The Arcane Life of a Fox

It was early in the morn­ing. The green grass had its morn­ing shower. It was the per­fect time for me to wake up. A fa­mil­iar smell mo­tiv­ated me to open my eyes — the de­li­cious smell of a raven’s eggs. I was hungry, but I couldn’t act fool­ishly around those birds. You never know what’s in­side their little blackheads.

I found my­self peek­ing into the nest, but I was clever enough not to let my guard down. They may be smart, but I am smarter. She hadn’t dis­covered me yet. In the forest I am in­vin­cible, nobody can beat me. The fallen leaves cam­ou­flage my fur perfectly.

Fi­nally! She made the stu­pid mis­take of leav­ing the nest un­pro­tec­ted. It was my time… one, two, three… go!

I climbed up that tree, and the eggs I found were per­fect for my reg­u­lar break­fast. They have vit­am­ins and pro­tein, and if you know how to cook them, they have a few calories.

“Well, well… what a feast!” I told my­self. Be­ing alone for such a long time al­ways comes at a price (for ex­ample talk­ing to your­self more of­ten than nor­mal an­im­als would). But at that time, when I was fi­nally in that tree with those little eggs, some­thing happened. For a mo­ment I began to de­velop that strange feel­ing only hu­mans have. I think you have heard about it — when you give up on some­thing for some­body else’s be­ne­fit, or out of mercy.

Though my mind and stom­ach were full of those eggs, after a mo­ment I real­ized that what I was do­ing was wrong.

“I am not a thief or a mur­derer,” I told my­self, for I knew that there was more to life. I began to feel some­thing rolling out of my eyes — it was wa­ter. Back then I didn’t know that I was able to pro­duce wa­ter with my eyes, and that by only think­ing about their little mother. 

“Oh, poor mother bird! What shall I do? You will be dev­ast­ated when you find out that a crime was com­mit­ted, right here in your bed! But I have to eat!” 

So I came with a bril­liant idea. In­stead of tak­ing all of them, it would be enough to take only one, but which one? It was a hard de­cision to make be­cause they didn’t have the same size. So I played a game I had learned by watch­ing the chil­dren play­ing in the yard. And that was to be the right decision!

I coun­ted three times in or­der to get the biggest one. I re­arranged them in sev­eral dif­fer­ent or­ders, so that I might get it. It had to fit per­fectly with my count­ing or­der, be­cause I don’t nor­mally cheat. 

But I real­ized that I did­n’t want to be selfish. As a res­ult, I left the nest without tak­ing any egg.

It was al­most time for my lunch and I hadn’t even had break­fast, but I was happy that I had done some­thing good that morning.

I went back to my home. On my way, I met the Rats. They usu­ally give me part of the food they bor­row from hu­mans, like loaves of bread, chocol­ate, saus­ages, milk, my fa­vour­ite tea, pan­cakes, and many other de­li­cious things.

I spent that day with them and told them stor­ies about the curse of the foxes. I would like to tell you that story too. As you may see, I am not liv­ing in an or­din­ary den, along with younger foxes; but when you have lived for thou­sands of years in dif­fer­ent places and bod­ies, you start re­spect­ing yourself. 

I as­sume that you may think that foxes are cruel. Yet we can have feel­ings like any other creatures, plus we have a spe­cial power given by God to us (and I don’t think that you want to ques­tion His Will). We can re­in­carn­ate and live in other foxes’ bod­ies, so our souls are immortal. 

Every one thou­sand years on a full moon we re­mem­ber our pre­vi­ous lives. I did so last year. My long life story began in the year 918 in Asia. That was a great year for Asian people, as the fam­ous Em­peror Taejo foun­ded the state called Goryeo. Back then I was six­teen years old. For most of the people I was just a myth; for some, I was some­thing real. Those who be­lieved in me must have seen me or heard about me from the lucky ones. I am what they nowadays call a Gumiho, a nine-tailed fox who se­duces men and eats their liv­ers and hearts. I don’t deny it, but I don’t blame my­self either. All I can say is that they asked for it.

The story about my death — well, I’ll tell that an­other time. It makes me feel sick; and right now I just want to en­joy my cookies.

“Please have some more, Of­ficer! How do you like them? Do you want an­other cup of tea?”

“Thank you! It’s very kind of you. So let’s just say that you spent your time with the Rats. Did any­one else see you?”

“I am afraid not. If you don’t be­lieve me, you can ask them. I am sure they will tell you the truth. Do you really think that he was killed? Maybe he just ran away from home. Oh, his wife must be dev­ast­ated. We are such good friends.” 

“This is a murder. We have found some evid­ence of the crime, but not the culprit.”

“Do you have any other suspects?”

“This is a prob­lem — we didn’t talk to everyone.”

“Oh, I see…! Well, I just re­membered some­thing. That day I heard the wolves talk­ing about some­thing odd. They also were hid­ing some­thing and when I wanted to spy on them, they chased me away. What if they did it?”

“Thank you for the hint, Miss! It’s my time to go! Thank you for the cook­ies and the de­li­cious tea!”

“Have a good day, Of­ficer Bear! Please trans­mit my sin­cere apo­lo­gies to Mrs. Beaver!”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Guilty! You are sen­tenced to twenty-four years in jail for killing and eat­ing Mr. Beaver!” said the magistrate. 

The court was in pro­found si­lence. Every­one was re­lieved be­cause the crim­inal had been fi­nally caught, every­one ex­cept his fam­ily, the wolves. They didn’t be­lieve any­thing, so they knew their little fel­low was not guilty. Even if the evid­ence the Of­ficer had found in­dic­ated that he was the cul­prit, but now they could not do anything.

“Thank you, Of­ficer, for help­ing our fam­ily! Only two weeks have passed and you’ve already caught the crim­inal!” said Mrs. Beaver.

”The merit is not the only mine. The Fox helped me too! She said that you are friends,” said the Officer.

”I don’t really think so,” said Mrs. Beaver. “Our fam­ily and that Fox have a his­tory to­gether, but we are far from be­ing friends. We have hated each other for such a long time.” 

“Ex­cuse me, but what I have heard was just the op­pos­ite. Are you sure that we are talk­ing about the same fox?” said the Officer.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Mean­while, at Fox’s house, she was busy filling the re­fri­ger­ator with food for winter.

“Madam, where should I put the head?” The Rat asked.

“You may keep it. I don’t like its gaze. This is all I can do for you. Con­sider it as a gift for your well-done work.”

“Thank you, Madam!” said the Rat. “Miss… the Of­ficer is here!”

“Hello, Of­ficer! How was your day?” The fox asked.

“It was great, but I came to tell you that the wolf we caught was pun­ished. I was won­der­ing… how did you man­age to find the evid­ence? And I also talked with Mrs. Beaver… she said that she doesn’t re­mem­ber hav­ing a friend like you.”

“Of­ficer… are you sus­pi­cious of me for some reason?”

“I am just do­ing my job.”

“Very well… Why don’t you stay for a while and have a cup of tea with me?”

“I really ap­pre­ci­ate your hos­pit­al­ity.” The Bear stepped into the house and took a seat at the table. “Your tea is really de­li­cious, it’s like it makes you re­lax and for­get… What is it called?”

“My tea is exotic and has a secret for­mula. Please have some more! So, Mr. Of­ficer… what brings you to my humble abode?”

“I sin­cerely don’t re­mem­ber,” said the Bear confused. 

“Don’t worry, we have enough time to re­mem­ber things. Do you want an­other cup of tea?”

“Yes, please!”

(writ­ten Oc­to­ber 15 2019)

Iuli­ana Todorean