sly the deer & shy the fox
Here I re-tell one of the first stories I wrote as a young child. It earned me my smallest writing prize. But it is my most precious prize, because I had no idea there would be a (sur)prize. I wrote it for fun then and I re-write it for fun now!
For ear readers, you may hear it in my voice here.
Since the inner child is working over-time as muse, literary device, and empirical evidence all-in-one, I think I owe her a little something. But her viewpoint is not something I have always thought much of. I have shied away from romanticising it as if it is some pure and innocent true-self. If anything, I have seen her perspective as basic and primitive, telling myself as an adult: ‘Frankly it does not merit further consideration.’
Though, I am starting to feel that the contrast between haloed truth and primitive infancy need not be so stark. And, even if it is so stark, maybe there is some room to roam in between those two poles. And so I re-draft a very short short-story I wrote and illustrated a rather long time ago.
I do not know where in the world that little booklet is and I do not remember what in the world I wrote init. All I remember is that it was entitled ‘the sly deer & the shy fox.’ And, my father’s friend Ejaz, an engineer with a penchant for literature, awarded me my first prize money for it. Though the smallest quantum I have ever received for writing, it is the most precious prize. This is because it truly was a (sur)prize since I had no idea that there might be a reward. I wrote it for fun then and I re-write it for fun now.
Anyway, enough of a preamble. Here goes!
Dusk had fallen. The human visitors had gone home and the park’s doors had closed for the day.
Sly was trying to stockpile the chestnuts at the border of the park. The visitors had thrown these chestnuts into the park. The visitors do this to catch the deer’s attention, to get a glimpse of that ‘deer-in-headlights’ look they so enjoy capturing on their phones, filtering-to-death, and posting on the internet for other humans to see. #cutedeer #elegantdeer #deerwhisperer.
Just thinking about this, Sly rolled her large round dark almost-opaque eyes. The human visitors were anything but deer whisperers.
Sure, she’s a fawn and she should not be negative. But she was alone and there was no one there she needed to please. So, truth-be-told, the visitors were a bit annoying.
Okay, truer truth-be-told, they were not just a bit annoying. They were hella annoying. She had learnt this new word ‘hella’ from a Californian tourist earlier today who was telling her children, ‘look, real-life Bambis!’ As Sly recalled this, a frown immediately visited her face and she furrowed the tiny ridges above her eyes and between her ears.
We are not all real-life Bambis. She resolutely repeated this to herself. Calimom618070 had hit a nerve without even knowing so.
Sly popped a chestnut in her mouth and thought to herself. Although annoying, the visitors aren’t totally useless. She sat down against the park-fence and rested her right paw over her left paw in contemplation as she chewed. Human visitors are an entertaining trove of knowledge about the world beyond the park, beyond the zoo. There is always something new, bad, or both happening in the visitors’ world and they talk a whole lot about everything.
Knowledge is something smart Sly loves so very much. So tolerating the visitors’ annoying remarks was the price to pay for their infotainment, nuggets of information, new words, new…
At this point, she felt the side of her back being scratched. Mmmm…what a nice light back-tickle. She could have fallen asleep right there and then, dreaming about more fun-filled facts.
But suddenly the scratch became less scratchy, less ticklish and more…claw-y. She sensed three sharp claw-paws on her back through the fence.
She immediately snapped out of her musing. She turned her head. She almost jumped out of her skin when speckless translucent amber eyes stared right back at her.
This was no joke. A wild city-fox cub was scratching the fence of the deer-park!
They were sending their youngest ‘un to attack!
Sly immediately got up, trying to hide how startled she was. She took an uncomfortably upright stance. That way, she stood significantly taller than the fox.
‘Hey fox, what’s all the drama about?’ said Sly as coolly as she possibly could.
The fox continued rabidly scratching the fence as if he wanted in.
‘What are you trying to do? Are you trying to get into the deer park you sneaky little thing?’
Suddenly, tears tumbled forth from the fox’s amber eyes.
Sly took a step closer. She was as confused as she was curious. She was puzzled by the waterworks. But she was intent to continue pretending to be unmoved. She didn’t trust the fox for his types are very cunning. And his crying could be a clever little ruse his trickster elders put him onto.
Tired, growing sleepy from the little back-scratch, and exasperated, Sly said, ‘Ey fox, why all cry-cry? What’s the problem?’
He finally spoke through tear-blubber, ‘I’m a bad fox.’
Sly rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time that day.
‘So…All fox are bad. What’s the problem?’ Sly said.
