The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog

I see it, the dark painting of just that…

A quick brown fox jumping over a lazy dog.

“Wow, it’s so deep.” I hear someone commenting, and then another murmuring something about art theory and name dropping someone I’ve definitely heard of but could never tell you anything about.

I’m not a huge fan of art galleries, I’d much rather be at a historical museum or a botanical garden, but around here the winters are too cold to do much else but cozy up to the crackling fire and come to a random art gallery that popped up a few weeks ago.

I walked from painting to painting, until it started to feel like the artist was telling a story through the continuation from one to the next. The first was simply a brown fox jumping over a lazy dog, but the next was a fox sitting atop a hill observing villagers in a small town in the distance. I started to get an uneasy feeling, like I could almost see the expression of the fox purely through body posture. Even though it was turned away from me, I could almost see its face and it felt like a warning, like that fox knew something we didn’t.

“Chelsea.”

I screamed.

In a silent art gallery.

As quickly as my face turned red, I was storming out of the building and into the sharp cold. He followed me, but he was laughing, and it made me even angrier.

“Chelsea, come on. I didn’t think you’d scream out loud like that!” His words weren’t even making it through the fits of giggles. “Please, hey, don’t be like that.”

“Don’t be like that? You’re the one who said we can’t talk anymore, and then you’re acting like we’re buddies that play fun little pranks on each other.”

“It was hardly a prank; I just said your name.” He coughed out a last laugh and walked up to me, the fact that he was close enough for me to smell his detergent with an after thought of cigarettes brought me back to when we weren’t walking on eggshells to get to each other.

Somehow, we ended up getting coffee at the one and only diner in town.

This man could sell ice to penguins and this skill that serves him so well in business, was such a strain in our relationship. I constantly felt like he was pressuring me to do what he wanted.

And now I just realize that it was me that just felt that way. Just like how I felt that he was pranking me when he really was just trying to get my attention.

I wallowed in my embarrassment at being so dramatic, and stared into the darkness of my coffee hoping to maybe just disappear in its aromatic expanse.

“This fox artist dude is apparently something big in the city, he’s an international superstar and no one even knows what he looks like.”

I nod, surprised that he would even know that.

“His paintings are kind of creepy.” I pour cream into my coffee until its lifted over the lip of the cup, but just before it overflows.

“Right?” He slaps his hands on the table, and I look up at him.

He leans forward with his arms on the table and I realize he didn’t order anything which means I probably have to pay for this and instantly my body is signaling stress.

“They remind me of my grandma’s doll collection.”

“Well, your grandma has dolls that are all made with real hair.”

“That’s what I’m saying, it reminds me of that.”

“I should go.” I signal the server, and she sets the check down. A coffee used to be less than a dollar, and now it’s a dollar more than I can afford.

He continues the conversation, and I like to think its because he wants me to stay. But I’d also like to stop assuming, since it makes me feel worse more times than not.

“I also don’t really get the obsession with foxes, there is this fox that has been getting into our livestock, and we keep laying them traps down but these critters are sly. Real clever little guys.”

He gently reaches towards the check in my hand, and I pull it back quickly throwing some cash to it and eyeing the server to come take it from me directly.

“Your farm has plenty of food, this village doesn’t take much to feed and you’re always complaining about your animals getting too hot and heavy or being super swimmers or something gross like that.”

“They are productive as hell, but he’s a thief.”

I stand up, “That fox has to eat too.”

I walk over to the server as she attends to someone else and I gently hand the check to her, “Keep the change.” I felt awful even saying that since there was only a little extra, but I also didn’t want to hang around for her to go get it from the register.

David followed me out of the diner, “Let me at least walk you to your car, its getting dark fast.”

Him mentioning my car was like a stab at my self-worth.

“I’m taking the bus anyway.”

He reaches forward and grabs my arm, “I’m gonna drive you home.”

I turn around, so tucked into my scarf and endless layers and stare at him.

“Chels. Are you doing okay?”

No. But he didn’t need to know that.

