foxes

by Emma Atkins

Sometimes, the universe is heavy-handed with its metaphors and sends you a sickly baby fox on your mum’s birthday, guides it into the greenhouse and traps it there behind a mountain of half-forgotten boxes, exercise gear and the broken mannequin your dad got for free from a couple who lived by a train track. You’re not sure what the metaphor is, but it snaps you out of a list-induced fugue state: wrap the presents, wait for the balloons to arrive, write a shopping list for Dad, oh shit, that fucking fox might die in there. You and Dad start shifting some boxes to uncover the fox, but that only drives it further in: quick slip of orange under the broken barbeque.

So, you place a trail of ham slices from the open greenhouse door and hope that it hasn’t gone in there to die. It’s just started to rain, and the July heat has stepped out for the morning, so it’s plausible that the fox is just looking for somewhere to nap. Still, it reminds you of Toto, your nan’s old cat, who took himself off into the night to die away from home. Do foxes do the same? Leave the den so their corpses fall on someone else’s doorstep? Dad cracks a joke, but it’s hard to laugh at Schrödinger when you’re in the same situation. Neither of you can see the fox anymore. You consider calling the RSPCA, but then the balloons arrive and the party preparations begin in earnest. Later, staring out the window, introvert-exhausted, you catch sight of two black eyes – a quick slip of orange. The fox cub winks at you and ducks through a gap in the hedge. Fuck you, universe. 

Photo of Emma Atkins

BIO: Emma Atkins is a poet and novelist currently studying for her PhD at Middlesex University. She has recently started writing creative nonfiction to document the chaos of family life and to prove to herself that these things happened. Her work has appeared in magazines and journals, including Stony Thursday Poetry Book and Amsterdam Quarterly, among other publications.