on foxes
i think about foxes a lot. i’d cycle back from work in the small hours of the morning, when the clubbers were all sleeping off their bad decisions, often damp from rain and navigating the dim streets with my phone torch. most nights, the only sign of life i’d see was the fox.
they’re grubby, scrappy little things. i’d catch them slinking between cars or rooting through bins alone or in pairs. they’d freeze as i entered the fringes of their hearing, staring at me cycling towards them until it became clear i wouldn’t stop, before darting into a patch of shadow faster than i could blink. i always felt so strangely connected to the fox in the moments before their escape. two creatures, both just trying to survive in the night, looking each other in the eye in that yellowy street light, kindred spirits.
city foxes are scroungers and fighters. they might run from me, but i’ve seen the slashes they’ve given my cat when he gets home at night, and i’ve heard the screams of their - what i can only imagine must be - torturous sex. they’re tougher than they look. that skinny scraggly figure was born to a life of vagrancy, violence, and scavengery, and they will live in that way until it catches up with them. the fox knows this, on some biological level, which is why she is so skittish in the face of my oncoming presence.
i like to think that every city fox dreams of the countryside. they believe they can be fat on chickens and sleep on beds of soft downy grass rather than cold concrete slabs. maybe they hear stories of foxes torn apart in hunts for sport or shot for taxing the farmer too highly, and look down on those naive creatures. a city fox knows how to survive, to always be on the alert, to be fast and agile, and perhaps she thinks to herself that she would never become complacent like her rural cousins. a city fox knows how to move quietly when a threat looms round every corner, how to live off scraps and discards, how to fight when backed into a corner. perhaps, like me, the fox knows that she is of the city and could never leave it. like me, she knows that the scavenging life can never be left behind. i see the fox and often see myself caught in that moment of flighty survival, and wonder if she dreams of the things i dream of.
of course, it does not. a fox has no dignity. a fox has no sense of self. a fox just seeks to survive in the chaotic world it is in and does not know anything else. i often envy the fox.
one day, though, i saw two foxes rolling and cuddling with each other on the often-used train tracks near my home. they stilled for a minute when realising my presence, but soon ignored me for each other. one coyly approached a spot near me to retrieve a fish it shared with the other before starting to play again. someone must have left the fish there - it was gutted and filleted and in an empty ice cream tub. the foxes seemed happy, relaxed, at peace in a place they seemed to know well and were enjoying each other’s company. how pathetic, i thought, that all it takes to turn this sad skittish creature into one of exuberance is a few bits of fish now and then. how small the stability and few the resources she needs are. how lucky she is to have them met. and once again, i envied the fox, ever my kindred spirit.