“Well, you need to do something about these squirrels, please.”
“Can’t do anything if the attic is sealed off.”
“Can you spray the tree?”
“With what?”
“I don’t know; squirrel spray, maybe?”
“Squirrel spray needs to be in the support ticket.”
Cate wished Lentils were there to bite the squirrel man’s toes. She grimaced at her non-serene thought.
After the squirrel man left without doing anything, Cate received a text from the booking app.
“Please rate your experience,” it instructed.
Cate gave the lowest rating on every parameter.
“We’re glad you enjoyed your experience!” beamed a confirmation text.
Cate was already in bed when Dan returned from his networking event at the craft ale saloon. He flopped down next to her, reeking of pastry stouts. Cate told him that the squirrel man hadn’t done anything. Dan belched and suggested that Cate leave her noise-cancelling headphones on during work, babe. His deep exhalations wafted curdled s’mores into Cate’s face. Instagram told Cate, awake in the dark, “There are two types of people: wishers and doers.”
The next morning, when Cate looked out the window and saw an entire scurry of squirrels streaming up the tree trunk, she decided to become a doer.
“That’s enough,” she told the pattering ceiling.
“No more,” she told the squeaking wall behind the computer. She retrieved a broom from the hallway closet and whacked it against the infested surfaces. The impacts sent the squirrels into a frenzy. Cate found that she could pinpoint an overhead squirrel’s location when she stood on her rolling chair and cupped her ear against the ceiling. Using the broom as a paddle, she rowed herself around the room until she found an epicenter, then smacked her palm upward with a whoop. Her attacks were met with much scampering and chirping. It was like playing Battleship and Whack-A-Mole at the same time. Cate played her game whenever she wasn’t clicking her mouse for work.
When Dan got home that evening, Cate, her cheeks flushed, regaled him with war stories. “Well, don’t hurt yourself, babe,” he mumbled through a mouthful of the fava bean curry that Cate had prepared. “Why can’t we eat hams anymore, again?”
Dan loved hams and hated beans. Cate explained to Dan that happiness could be achieved through the elimination of gluten, added sucrose, red meats, and hams.
“I’d be happier with hams,” Dan gurgled as he washed his curry down with a swig of dry-hopped pilsner beer.
The couple continued to watch Netflix on the couch after dinner. It was a show about nice wealthy people who treated each other badly and didn’t learn any lessons. Cate ignored the show and plotted against the squirrels. Instagram told her, “If you improve by two percent each day, soon you will have doubled your quality.” Cate would do Instagram one better and improve by three percent each day.
The squirrels, offended by Cate’s pluck, made their presence especially obvious the next morning. They flowed like leaking rain through the wall behind the computer and strove to burrow into Cate’s workspace from above. They mocked Cate through the window. Cate rowed around the bedroom and smacked the ceiling, but a swiveling near-fall sent her searching for safer strategies. She typed “Squirrel predators” into an internet search engine on her phone, while a message—“To staff: include bathroom breaks on timecard. Informative meeting to follow.”—dinged on her computer. During the informative meeting, Cate taught herself about owls that ate squirrels, then scoured YouTube for hooting sounds. She muted the computer’s microphone and played each call—the tawny owls’s fluttering whistle, the long-eared owl’s caricatured yeeee, the northern white-faced owl’s aqueous burble—until she landed on the barn owl’s rasping, ghoulish scream. The sound drove the squirrels mad with fright. Panicked pawsteps hammered the ceiling. A floating black square said, “My camera isn’t working.”
Cate turned her own camera off, raised her hand with pinky and pointer fingers extended like horns, and scooted her chair around the room. She was a Valkyrie rolling into battle, buoyed by the squalls of her hell bird. The meeting ended with a bleedleboop.
When Dan came home toting a satchel full of SmartTreat branded shot glasses, some already sticky with residue, Cate was still in the bedroom, whacking the broom against surfaces while the barn owl cheered from its perch on YouTube.
“What are you doing, babe?” Dan slurred, aghast.
“I’m getting rid of the squirrels,” snapped Cate.
“Jesus. What’s for dinner?”
“I haven’t thought of anything. Let’s just order.”
“What do we order? Where do we order? How do we order?”
The couple ordered American food from DoorDash. Cate got a salad, while Dan got a cheeseburger with extra bun and extra pulled pork. Cate reclined on the couch, winded, while Netflix presented scenes of CGI dragons fighting CGI polar bears. Instagram warned, “Comfort is a side effect of no initiative.” Cate pinched herself on the arm. Dan snored gluten, red meats, and hams into Cate’s face.
