I.
Everything in Alex’s two door
sedan spoke of foresight and order: from the neatly packed suitcase on the
passenger seat –stacked with a day planner, iPhone, and three Cliff bars; all
at crisp 90 degree angles– to the itemized and doubled checked packing list
that lay beside it. What was messy, in this moment, was Alex’s driving.
Careening at 30 over the limit, he cut a wild line across McAdam’s narrow
backroads beneath a star filled-sky until, at exactly 12:51am –a time not
marked on his itinerary– a bone rattling impact jerked him violently from
thoughts of the future back to the present.
II.
“Shit, shit, shit.” Alex
abandoned his car, half on the road, half on the woodland shoulder, and
followed the still smoking tire tracks backward until he came to the hunched
figure at their end.
“No,”
Alex whispered, hand to his mouth. “No. No.”
There
in the middle of the road, illuminated by moonlight, was the orange and amber
form of a large red fox. Its head lay flat, muzzle forward. One eye bulged
nauseatingly half out of its socket and the soft pink tip of a tongue peeked
out around a single sharp incisor. Alex swallowed as he bent low, reaching out
a hand, but not daring to touch the thing. A deep tire rut carved a terribly
neat indentation in the natural arch of its back.
The
sight of death, so fresh and entirely his fault, was too much. “Oh god,” Alex
whispered, shaking slightly. “I am so, so sorry.”
The
fox’s good eye rolled up to meet Alex’s own, and his shoulder shrugged. “Egh,”
said the fox, “don’t worry about it.”
III.
Roosting grouse burst from
their perches as the scream ricocheted off the trees. Alex scrambled backwards,
muddying his slacks and scraping his palms.
“Hey,
jeez,” said the Fox weakly, “would you keep it down?”
Alex
screamed again. “This isn’t happening,” he said. “This is just a dream.”
“Wouldn’t
that be nice for both of us?” said the fox.
“So
anyway, if you don’t mind too much, would you give me a hand here or what?”
“What?”
stammered Alex, shocked to find himself replying. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,
a couple Advil and maybe some stretching and I’ll be fine,” said the fox. Blood
trickled darkly from his nose and a sudden fit of coughing sent little droplets
flying in all directions.
“No,
I’m joshing you,” said the fox. “I’m in pretty rough shape here.”
Alex
blinked.
“But I
was hoping that… well if it’s not too much trouble, and since you were the one
who ran me over and all, if you wouldn’t mind carrying me just off to the
shoulder there.” He winced as he inclined his head to the line where road met
forest. “Sure would be nice to die a little closer to home.”
IV.
“No!” said Alex. He was
standing, backing away, gesturing. “Nope, sorry. I can’t.”
“Oh,”
said the fox, disappointed.
“Right.
I just thought since you’re so big it’d be easy, is all. Then you could, you
know, continue on your mad dash to wherever you’re running to.”
“New
York,” said Alex.
“Right.
New York. I heard it’s nice there. Had a cousin five times removed on my
mother’s side down that way–”
“And I
wasn’t running,” interrupted Alex.
“Sure.
Of course not,” said the fox, looking away. “It’s just that…”
“What?”
Alex said. His cheeks were burning and his palms stung in balled fists.
“It’s
just been my experience that nothing moves like that,” he rolled his good eye
toward the car half in the rushes, “unless they’re running from something.”
V.
It took every synapse of
Alex’s well-disciplined mind not to wretch as he lifted the warm mound of the
fox and carried him from the road to the edge of the woods. Each leaf was wet
with recent rain and the smell of the forest mixed pungently with the musk of
damp fir and blood.
“Here
you go,” Alex said through clenched teeth, leaning to put the fox down by a
fern.
“Not
there,” said the fox, then flinched as Alex jerked up in frustration.
“Here?”
said Alex at the base of a pine where the view of the starry night sky could be
seen through the gap made by the road.
“Oh
yeah,” said the fox. “Now this will do just fine.”
Alex
laid the creature down as gently as he could and the fox did his best not to
cry out with the shifting.
“Okay,
then,” said Alex, his blood slicked arms held out awkwardly from his pressed
button-down. “Good luck.” He stumbled as he stepped backward and made to turn.
“Hey
kid,” called the fox.
Alex
stiffened.
“How
about you sit, just for a minute. Would be nice to have some company, you know?
I’m a good story teller, for a fox anyway.”
VI.
“So it startled like this: I
was just a cub in my first full season, and my pack alpha had just chased me
off, because of the breeding competition –that translates, right? – and,
anyway, I met this Blandings turtle…”
The
fox continued on and, slowly, in spite of himself, Alex unballed his fists. The
moon moved first into view, then out again over their small swath of the world
and by the time the story neared its end the two had laughed together, bickered
twice, and asked at least three questions each that might have, on any other
night, never have even dawned on them.
“So
here he was, right, on his back, the fishing line cutting, just to the bone,
right. And we’d tried everything, but we both knew that there was no coming
back from this one.” The fox sighed. “He accepted it and eventually, so did I.
And so I did what I had to. I ate him.”
The
story finished with the fox looking at the stars and Alex looking at the fox
and all at once Alex crumpled in on himself, weeping into his knees.
“Sorry,”
said the fox. “I could smell it on you, you know? The moment you got out of the
car. I could see it in the way you looked at me.”
“I
don’t want to die,” said Alex. He thought of his suitcase, upended in his car
and the diagnosis it held inside.
“Most
don’t,” said the fox. “But you can’t run from death. You tried, and look where
that landed us.”
A long
silence passed between them as the woods thrummed with the sounds of life at
night.
“So
how long do you have?” asked the fox.
“Not
long enough,” said Alex.
The
fox snorted a small mist of blood. “You’re what, twenty-something? Foxes live
for like three, four years max. Forgive my lack of sympathy.”
Alex
laughed through a sob. “It’s not enough.”
“It
never is. Unless…”
“What?”
“You
make it enough. We’re solitary, foxes. A lot of the time anyway. But we know
when it’s time to come together, too. Don’t hide. Be with those who will miss
you.
“I
don’t want them to see me like–”
“Like
this?” said the fox. “You got it backwards. Let them hurt, right there with
you. Keep making new stories. More to miss is never a bad thing.”
VII.
“Won’t be long now,” said the
fox.
Alex
could feel his friend's breath growing shallow below the soft bristles of his
coat. “Does it hurt? Dying?”
“No.
Not at all,” said the fox, then he wheezed out a laugh. “Yes, of course it
does. It hurts like hell. But so does living. It’s growing pains, though. No
one wants to shrink.”
He
looked up at the dawn sky and laid his wet muzzle on his paw. “So live, kid,
for as long as you get. Then go, whenever it’s time to go.”
VIII.
Alex climbed into his car and
rolled the windows down. He sat for a long moment behind the wheel, there where
the wilderness met the asphalt. Then he turned the key, turned the wheel, and
drove.
Josh Campbell is a
teacher, husband, and father of two busy boys. He lives in the Annapolis
Valley, Nova Scotia, where he enthusiastically teaches English –particularly,
the power of story– to his captive audience of grade 7 students.
