The fox trotted in near-silence alongside the shallow creek through the long, narrow, winding wood, dry leaves whispering beneath her paws. With quick, quiet, unconscious stealth she moved towards her den as dawn approached. Now and again, returning from her nightime communal forage of fox-sisters, she paused to quickly root out a juicy, nourishing grub here or a small cache of succulent ant larvae there. Her life was satisfying and as it should be, a combination of the thrill of the hunt and luscious culinary satisfaction, the relative ease and safety of life in the suburbs of New Jersey and the still-wild and eons-old instinctive order of foxen society.
Yes, there could be nothing to compare with this life, this life that began and went along and was. This life of a fox was exactly what it was and she could, indeed would, ask no more. Why would she?
I used to be a fox, happily doing what was to be done, what a fox had to do. Briefly the wind blew to me a rare, rare mate that said YES YOU ARE EXACTLY A FOX AND WHAT MORE COULD ONE WANT BUT A FOX AS A FOX, and he meant this, and he did not wish me to be another way, and indeed would have rejected me as anything other. It is only because of this that I know, I know it is possible to be a fox and remain a fox, without someone loving a fox but ultimately wishing the fox was a capybara or a halibut or a gerbil.
I also know… I also know that I still love to forage, and to be a fox because I am after all a fox, and to commune with my dearest foxens, and that it is as healing and nourishing to me as the dark and dry leaves and grubs and larvae and moonlight.
And one more thing I know… I was just going to write about a little fox making mysterious noises in my backyard tonight. 🙂
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