Fox on the Run

    It was 11am and I sat in the cafe down the road from my flat with my regular morning mug of tea steaming on the table before me. It has become my habit to visit this establishment every day for my breakfast. It is run by three Polish sisters. Two of these young women are very friendly. But on this occasion I had been served by the third, surly one - let's call her Zofia. She had stood staring at me from the other side of the counter, stony-faced and pallid as the grave. As usual, she was wearing extravagant false eyelashes which emphasised her ethereal mien and made her look just a little bit insane. She looks as if she has never laughed in her entire life - never so much as smiled - as if she carries the entire weight of her people's tragic heritage on her shoulders. 

    "Yes, pliz." she demanded, blankly. I made my order and sat at the table facing the window, the better to watch life's passing parade. Outside, people were braced against the frigid morning. They wore coats and scarves and gloves and hats. They frowned as they bent into the cold. I luxuriated in the cafe's warmth, and food smells, my mug of tea almost finished.

     Fifteen minutes later, Zofia arrived at the table with my cooked breakfast. She put it before me with no kindness. 

   "Pliz", she said, with no warmth. She retreated to the other side of the counter, with no happiness, and began to dry some dishes, with no love. I tucked into my eggs and happily resumed watching the theatre outside through the glass. 

    A scrawny, reddish dog now appeared to the right of my vision, slowly trotting along the pavement. It was a fox, confidently promenading amongst the passing crowd. It looked hungry and thin. It had a sad, resigned look about it, as if it knew that this was what it had finally all come to: wending its way, hungrily, through the humans in broad daylight, in search of another bin to ransack; another clump of fried chicken bones tossed down on the pavement by the boys outside the chicken shop; an unwary cat left out at night. Pickings had obviously been slim recently. It walked across my field of vision and then, to the far left of the window, it veered off and stood at the curb, waiting for all the traffic to pass. When it was clear it trotted diagonally across the two busy roads which converge outside the cafe. I was impressed at its street-savy, and the way it had looked both left and right before it made the crossing, like an obedient child. I watched as it continued with its loping gait up along the other side of the roads and out of sight. I finished my breakfast and stood at the counter to pay my bill. Zofia came to take my money. She stood cheerlessly behind the till with her thin hand extended.

   "Seven pound", she said, unhappily. I handed her a tenner and she fished about in the cash drawer for my three pounds change, which she handed to me without a word. She then turned and busied herself, sadly chopping onions into very small pieces.

    Two days later, as I walked up towards the tube station I found the fox. It lay on its side on the pavement, at the foot of a light pole. There were no signs of injury. Its sightless eye stared straight up into the sky. The cold breeze ruffled the fur along its flank and along its raggedy tail. Its delicate black forelegs were crossed beneath its chin. Its fine, sharp teeth, which had maybe not bitten a morsel in days, were broadly displayed between the curtain of its black lips, which were curled into a frozen snarl - or perhaps it was a grin at hilarious, tragic, pointless life.