A Confluence of Minds

      It was a late summer evening in 2022, on a small suburban road in outer London, when a great confluence of minds began.

On one side of the road – staggering and pitching between the delicate pools of lamplight – a modern philosopher made his way home. An evening of bowling with some friends had left him drowsy and drunk – pensive, perhaps, over the current state of affairs in the world, saddened by the general decline of it all. He wavered to and fro, reaching a hand out to steady himself against a wheely bin. A listless tune escaped in low remarks from his lips as he walked. Was it the memory of a classic? The solo violin part for Mendelsohn’s Concerto in E minor, perhaps? Who can say what this noble pioneer of humanity, this theologian, this diplomat of the species, was contemplating in those early hours. Finding a suitable spot, he unzipped his trousers and urinated against his neighbour’s hedgerow.

           Across the road, crouched low against the pavement, a lone fox observed him. Its small eyes, the raisin eyes of a rogue, watched him like a thief does its mark. It studied him, this tilting Dostoevsky. It raised its nose and sniffed the salt on the wind. Its ears twitched, and its shoulders folded, flattening its stomach to the ground whilst its haunches arched up into the air. The man, perhaps sensing something, turned to face the creature; and the two regarded one another from across the road.

           To the man, this animal may have seemed little more than a beast; to the fox, the man may have seemed the same. Yet, was there not something in the air…? Some sense of understanding, a common mind, a common tongue between these two ministers of the night, which united them across the pavements? Streetlights ran up and down in the darkness like synapses, communicating through chemicals and electrical sparks. The two looked to each other, two puddles of light separated by the cold dark space of the road.

           The man, his thumbs in his pockets, was the first to speak in this meeting of minds.

           “The fuck are you looking at?”

           The fox – an elegant diplomat – stayed silent.

           “I hate you,” the man said bluntly. “You stink. You smell.”

           A light at the top of the road blinked off. The man dug his thumbs further into his pockets, grumbling something as he rooted for a number he’d been given for a window repair shop. The fox, opening its mouth as if to respond, was interrupted.

           “What’s the matter with you?” The man’s mouth rotated the gravel of his words like a cement mixer as he looked up again. “You dumb? You mute? I hate you.” He spat on the ground and tilted back into the dark again, mumbling his way towards his house. “Fuck off, fox…” he called backwards, ascending the path to his door and falling through it. The fox sat motionless, observing, mouth half agape, the scent of pigeon blood around his muzzle. Its eyes like pips twinkled in the streetlight; he unfolded himself from the pavement, and slunk across the road to the urine-sodden hedge to smell it.

           The confluence of minds had begun.

           Inside, the man found his way through the dark to a couch in the living room. His wife had already left a pillow and rug over it. A clear message. Still – the most noble minds of all are often misunderstood by those around them. Where she might see a drunk, history would remember a missionary! True… perhaps not the most eloquent of all. But to underestimate the significance of this great man, sweating and snoring magnificently on his couch – is that not to underestimate the significance of man itself?

           He would not be alone for long.

           A few hours later, awoken by the soft weight of something on his lap, he opened his eyes, squeezing against the wet blur until he could discern the shape above him.

           “Hello, there,” the creature said politely. “I hope you don’t mind – I let myself in.”

           The man blinked sharply. He was wide awake now.

           The fox smiled. “Apologies – I didn’t want to wake you like this. I thought about other ways of getting your attention, but I wasn’t sure what might work. You know,” he chuckled, “I sat just there, by the glass recycling for a good hour, thinking how might I wake this fellow up without appearing rude?” His tail flicked lightly into the air, and he chuckled again. “I thought about turning on the TV, perhaps, or the radio. Or maybe just making some noise myself – I know this beautiful human song about blackbirds. Only, usually, you humans don’t really understand us, or our singing.” He looked back to the man with a grin. “But not you! You and I – we’re different! I understand you! And you understand me! Or, at least, I think you do – my, it would be terribly embarrassing if you didn’t understand me, what with me being stood on top of you and all! You do understand me… don’t you?”

           The man didn’t respond. His dumb mouth opened and closed in stale puffs of whiskey.

           “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship, don’t you think? Man and fox!” The fox looked over the man’s head, perusing the endless possibilities as though they lay with his trousers and pants by the door. “We have goals, ambitions! We can help each other! Share thoughts, culture, the joys of language! It’s really quite remarkable that nobody has ever considered such a partnership before. Perhaps you could leave us food, share recipes, teach us about the stars? And in return, of course, I’d be happy to help you with anything you might need as well. We could start by getting you off this couch and back into your own marriage bed? Us foxes are often misunderstood-”

           The man’s mouth continued to hinge open and closed. His eyes, dry and dilated. His face like that of a dead fish, pinned and asphyxiated by a fishing spear. But in his mind, the sparks of realisation were settling against the dry grass – a rising inferno of discovery. Here the man realised, of course, was perhaps the greatest breakthrough in all of human history. Comprehensive proof of conscience, of dignity, of philosophy; the thinking animal, communicating so plainly in the human tongue! The miracle of language! “One small step for man,” he must have thought, his mind leaping to the great quote for the ages. Were he Archimedes, this was to be his eureka, his cogito ergo sum, his By George, I’ve Done It! His eyes and brain solidified the eddying blur of revelation into clarity, as he delivered the missive of man.

