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Squish had no use for Thanksgiving. A dead bird stuffed with bread and bits of its own innards. Marshmallow goo piled high on pulverized orange slop. Bitter berries jellied and ribbed from tin can molds. A festival of gluttony perfected in bellyaches, acid reflux, lethargy and sloth. His parents, long dead, had never instilled in him the need to live the Hallmark dream, the Charles Schultz cartoon opera told in three parts. Thanksgiving, like all others holidays, only reminded Squish of solitude. Thanksgiving, however, stood apart from the other holidays as the precursor to Squish's most hated of days. The day after Thanksgiving. "The busiest goddamn shopping day of the year," Squish muttered to himself. Puffs of breath mixed with Marlboro smoke hung like handfuls of carcinogenic cotton candy in the November morning air.

Squish discarded another half-smoked cigarette, his fifth of the young morning, and spilled a half bag of M&Ms with peanuts in his mouth. He sucked the color out and spat the remnants into a pile of cigarette butts, ground out beneath his enormous clown shoes. The assembly mixed with the slush of an early season snow formed a toxic slurry of nicotine, calcium chloride, Red #40, Yellow #6, Blue #1 and bits of paper and unsmoked tobacco, cellulose and faux wood filters. A chalky ring rimmed the shoes, signs of the chemical residue left behind as the water soaked through the leather uppers. Even dead, tanned animal skin had its limits. Without care, the salts would eat through the leather, a slow chemical cancer, undifferentiated from Nutrasweet, Naproxen, MSG, DDT, Flintstone vitamins or Viagra.

Squish stared at his reflection in the rainbow slick that formed on the puddle growing around his feet, and wondered, "Why go through all the bother of making the 'safety' end resemble cork or any other wood. Am I truly safer for it?" Light, low tar cigarettes don't generally go through the bother. Pristine, pure white filter tips adorn the "healthier" choice. In the end, once the filter had done its job, light or full flavor, the trapped poisons still resembled poorly washed cotton boxers, skid marks, racing stripes, seven layered BVD wreckers, butt mud. Cigarette butts...and so it comes full circle. Squish quietly acknowledged his own cleverness and absentmindedly lit another jack, inhaled deeply and redeposited the beaten zippo in his left hip pocket. The lighter clinked and clanked against a folding knife and a set of brass knuckles.

It was a few hours to sunrise before Timothy stirred awake. It was the same dream; A wonderful land he’d heard so much about since he was a young rabbit. Green grass as far as you could see and always the subtle scent of fresh carrots just a few hops away. But though he usually awoke from his dream with wonders and longing, it was with anxiety and worry on this cool dark morning.

He knew what lay before and what he must leave behind in just a few short hours. For at dawn Timothy was to leave his little brothers and sisters for a land far away. He knew the direction. He knew the rules, and his little sack was filled neatly with all the food the two week trip would require.

Timothy stared at the sack before him for a moment and then crawled out of the family hole to peak out at the world.

It smelled early. Timothy crawled back down the hole crawling between his siblings to grab his sack. He turned to leave and heard,

“You can’t leave till dawn Brother.”

It was little Theo looking up and blinking rapidly with confusion. “You won’t be able to see the way if the sun isn’t up.”

“Theo go to sleep. I know the way – I’ve been looking East since I was your age. Anyways, I’m not leaving yet. I’ll wait until you’re all awake.”

Theo blinked back in silence for a bit and then closed his eyes. Timothy smiled back at his now sleeping brother and crawled back out of the hole. Timothy took a long look East. It was true what he told Theo – he’d been staring beyond the hooked tree before him for two years now. The stories were wonderful of this land to the East, they we’re of legend…

And so Timothy took two steps East with his little sack in hand before turning around. And Timothy stepped once, twice, and a third time West. And Timothy didn’t stop crawling West until that hooked tree was out of sight.