Foxy

A Story by olgaoka

The story of a fennec fox in the zoo and a very special human. Inspired by the fox in Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

FOXY

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth

with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been

and there you will long to return.”

Leonardo da Vinci

Soft water droplets soaked her fur as she awoke. She opened her big black eyes a small crack, terrified that the moisture soaking her skin was only a mirage, a remainder of her dreams. The merciless rays of sun would probably pierce her gaze as soon as she opened her eyes a bit wider...But no. Through the crack in the straw above, she saw that the sky was lined with dark storm clouds and the droplets had already created a tiny lake in her feeding bowl. She let out a cheerful yelp as she shook the water off her tail. Rain! Finally, at last, rain!

As she leisurely hopped off the top of the log and trotted to the dry bed inside, she was amused at her own happiness. Through the fog of her memory she remembered Nana warning her about the Water Monster that was rumored to attack the Sahara about once every decade. “When the Water Monster comes, little one, it kills all our food. All the scorpions bury themselves deep into the sand, which becomes like clay, impossible to dig through. The water eats through your fur and, if you don’t find a rock to hide under, it will poison you from the inside…”

Back then, she had listened to Nana with wide eyes, her tiny body trembling with terror. And now, here, on this new planet, the Water Monster’s visits had become a blessing. When they had first brought her here, she never knew of the rain at all, for the silly humans had covered the sky with straw. About twenty suns ago, though, the storms had broken a hole in the straw and exposed the sky. She didn’t mind. She treasured the days when she would wake up with soaked fur. The Water Monster had become her friend. He was the only thing that kept the humans away.

The humans. They came in all varieties, thin, fat, short, long, with light and dark fur on their heads, some with hissing, scorpion voices and others with squeaky ones, like rabbits. The smaller ones were the worst. While the elders would simply babble in hushed tones and point, the youngsters would shriek and flash bright lights in her eyes. A few of them would even throw rocks, leaving dark red spots on her skin that ached for days. The worst part, though, was the noise. Back in the desert days, Nana had taught her to bury herself deep in the sand or sleep under a large rock during the daytime, when the sun was at its peak, and hunt at night, while the prey was asleep. In her thirty six moon cycles spent on the human planet, though, she had come to learn that humans seemed to operate backwards, leaving her alone at night when she was most awake and lonely and loudly bantering and cooing in the daytime, disturbing her naps. The ones who entered her territory were the worst, forcing food into her mouth at her sleepiest hours and throwing strange objects at her as the crowds outside the fence slapped their paws together and growled, showing off their pearly white fangs.

But today, maybe today, she could finally get some sleep. Humans seemed to fear the Water Monster even more than Nana had and tended to vanish on the rainiest days. Even those who did occasionally flutter outside of the fence usually spoke in hushed tones and never lingered for long. As she curled up underneath the log, the only true barrier between her and the terrifying human world, she thought of Nana. She could barely remember her mother, just a vague recollection of a rough tongue washing the top of her head in thick strokes, but Nana…Nana had taught her everything about life. How to hunt, how to hide, how to fight, how to soothe a snake bite, how to use her teeth to pull a scorpion stinger out of her paw, how to tune her large ears to hear the direction of the prey’s movement…And yet, even Nana was powerless when the humans came.

Where was Nana now? She didn’t know. She didn’t remember much of that last day besides seeing three enormous shadows on the sand and running, running, running, screaming “Nana!”, until she felt a sharp sting in her back and everything became dark. She had woken up in this same log, in this new, terrifying world that the humans who were allowed to touch her called “zoo”, about thirty six moon cycles ago. There were no predators here, no snakes, no scorpions, but also no sand, no place to run around and play, and, most importantly, no Nana. She didn’t even remember her own name. Nana had always called her “little one”, and from the banter of the humans, she had learned that, to the human world, her name was “fennec fox”. But her real name was forever lost, scattered to the wind at the moment when her mother took her last shuddering breath.

She paced over to the feeding bowl and rapidly licked up the tasteless stone-like crumbs, soggy from the water, that the humans had left for her. As she apathetically observed the few humans that scurried past, her good mood vanished.