‘No,’ the fox said gasping for air and then mumbling, ‘I’m not good at being a bad fox.’
Sly raised her left brow-ridge, the right remained lowered, and she side-frowned. She knew that fox-folk view deer-folk as stupid, but this was just downright offensive.
‘Look fox. If this is some crafty trick of yours to lure me, take me to the lion’s den where the lion kills me and eats my innards while you eat my heart out then, I’ll have you know one thing,’ her eyes enlarged, ‘It is NOT going to work on me!!’ She appeared to be tip-toeing on her front-legs as if working up a gallop on the hind-legs.
The fox said between tears, ‘What, what are you on about deer? Where did you get this crazy idea?’
Sly responded, ‘Don’t play dum you sly little fox! It’s not a crazy idea, it’s a true story and a very important true story of caution my grandpa told me. Even the humans agree to it. Some say Aesop told the tale ‘the Deer without a Heart’ but there’s also a Persian-language version in the Panchatantra. And, apparently the Japanese, Chinese, and French also have it…All the human cultures have it, and since they’re all always fighting with each other, if they agree on something, then naturally it must be true and…’
Something about the precocious fawn made the fox snap out of his sadness. It was now the fox’s turn to raise his left ridge while his right brow-ridge remained lowered. He side-frowned and then cut her short so that she might breathe again, ‘Okay deer…what’s your name and where do you get all this insane content?’
Sly’s eyes lit up at the possibility of someone being interested in her ‘did-you-know’ facts. She took a step closer to the fence and got closer to the fox. She lowered her head and whispered, ‘Well, they call me Sly because I’m less graceful and less concerned with being sweet and delicate and positive and upholding honour and stuff like nobility and all that other deer-stuff. I’m more clever, like a fox.’
In the same breath, she continued, ‘And my intel, well I get it from the visitors but my parents and grandparents have also overheard tidbits of information from visitors from their time. I just pay a lot of attention when anyone shares any information and I keep it all in my head. You know how fox have the superpower to use earth’s magnetic fields to detect nearby prey? Well, the deer superpower is the ability to hear faraway humans. In fact, we can even hear sounds that they don’t even know they’re making. And we can hear them as loud as a bell…’
“He poked the black of his snout snugly through the small hole of the fence and said, ‘You’re just a deer, not ChatGPT.’”
She trotted on the spot in a little self-revelatory excitement, ‘I think it’s because I’m an information-gatherer, I LOVEEEEEE new data-points.’
It was now the fox’s turn to roll his eyes. He poked the black of his snout snugly through the small hole of the fence and said, ‘You’re just a deer, not ChatGPT.’
The fox hit the same nerve that calimom618070 had hit. Sly shoved the fox’s snout back the other way out of the fence, took a step back, and said, ‘See I was right. I knew your crying was all an act. All you are is a mean little fox.’
The fox-cub looked downcast. He sighed and put his back against the fence so that his furry tail poked through the fence. The foxtail was luxuriously silky and shapely with a pointed tip. It made Sly think of the Finnish lore according to which a fox made the northern lights by running at such top-speed in the snow that its tail tossed sparks into the sky.
But the fox once again interrupted Sly’s reverie, ‘Well that’s the problem. I’m not really a mean little fox. The other cubs don’t want to play with me. They say I’m too sensitive. Their parents think I’m a bad influence on them. Actually.’ He paused and whispered, ‘they call me Shy because I’m more like a deer you see.’
He paused again and took a deep breath, ‘And, those magnetic fields that you mention. It seems they don’t work for me. It feels more like the magnetic fields transmit the neighbourhood’s pain to me. It’s not a superpower if it makes you weak and sick.’
Sly was confused. She didn’t want to be fooled by the silver-tongued foxy tales his kind spun. She was also mildly offended by the deer stereotypes of which she had had enough that day. She was ready to lash out again, probably hurl another fox stereotype at Shy, maybe stomp on his tail, possibly even bite that tail. But there was something that prevented her. There was something she recognised in him.
Was it that they both have tails? Hmmm…well, yes of course it must be that…
At this point, the final interruption came through the navy-blue starry night as a doting deer-mom’s honeyed voice summoned Sly. Sly remembered it was time to go home for the day. She immediately turned at the sound of her mother’s voice but then quickly turned back to Shy.
She hollered at Shy, ‘GTG BYEEEEE, see you never again Shy the Fox!!’ She tapped Shy’s tail twice with her right paw and trotted away.
They did see each other again. From time-to-time, they would return to that fence. They would return to continue the conversation they had started that night. It was a conversation that lasted a lifetime.
