At times I am an insomniac, I lay my head down on my pillow and it is as if there is a little electric spark that shoots into me and the wheels in my mind begin to rapidly turn. Last night was one of those nights.
As I lay in bed my sweet redhead asleep beside me I heard an awful screaming noise. So at 2 something in the morning I got up and went to the window. I was afraid it was a muntjac that was caught in the fence across the road. The screeching sounded like one of their calls.
As I peered out into the night, I saw nothing and all was still. But, I caught a glimpse of something in the parking lot across the street, something that just glistened as a a tree sprinkled the light around from the street lamp above. It was my fox, my Reynard.
I wrote my Master’s thesis on the medieval depictions of Reynard imagery as a teaching/morality tool in both the secular and nonsecular worlds. I have always had a soft spot for the fellow. There he was, wandering around, I watched him, he didn’t seem to be in any distress, so I still didn’t know where the noise had come from. I have been lucky enough to see him a few times over the years. I am always struck by the fact that in front of me is something truly wild, strolling down the main street that by day is crowded with people and cars.
He walked to the fence, but the shiny dark green painted bars were too close together for him to slip through, so he jogged gracefully over to the parking lot entrance, I wanted so badly to run downstairs and get my camera, but I couldn’t, I didn’t want to miss him, I was grounded to this spot.
He disappeared for a moment behind some hedges and then suddenly there he was just standing at the entrance, looking majestic, his long tail billowing out from behind him, the wind brushing his fur around. He looked up; he looked at me, as if he knew all along I had secretly been watching him from my bedroom window. We just watched each other for I am sure what were mere seconds, but felt like long minutes. He was beautiful.
Then, he turned right and headed down deeper into the neighborhood and vanished into the darkness. I have no pictures to show for it, but that makes it even sweeter, it was our secret, our moment, when the rest of the world was sleeping.
