When There Is No Fox On the Rock

It was time to go.  The north wind had calmed down leaving the treetops in a simple movement of comfort. The lake was behind the hill which ignited most evenings into pink and gray sunsets.  He was still drinking from his morning coffee cup even if the coffee was now syrupy and bitter.  He was hoping the gray fox he saw early in the morning would come back to see him, one more time.

Yet he knew that sitting almost face to face with a gray fox curled upon a rock thirty meters away from him was an amazing event.  Foxes do not curl up upon rocks close to a mountain cabin.  And if they do, they do not gaze for many long minutes to a bearded man who was still half asleep.  Perhaps this fox was different.  Perhaps he had stared at bearded man before when they were still dreaming the unfinished dream they started in their bed.  Sometimes unfinished dreams are like an encounter one makes in the farmers’ market or around the bend while visiting an old building – these are unfinished experiences because they had hardly started.  Yet, it is not surprising that one would see a woman in an undulating cotton dress and flat sandals around the bend of an old building. All it takes is the fondness for that dress and the pleasant siestas it makes one recall.  A mid-day, mid-summer fantasy which one searches for around the bend of every building, old or new.

To pass time, and take his eyes away from the rock, he looked at his bare feet.  They are the furthest parts of him he can control.  He moved his left big toe as if in doubt if it can still obey to his wishes.  He was hoping that when he gawks back to that rock, the fox would be there.  As if taking his stare away, even for a short minute, would transform his morning thoughts into that unfinished dream he had left behind in his bed.  The kind of dreams which make a man turn under the covers, throw the covers off, and re-position himself in the fetal position.  

There was no fox curled upon the rock.

He thought smoking a cigarillo, although he did not like the taste of it early in the morning.  But it will pass time, and give a jolt to his brain.  But what if the fox does not like the acrid smell of a cigar?  What if half way to the rock, just when the fox was ready to curl up again and enjoy the first rays of the sun he would smell the cigar and change his mind?  What if that fox were a she, not a he?  That would explain why she does not like the smell of a cigar.

He smiled.  Yes, it must have been a she. 

And he took a sip on his coffee, looked in the front pocket of his cargo pants for a cigarillo.  Chose one from the small tin can, licked the end to wake up his senses, found his cigar holder in another pocket, inserted the moistened end of the cigarillo into the Baltic amber holder, and struck a match.

July 9, 2011

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013