Aro wouldn’t come today. How could she not think of it before? He was a human after all, and, like all humans, hesitant to leave his nest when the Water Monster came to visit. As she pressed herself against the wall of the log, she shivered and suddenly felt that some of the water soaking her fur was coming from her own eyes. Aro’s visits were the only thing that made her days in the human world bearable. The only thing that made all the babbles, all the stares, all the thrown rocks, a little more worth it.

He had appeared in her life unexpectedly, about eleven moon cycles ago. It was in the middle of the day, when the sun had slowly started its descent in the sky, and she had opened her eyes a bit to see if the little human attackers had scattered when her gaze met a pair of warm brown eyes. The eyes were human ones, no doubt, and yet, something about them lured her in. She couldn’t look away. The human that those eyes belonged to was long and thin, but not menacing at all. Something about the way he was admiring her made her feel safe for the first time since she had been seized from Nana. His jaw was curved upwards and, for a moment, she too admired his perfect, agile frame. This was definitely a strong human, she thought. Somehow she knew from that first instant that, as long as he was near, he would protect her from this frightening foreign world. She knew that he would come back, unlike the rest of the members of his species who always eventually grew bored of their cooing and pointing and would move out of sight, never to appear again. She knew that he was different, special, somehow hers.

And he did come back. Once every few suns, she would hear his cheerful voice through her sleep, “Hey there foxy!” She quickly learned to tune her ears to recognize his voice even through her deepest dreams, just like Nana had taught her to hear the scurrying of a beetle deep below the sand. Every time that he would visit, she would jump up, not at the least annoyed at being awoken, and run over to the fence to meet those warm eyes. He would stay for longer than the rest, watching her, seemingly just as fascinated by her as she was by him. For a long time, she didn’t know his name. She was frustrated, unwilling to simply call him “the Human”, for he was so different from the raucous creatures that disturbed her daily sleep. And then, once in a while, he started coming with some other humans, most often a smaller, squeakier one with longer, lighter fur on the head. At these times, she would listen intently to their banter, trying to distinguish a name out of the incomprehensible human language. With time, she concluded that her human friend’s name was Aro, the word that the smaller human often used to address him.

Aro. She liked the way it sounded. She could almost move her jaws in a way that she could pronounce it, although in her voice it came out as a soft half-howl half-yelp. She tried saying it to him once and he grinned, revealing those same pearly white fangs, but in a way that made her want to grin too rather than recoil away in fright. She didn’t know what exactly it was about him…Maybe the way the shade of his skin reminded her of the color of sand under the sun’s brightest rays. Maybe the way the sweet, soothing murmurs of his voice made everything inside her feel full for a moment, made her forget for a moment that she had been thrown into this crazy, scary new world far away from home and Nana. Maybe the way he looked at her, not with curiosity or mocking like the other humans but with a sort of awe and respect that made her feel needed in this world. With Aro around, this new world called “zoo” made sense a little bit more. As the moons passed, she had come to look forward to Aro’s visits more and more. They were the only thing that provided her joy now, the only thing that made sense. Aro, Aro, Aro…

He wouldn’t come today. The water was coming down too strong, creating puddles all over the straw in the enclosure, bringing cold gusts of wind into the log. She wiped her eyes with her tail and tried to sleep. Tomorrow would be a new day. Maybe it would be sunny. Maybe he would come. Maybe the sun wasn’t such a bad thing after all. If she could only be certain that her friend would visit, she knew that she could easily deal with all the other humans’ tortures and screams for eternity…

Amidst the deafening plopping of raindrops, she heard soft footsteps approaching the fence. It couldn’t be. Almost no humans had come to visit her today. The Water Monster had scared them all into their nests. Suddenly, she heard Nana’s soothing voice. Seemingly in a different lifetime, on a night when the sky was full of stars, she and Nana had cuddled up next to each other behind a rock. One day, just as she was about to fall asleep, Nana had suddenly whispered: “And remember, little one, if you ever get lost or feel lonely, just raise your eyes. Look up and you will see me. Maybe in a bush, maybe in the moon, maybe in the most unexpected place, wherever you are, I will always be there with you.”

She raised her eyes and met a pair of warm, brown ones. Ones she knew so well. Nana’s eyes.

“Hey there, foxy!”