The Fox

In strides that cast long shadows over trees and felt like dusk for a blink’s duration, Gog and Magog trod almost whispered, lakes and valleys easy footholds. Under a stride at that very instant stood a fox tearing flesh, fresh flesh from a rabbit passing, natural.

The day, though old when the shadow flashed, was light enough that the bee could find his way to rest at the end of a day in the pollen fields, hard work. Twilight rumoured through the woods, the fox was at his picnic, quiet, his breakfast of that rabbit that was passing, and he’d been skulking, clever.

The green was new, and fragile, bright for its newness, strong for its brightness. Caterpillars were making it older, busy and slow, living, and the holes they left, the craters in the leaves seen from the moon, were life. A thousand drops that afternoon from a shower dripped through the leaves and wedded their way through earth to the roots of trees. A spider swung easy from a twig, up there in the canopy, unbothered by budding leaves; the length of a grasshopper, the twig was a leisurely brown.

The fox was steady in eating, here chewing at the tougher meat, there gnawing at a bone, feeding as a beast is wont to feed. From setting out from den to spotting through the trees the rabbit passing, this steady eating, chewing, tearing was the reason for his walk that evening. As was intended, the fox was eating steady, and barely a splatter of blood hit mossy ground.

Sorrel moved little more than the silver birches, and the sky, that instant darkened but no more than in the fraction where the rain cloud first envelopes the sun before the light in eyes ignites, was no less vaulted than the cathedral roof when all eyes alight upon the altar. Unseen by the fox, keen-eyed though he is, a finger of Gog descended, picked up a leg-bone of the rabbit.

That moment of darkness, fleeting, unthought-of as it was, brought a shiver to the fox, a momentary shiver, and, though a bead of wetness in the fox’s eye was also fleeting, unthought-of, it was a vein of quartz in a crag next winter.

The rabbit’s bone, carried by strides down an every-coloured road to where the Court of King Jelly Roll will be met, is free of pain and will make it to the feast.

Dinner with Roger and Christine

John and Sally, Roger and Christine took their places at the table. It was a surprisingly well-orchestrated affair; Christine had all the cooking done and dusted, and sat at the south-western end of the room, next to the kitchen door, ready to fetch in the various courses as and when necessary. The tone and general ambience were sombre, as befitted the occasion. Talk was vapid and perfunctory, drinking slow but steady. All were reasonably at ease.

Four or so hours into the evening, Roger noticed that John was without his customary chrome-plated glasses. He made a polite enquiry on the matter. John’s face fell visibly from its already neutral countenance. He related the following short tale, as Sally rested her chin on her fist, her eyes on a place mat;

“It was last Monday, just out in the garden reading a book – Madame Bovary, you know – minding my own business, when this… thing descended from I don’t know where. It was a bird, a big bloody crow. Went off with my glasses, of all things,” John let out an exasperated wheeze, “They were… well you know how… they were custom made and… Christ! I watched the godforsaken thing fly off, most satisfied, I shouldn’t wonder. And I’ll tell you what, it’s the same blasted bird I’ve given crumbs and what have you every day – every day – for I don’t know how long. And have I seen the bloody fiend since? I most certainly have not! It was biding its time no doubt…”

“Well,” interjected a nonchalant Roger, “You might say it’s become a scarce crow.”

Sally spat.