Fox & Bear

Fox met Bear at the coffee shop. It had been a long
time since the old friends had met. Fox asked Bear if he
remembered the first time they met in the forest. Bear said
he did. It had been many years ago on a spring day, the
kind that people tend to write about, when Bear saw Fox
under a tree. He asked Fox how he was and Fox said he
was sad. Bear asked why. Fox began to explain how alone
he had been feeling and that no sense of beauty was enough
to do away with it. Bear listened and then he listened some
more. He placed a paw on Fox's shoulder and Fox looked
at him. There were trails on the fur of his face where tears
had streaked down. Fox looked at Bear and said "Thank
You." Fox and Bear stayed friends from that point on.
They would make it a point to see each other as often as
they could make time for each other. It was always a great
relief for them to be together and talk. They had long since
left the forest and had been living in the city for some time.
The city had a strange beauty that the forest could not match.
In some ways it was even darker and more cruel than the
life of the forest. They enjoyed the hustle and bustle, the
sense of action, the motion of a place that seemingly never
slept. When they would meet up in the city they would
often meet for coffee or have lunch or dinner. No one
ever disturbed them or cast an awkward glance at their
table. People were content to merely let them be. And so
they were happy. Content to be themselves as much as
anyone else in the city, regardless of their looks or back
ground. Fox would still dream from time to time about
his youth and the countless hours spent in the forest
listening to the birds, enjoying the coolness of early
morning, feeling the dampness of the ground on his
paws, and the way light would scatter through the
branches of the trees when he would look up and just
watch. Bear would dream of the forest as well. Often
Bear would dream of finding a river or stream and
walking into it, the water soaking his paws as he stood
there waiting for fish to feed himself. At those times
he would know how perfect things had been then. How
whole it all really was. Sometimes Bear would wake
from those dreams and feel for a fresh caught fish in
his mouth but there would be nothing except for the
memory of a dream. He would then look out of his
window and know the forest was still there, waiting,
if he were to ever return. In his heart he had no doubt,
regardless of what his conscious mind would tell him.
He could feel the song of his life being sung through
his blood. The city might be home but the forest
would always be the place calling him back, unable
to let him go and he unable to resist the call. This made
Bear restless. Sometimes Fox and Bear would talk
about these feelings and dreams. They agreed that they
both still missed the forest. They decided that they
would take a trip back together to remind themselves
of that place of their birth. And so, the day came
that they got in Bear's car and drove for hours out
of the city until it fell away like a piece of clothing
that had been tossed to the ground. At last they came
home. They got out of the car and breathed in the air.
It was crisp and clean and filled their lungs as they
deeply inhaled and exhaled. They said nothing as
they smiled and looked at each other. They took off
their shoes and clothes and walked into the forest
in the perfection that they had been made. At once
they could feel the dampness of the ground and the
sound of the birds as light lit the branches and leaves
into a theater of color and sound. Nearby was the
sound of water and together they bounded towards
it as their ancestors did before them and countless
others would after them.