The fox went through the rubbish in a way that seems very twenty first century. It’s recycling day tomorrow and the only thing left out in the open worth looking at are the black plastic boxes full of cardboard that line every house in the area. Sometimes when I run late at night (or maybe that should be ‘later’ at night because I always run late), I like to slow down a little and see what people have bought.
I’m always surprised by how much pizza people buy. Pizza and food that comes in boxes. I guess when you’re a fox and times are hard, licking the inside of a pizza box might be as good as it gets in the middle of the night since the councils stopped letting us leave thousands of unattended black sacks in the street. Those days of easy pickings for the fox are long gone.
I was sitting at my desk with the window open when he came. It wasn’t as dark as it could have been. The sky clear was clear and though it’s not cold yet, it’s getting that way but I’m still in my shorts for the dog walks. The life of the fox is likely hard but it also looks authentic. Wandering street after street all night long sounds like the sort of thing I would get a kick out of - not really doing anything particular but being outside when you shouldn’t be could be as rebellious as a man should get. It’s normal in a city, but in the country, not so much.
It’s long after midnight but I still have all my clothes on. This is not unusual. I will stay dressed until I actually get into bed because you never know when you might need to do something important. My kids get into their pyjamas as soon as they get home from work to signal the end of the day, but for me, the day only ends when I’m in bed. So I put my boots on and silently as possible, pull the front door shut behind me. The fox is long gone. I figure I’ll wander in the general direction of my running route and see what gives.
There seem to still be a few people up - or at least lights are on. Maybe they’re afraid of the dark? I chew on this. There must be some grown adults in the world who are afraid of the dark - it’s not inconceivable. Maybe some people just got home from work or maybe they are on airport pick-up duty. The things we don’t know about people simply because it’s not the daytime are legion.
I pass by the church and ask myself if I’m brave enough to take the short route through the small graveyard in the grounds and find that I am, but it’s still eerie. All of the graves are unkempt and unreadable, not just because it’s dark, more because they’re covered in moss and lichen. If I still smoked, right now is when I’d light a cigarette and think about these people being no more. Dead. Once upon a time, these people meant something to somebody somewhere - everybody means something to somebody somewhere, even if it’s not a nice thing, but these people under my feet are forgotten by time. Nobody comes to clean the headstones up, there’s nobody leaving flowers, nobody crying. I’ve never seen anybody here when the sun is out let alone when it’s in hiding - I should be banned from using the words ‘somebody’ and ‘nobody’ from here on but it gets the point across. I imagine that somewhere in here is the fox who has followed me down and together we acknowledge things that once were but are no longer by nodding at each other, knowing that one day, this will be our fate too.
This is how we will all end our days. Eventually forgotten - and all the things you think are important or spend time worrying about, will be less than stardust, so yeah… today is always a good time to make that phone call you never made.
Do you know your great grandparents names? I don’t. I should, but I don’t. The fox doesn’t think like this. A fox is a fox is a fox and one would assume they all think about the same three or four things that all other foxes think about, running on nothing but the instinct of the moment rather than constantly working on keeping up with the starring role in a play they’ve written for themselves - which let’s face it, is how humans live. Some of us are covered in moss and lichen long before there is a headstone with your name on it.
If I’m brave enough to walk through the graveyard, it stands to reason I must also be hardy enough to go through the park and woods - which are less than one minute away - but it’s a different kind of darkness. In a graveyard - your brain will tell you the big thing to be concerned about is dead people, but there’s no harm to be had there. No open tombs or hands clawing their way out of the dirt and yet, your brain does its thing and makes it weird. The woodland park on the other hand, is a wide open space and even the friendly trees can take on a new life. A rustle here, the crack of a twig there, a shadow in the wrong place… it all suggests a stranger wandering in the woods when he shouldn’t be because what kind of fool goes into the wood at night?
The irony isn’t lost on me but I amuse/distract myself by wondering how long it would take to make a simple costume that would become legendary the next day which I could slip on in a few seconds and patiently, wait out the night for such a fool to come wandering.
Admittedly, it could be a long night but I think the payoff would be more than worth it - though I can see it not being enough of a thrill, until you could find me wandering around increasingly urban areas looking for bigger kicks, each day going out earlier than the night before in the hope there were at least be some people around to witness the effort I’d put in.
Then, moss and lichen be damned, I would be remembered for all time.
After that, I guess it’s not much of a stretch before I find myself licking the insides of pizza boxes for sustenance.