To avoid talking about it, I followed him to the car and stared out the window the whole ride back. He betrayed me and then pushed me away as if I was the one that wasn’t good for him. His entire family who treated me so well flipped a switch as if they hated me all along but could finally show it. The entire village saw him as the hero, and I was the negative influence and now that I’m out of the picture he is happier and more successful than ever and the whole situation just showed me how awful people can be.

Since then, I couldn’t leave the house.

I lost my job.

My car got repo’d.

No Jake, I’m not doing okay.

“Thanks.” I close the door and stomp through the snow to my front door, I expect to hear him drive off but instead I hear the hum of his truck quiet and his door open very slowly.

When I turn around to tell him to leave, he is sneaking towards my neighbor’s yard and even in the darkness I can see the sleek metal of his gun lifting up to his face.

I look where he is heading, and there it is. The most beautiful brown fox, sniffing through the trash of my neighbor. He has no idea he is being hunted, and I can’t help myself but shout.

“Don’t!”

Bam.

Yelp.

“Chelsea.” The boyish casualness of earlier was gone, and in the dark winter night he looked terrifying. His smile is everything, and when he isn’t all that’s left are the hateful eyes that looked down at me as he told me I deserved to get cheated on because I wasn’t paying him enough attention. That I was a narcissist using my mother’s death as a way to gain sympathy. “Doesn’t matter, it’s dead now.”

He gets into his car and I run over to the fox and burst into tears.

Preparing my heart to lift this animal into the snow and bury it, I notice his leg was clipped but he seemed to be laying down from the shock and from the way his ribs protruded through his thick pelt, possibly from intense hunger as well.

That night, I pulled the eviction notice off of my front door and nursed a fox to full health. I pulled a few scones I took from the gallery showing, and split them with him. I would worry about food, I would worry about my eviction, I would worry about everything else later. For now, the truth was this fox had it worse than me. I cried myself to sleep.

The next morning, a knock at the door woke me up and I half expected it to be Jacob. I ripped the door open to tell him to go away, when it was a young man I had never seen before.

“Hi.” He smiled, and instantly I didn’t trust him.

“No, thank you.” I started to close the door, but he pushed through holding a very good smelling bag of food.

“I’m here to be your husband.”

Right.

Forget every true crime documentary, forget every warning your parents gave you, the sentence was so absurd, and the food smelt so damn good, I let him in.

We ate and what I thought would be the most awkward and silent meal of my life, maybe even my last was filled with conversation about my childhood, my grief, my relationship, and it was so freeing so share everything I had been too ashamed to share with anyone else.

Finally, I apologized.

“I can’t give you anything in return.”

“No need, I have plenty of food here for the both of us, and I actually want to make you something but you have to promise not to look while I make it.”

He went into the other room, and the sounds were so strange I almost thought he was in there doing something disgusting. I found myself pacing back and forth, even leaning up to the door to listen to what he could possibly be making in my bedroom with the groans and the muffled yelps. My mind started to imagine every scenario and after image after image of the most disturbing possibilities, I couldn’t help myself and yanked the door open.

Before me, was the brown fox.

Ripping his own fur from his body, blood trailing to the floor, as he gracefully created a masterpiece of a fox staring down onto Earth with the most beautiful pigments, and embroidered from his own fur, the most magnificent painting depicted an Earth where people could come together in compassion and humanity.

“I told you not to come in here.”

I looked at the painting.

“It’s you.”

“Should sell for a million, but make sure you talk to a few buyers.”

When I looked at him, he was human again.

“I would have loved to stay as your husband, but now that you know my secret I have to go, at least I decided not to destroy the world after all.”

And he picked up my last scone on the counter, gulping it down with a grin.

I must have looked confused because he said this next.

“Look up, Shinigami. It’s Japanese.” And he left me wondering if I had finally reached my wit’s end and this was my psychotic break.

The next day I searched his paintings, each of them selling for hundreds of thousands. This one would make millions, since it was his final piece. His parting with this world.

I looked up Shinigami.

“Noun – The God of Death.”