Even more squirrels showed up to fight Cate the next day. The reinforcements goose-stepped up the tree, glaring through the window as Cate fetched the broom and opened YouTube on her phone. Again the barn owl shrilled, again Cate smacked the wall and ceiling, again the squirrels frothed and skittered. Cate’s coworkers dinged at her from the computer while she ran around the bedroom, locating and assaulting patches of scraping noise. The squirrels raced in blind panic, but would not leave. Cate worried that her hustle would never be serene.
“I wish you were dead,” she hissed at the wall and ceiling. The selfish squirrels did not die. The internet on Cate’s phone reminded her that a smiling Shopping Professional could deliver a pellet gun to her house in under forty-five minutes, with pellets and CO2 included as a free gift. Cate smirked as she entered her credit card information.
Forty-six minutes later, the smiling Shopping Professional frowned as he handed Cate her package.
“This for your husband?” he grunted.
“It’s for the squirrels,” Cate replied, curt.
“You’re making squirrels shoot this pellet gun?”
“I’m using the pellet gun.”
“Well, this here is a Gamo PR-776 CO2 Pellet Revolver.”
“It says that on the package.”
“Little lady like yourself needs to be careful around this.”
Cate closed the door in the smiling Shopping Professional’s face. She used her phone to tip him a negative value, which her phone did not accept.
Back in the bedroom, with the YouTube on her phone busy playing barn owl sounds, Cate used the YouTube on her computer to find a tutorial for the Gamo PR-776 CO2 Pellet Revolver. She tore open the package and handled her purchase. The gun’s metallic heft and severe anthracite coating intimidated Cate, until she realized that, in profile, the gun looked like a dumbfounded man with a horn jutting out of his forehead. The safety acted as the man’s staring eye, and the grip’s smooth knobs formed the man’s snub nose and fishy, parted lips. The gun’s slackjawed expression resembled that of Dan. Cate laughed, and the wall and ceiling seethed. As the barn owl screamed in the background, Cate used the internet to learn about rotary clips, CO2 cartridge insertion, adjustable rear sights, single and double actions. She watched bulging men in camouflage shoot targets and rant about the government. Cate’s boss sent her a link to a self-evaluation survey. “What was your biggest accomplishment of the quarter?” the survey asked. Cate had clicked her mouse many times that quarter, so she typed, “Clicking the mouse many times.” Dan the Pellet Gun gaped.
A posse of squirrels had assembled on the tree branch outside the bedroom window. They hopped up and down at Cate, stuffing acorns in their cheeks. Cate opened the window and the screen. The squirrels chattered smugly as Cate retrieved Dan the Loaded Pellet Gun from her desk and stood at the opposite end of the bedroom, near the door. Emulating the bulging men from the internet, Cate planted her feet and used the front sight to aim. She pretended she was Annie Oakley. She cocked the hammer and squeezed the trigger. A puff of grey fur exploded from the tail of the lead squirrel and drifted away in the breeze. The squirrel stared in shock at Cate, clutching its wounded appendage. Its lackeys stopped hopping. The lead squirrel let out a mighty chatter, which rippled through the rest of the group, up past the window frame and into the wall and ceiling. Squirrels streamed past the window and down the trunk. The lead squirrel was the last to leave. It blinked at Cate and shook its paw, then made its ginger descent down the tree. For the first time in days, the bedroom was quiet. Cate’s hustle was finally undistracted. She sat down at her desk.
PanOpticon’s human resources department sent a Teams message encouraging all employees to practice mindfulness immediately because it increased productivity and decreased mental slowing. Cate mindfully clicked her mouse and pressed buttons on her keyboard. Cate’s email told her that her boss wanted to circle back on that self-evaluation. Dan would be getting home from North Beach in an hour, and Cate needed to come up with a nourishing dinner option that would promote wellness. Cate wished Lentils were there to meow at her and wrap his paws around her leg. One of the tabs open on Cate’s computer let out a cheerful bleedleboop. Cate’s gaze bounced between the small screen in her hand and the large screen on her desk, then through the window screen to her right. The trees outside looked flat and pixelated.Instagram told Cate to spend less time looking at screens, and that she should follow this page for similar content.
Cate set her phone face down on the desk and stood up.
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Ben Gibbons is a Pittsburgh-based writer; his blog, Bored In Pittsburgh, covers the local music community, and his fiction has been published in Tupelo Quarterly, Bending Genres, Cotton Xenomorph, and the Dark Mountain Project.