           “What the fuck.”

           The fox stopped. “I beg your pardon?”

           “What the fuck.”

           The fox frowned. “I don’t-”

           “What the fuck!” The man, erupting from his couch, hurled the fox into a far wall. Rushing gallantly to the bathroom, he emerged with a child’s cricket bat raised high above his head.

           “I’m sorry, old chap, if I’ve offended you in any way-” the fox began, slowly rising painfully from the floor.

           “What the fuck! What the fuck!”

           “If there’s anything I can do-“

           “Stop talking! You can’t talk, what the fuck, what…” he looked around. The fox watched him nervously from across the room. “Get out. Get the fuck out of my house.” The creature didn’t respond. “I will beat the shit out of you if you don’t get out of my house,” the man repeated.

           Without a word, the fox turned, and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor. The man, bat raised above one shoulder, breathed heavily without moving.

           Hours passed. And our brave philosopher stood terrified and naked until the morning. Even the dull crunch of the staircase didn’t break him from his trance. The footsteps paused behind him; a moment of silence. Then, with a sigh, his wife drifted past his shoulders into the kitchen.

           Dostoevsky did not even look. There were talking foxes about.

           For nearly two weeks, the man lived in an agony of abject terror. Every bush may hold a badger reciting poetry; every tree, a bird offering financial advice. The thought of nature holding him fiscally responsible terrified him almost as much as the thought of nature discussing anything with him to begin with. But such is the pioneering fear of the greatest explorers of our history books! Was Scott so fearless when he embarked on his doomed voyage? Did Shackleton not quiver in his boots, not with cold but with dread, as he considered the vast emptiness of the ice? Of course! Fear is the precipice. Fear is the language of discovery. Fear is the language which united man, even, with the greatness of the world around him! And so, as we remember how this man of science fled screaming through the park on his way to work each morning, or how his eyes darted to the bins in his area for signs of the unknown, or how he ran a patrol of his house every evening before bed, we must remember: this is the nature of philosophy. It is a noble thing to fear one’s garbage.

           Of course, his wife disagreed.

           After two weeks of panic, he still ended each day heavily on the couch. Two weeks, and they had traded only a few sentences between them. “It’s the fox,” he would tell her. “There’s a talking fox trying to be friends with me and I hate it. He told me he knew the Beatles.” And she would look at him without expression. And his pillow would still be there on the couch when he returned home.

           But once more, he would not be alone for long.

           A polite cough from the far side of the room woke him one night with a start. His breath caught in his throat when he saw them. Two foxes.

           “Hello again,” the one from before began. “Apologies for… the other night. I understand it probably took you by surprise a little.”

           The man didn’t respond. He pressed himself into the back of the couch and bundled the rug beneath his chin, eyes popping like golf balls in the dark.

           “I realise now where I went wrong,” the fox continued, carefully placing his words like a rehearsed speech. “I never properly introduced myself. You must have thought me very rude, and very intrusive, and really quite improper. I was hoping we could try again, if that’s all the same to you?” He cleared his throat and drew himself up to a proud height. “Good evening, sir. My name is Oscar. This is my wife, Polly-“

           “A pleasure,” the second fox said with a smile.

           “-and we are new to this neighbourhood. We live just down the road from you, and we wanted to make your acquaintance properly.”

           “We brought cookies, if you’d like some?” Polly asked. “I don’t know if you or your wife like that sort of thing, but – well, I’ll just leave them on the counter here.” She hefted a plastic bag from between her paws, and placed it on the table top. “We found them on a picnic table the other day, and thought they were just the thing!” She smiled again.

           “As I said before,” Oscar continued, “us foxes are often misunderstood as savage creatures, but really, we love the family life just as much as you do!” They smiled at him expectantly.

           “What are you?” the man finally managed.

           “Why, we’re foxes, silly!” Polly laughed politely.

           “What are you doing in my house? I want you to leave my house.”

           “We came in through the broken window, old chap. I hope you don’t mind.”

           “What the fuck.”

           “We were hoping to talk to you a little more about what we discussed the other week?” Oscar continued. “About our little symbiotic relationship potential, you remember. You see-” he turned to his wife. “Polly here used to work as a marriage counsellor herself in our old town. She’s just fantastic at sorting this sort of thing out – tell him again, Polly, what your couch-to-bed percentage was for the foxes you helped?”

