The Fox

The Fox

Walking along the path in the park, as I had two thousand or more times in the past years, I was barely paying attention. I had seen every tree, every bush through buds, leaves, turning colors, going bare and starting over with new buds in spring. I practically knew the squirrels by name and all their grandchildren too, truth be told. I was lost in a funk.

I walked because it was required for my physical fitness. Pffft! As if I had any. I suppose it was more to make sure I didn’t degenerate into less. I’d skip it entirely, but what else did I have to do? Sit around my apartment looking out the window at the same street I’d been looking at every day since I moved in here?

As I turned a corner in my funk I heard a voice “I have a message for you.” I looked up, not even really interested since I assumed it wasn’t speaking to me. There at the edge of the trees was a fox.

I stopped and stared, confused. First at a fox, second since it couldn’t have been the voice, could it? I swear I forgot to even be afraid I was so confused! Then the fox said, “You’re alive, do something important before it’s too late.”

I stood there for a long time. The fox was gone, if it had even actually really been there.

Finally, I went home. But it was never the same. I felt I had to do something worthwhile.”

“So, why did you decide to make potholders?” the newswoman asked, taking notes for her fluff story about the eighty-eight-year-old Potholder Lady.

“Eh, they’re easy, I’m pretty lazy, truth be told...” Grandma Lee said, laughing, as she always did about everything in her life.