           “100%” she said with a humble blush.

           “Marriage counsellor…”

           “Of course.”

           “You’re a marriage… councillor…. fox….”

           “Maybe we can discuss what you see is wrong with your relationship?” she began.

           “No.”

           “All relationships have their issues, you know. Even Oscar and I fall out every now and then. I always say that relationships are hard work. You’ll see that I do.” She curled her tail comfortably around herself. “And you can’t really graduate from the couch without putting that effort in yourself. You need to show that you care. It’s about taking responsibility for the small things.”

           “What-”

           “I might put the kettle on,” Oscar announced, moving towards the kitchen. “Tea for you, Mr….?”

           “Get out.” The man raised himself up again. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

           “Woah there, old chap-” Oscar began. But it was too late. Emerging from the couch, the man reached into a spot behind the TV for his short, wooden weapon.

           “I told you once before. I told you to stop talking, but you wouldn’t. I told you to get out. I will beat you both to death with this cricket bat, I swear to God. Get the fuck out of my house.”

           “Understood,” Oscar said quickly, eyeing the cricket bat with caution as he moved towards his wife. “Darling?”

           “Yes,” she said with a nervous smile. “Understood.” They began a hasty retreat past the man into the front room. Polly turned to look back at him from the doorway. She summed him up and down with her eyes, then looked defiantly in his face. “Hard work, sir. We only want to help.”

           He listened carefully as they leapt back through the window, the tinkling sound of glass followed by silence. The quiet lingered, and the man didn’t move. A marriage counselling fox. That’s what that stinking creature had said. He weighed the bat in his hands. She’d brought cookies.

Thoughts grappled with our philosopher. Fear and anger on the one hand; guilt and loneliness on the other. When he returned to his spot on the couch, his troubled brain exhausted him. He slept solidly through the night.

           “Are these for me?” His wife asked the following morning, holding the bag of cookies above his head as he woke up. He blinked and looked up at her. There were teeth holes in the plastic, and it smelt faintly of pigeon blood.

           “…what?”

           “These cookies.”

           “…sure,” he responded. A slight smile appeared on her lips, and she looked down at him with a nervous sympathy in her eye.

           “It’s very sweet of you,” she said at last. Her answer took him by surprise. “Even if I can’t handle the sugar.”

           She left for work with a wave, and he sat thoughtfully on the couch. Outside, the birds whistled in their own simple language. No strange invasions. No meddling beasts of nature. Just the sunshine and the birds. He stood and followed the sounds to where they drifted in, finding the broken window in the front room. Light, muddy paw prints dotted the skirting board. It seemed as though they had been wiped carefully on a stray cardigan by the wall.

           He looked from the prints to the window. He didn’t need a fox to provide marriage counselling. He didn’t need some stinking animals telling him how to run his life.

           Enough was enough.

           It wasn’t long before a team had arrived. Two men and a kid, carrying cutting and polishing tools, buffers and waxes, measuring tape, boards and pencils. They measured and cut; old glass was swept aside; the wooden frame treated, strengthened, hinges oiled. New glass measured and cut in the front yard. By the time his wife returned from work, to her suspicion and surprise, the window was fully repaired.

           “You had it fixed?” she asked, finding him polishing the cricket bat in the front room.

           “Needed doing. Can’t be too careful these days.”

           “You’re full of surprises today,” she remarked, moving past him to inspect the work. “You’re still sleeping on the couch, mind… but it’s a start, darling. So long as you’re not fighting with the sparrows anymore.”

           He stopped and looked up at her. It wasn’t sparrows, he was about to say, it was foxes. But when he saw her fingers running over the glass, the faint smile playing on her lips, he stopped himself. The small things…

           Maybe it was a start.

           That evening, the man did his usual rounds about the house. He returned the cricket bat to its awkward place by the toilet, and looked proudly at his window as he went to fetch the cardigan for the wash.

There they were again. Outside.

           Across the street, sat politely in an island of streetlight, two foxes watched him through the window. Their paws were placed neatly in front of them; one even seemed to be smiling, however cautiously. From opposite sides of the darkness, beast studied man and man studied beast. Neither said a word.

           The lights ran up and down the street, as before. No birdsong or owls disturbed the peace. A harmony, a delicate quiet hung on the air. Only this time, the man did not speak. No words of abuse, or stale urine, or cricket bats. Instead, he smiled back – awkwardly, tentatively. A slight turn up at the side of the lips as he looked back across the road. And then, raising his hand to the new window, he pushed it open ever so slightly, before returning inside to his couch.

           Polly’s eyebrows arched as she turned to her husband. “It’s a start,” she said. And the pair slunk from the light, and crossed silently through the shadows of the road and up onto the pavement beneath the window.