I finally started writing poems again after 4 grueling years of unmotivated attempts! So in celebration of this occasion, I present to you an old story of mine called "Arctic Fox." It's been published in a magazene already, so I hope it's still enjoyable for you all...Merry Belated Christmas and a Happy New Year!Arctic FoxThe ice up there was like the clouds; and the clouds were like the snow. The rocks and the sky appeared to be of one body, of one being. Each part had the same blue-grey opaqueness. Each part had the same cold, untouchable nature. All but the sun conformed to this arctic entity. Whatever being, whatever creature had the boldness to choose to live here became a part of this arctic body. Their shapes were blunt and jagged, and their features had little hue or contrast. Their bodies became as cold and menacing as the surfaces they lived with. They were as the ice, the rocks, the clouds and the sky. It was as if they had been carved from the elements and then had come to life. They lived in the arctic regions.While from the outside they appeared to be moving statues of the elements, you wouldn’t find a warmer beating heart, or a soul that did not burn passionately to live here. Those creatures who stuck together did so more closely than bothers or friends. They were all nomads and wandered the wilderness throughout their lifetimes. They went searching for food, for mates, for safety, whatever was not with them, they went after. Everything moved in the arctic. Either by hoof or paw, they moved. Either by fin or wing, they moved. Either by the waters or by the wind, they moved. The rocks even by their foundations were moved. The trees moved constantly about the mountains and plains. Everything had to move, even if there was no point in moving.Yet, at this moment, one creature, a fox, lay still under nature’s motion. Only her fur danced silently in the wind, keeping her warm while she slept among a cluster of high rocks. The snow landed on the edges or her fur, almost melting when they reached the surface, and hid her presence. She curled herself up and abandoned the wilderness as she sent her mind elsewhere in her slumber. She slept on the side of a mountain which lay next to a desert of ice. She was alone on that mountain, safe and unnoticed. Lying there, she ignored the motion of the cold season around her. She was warmed by the ample meal she had taken. Her body was flowing with the warm flesh of her fallen animal. The heat caused her to swell slightly giving her the appearance of a furry rock.There, one creature alone noticed her. Her mate had gone to the other part of the mountain where forestry and creatures gathered, ate, mated, and hunted harmoniously. Their actions danced like the wind that twirled around the dim mountains, flowing with the white water Rivers like a unified force. She had had her fill of this beauty previously but still returned to the other part of nature’s tapestry. Her mate had now fulfilled himself throughout this splendor and hastened to be with the being whose offspring she would bear and possess. He hunted alone, for as a pair, they would be more conspicuous and vulnerable. They were only together in the quiet moments as it is now, when there iscalm around them, and movement is scarce and slowed. There they laid warmed together, the male ever still alert, noticing everything happening around the rocks that concealed them. Still, this was their time for themselves. Even the wind and the snow grew quiet around them.Yet the land did not leave itself as barren and secure, as it was believed to be. Upwind from where they lay, there dragged silently a beast whose thoughts were greyer and colder than the merciless rocks and ice that lashed out from under his paws. Within the trap of winter, a polar bear trudged unnoticed though the wilderness half conscious of his surroundings. He revealed the terrifying size of every polar bear but was insufficient in weight. Within the world of white, cold, fury, he was imprisoned this season and had been denied substance. His hunting skills were not fully developed through the loss of a teacher in his life. His mother and his brother had both been viciously robbed from him into the savage nature of another season. Food tantalized him and was ever elusive, and he mainly relied on vegetation. Now he was marching along with starvation. Though his blood lacked the nourishment and warmth of devoured flesh, it continued to race though his body, declaring a message of impending doom. His skin shook in fear as his fur clung to it for want of mercy from the beatings of the wind that caged him. His limbs pleaded for surrender to the fury of nature, but he ignored the cries of his body and continued walking though the white tormentor.The male fox arose to see him emerge around and above the rocks just meters away from them. Blindly he had walked towards their scents, and now his senses were aroused to reveal a suitable meal in front of him. They had discovered their situation at the same time but did not see it in the same way. The fox was now a creature caught off-guard, betrayed by the ice, the rocks, the clouds, and the wind that now were quiet as judges choosing a verdict to declare and enact upon their subjects. The bear felt relief, though several paces away and inches from his own demise, the sight in front of him was an offering given up to him so graciously he would never refuse it. And though his life before was crawling out of him, he felt an intense rush of joy smother him. He rekindled his desire to live and moved slowly to accept the obviously willing and appreciative act of generosity. The female awakened, aware of the airs tense solidarity, and found herself as her mate surrounded by the rocks and a famished polar bear. By instinct, she backed away from the bear while her mate stood matching the stare of ferocity the polar bear possessed. Cautiously she made for the narrow escape between the rocks, hoping her husband would follow. They could retreat into another hidden area of solitude. Their forthcoming family could be raised within the caves of the grey mountains. She saw the bear advancing slowly. She sensed him already tasting their bodies, warming himself in light of forthcoming nourishment. She could escape easily; her mate was not following as quickly. He lingered fixed on the scarlet and white eyes of the bear and his ears filled with its heavy breathing.The bear was coming at him his eyes clearly expressing a determined desire to completely consume the living things he faced. His hunger cheered him forward to never stop until his mouth flowed with the warmth of red, bittersweet, tissue garnished with the softening winds. His mouth burned aching to be cooled by the tender snow christened with his fallen prey. The cold as his tormentor became silent and backed away in the face of now an adversary against all that had oppressed him. His fur now danced around him manifesting the fames inside of him that fueled his dying body onward closer to making the satisfaction of his body’s needs inevitable against nature’s fortune.The fox was just as adamant about his future. He bristled with the same fury that neither he nor his mate would be hunted, pursued, or consumed by another sharing the white likeness of their bitter environment. He wanted to give time for her to escape, carefully, so as not to disturb the unborn infant inside her. So he stood there as determined as the bear dragging himself forward to live to see that family come into being within the arctic. He continued to face against that bear, the fire in his spirit rising in want to live here. There would be no life taken, no darkened stain or crimson blemish to fall over the pale landscape, where the winds would wipe it away and the rocks would etch in no memories that day. He glared against the polar bear’s as if to overpower the beast’s determination and he would retreat as a shadow of the arctic valley.The thin, giant creature stopped just a yard away and lowered his head. Still peering into the eyes of the fox within his fiery savage desire engulfing within him he gave another stare into the animals face. His strength escaping him along with the warmth inside his body and his breath charging like bursts of thunder he viewed the fox from another level of animal thought and expression. By instinct a latent language came out of the polar bear’s expression. It appeared to the fox that he was pleading, yet it resonated within himself: this feeling so ancient that it was not known to his species, but by his descendants. The polar bear was communicating out of a desire that all animals possessed several generations ago when they inhabited the Garden of Eden. Where they lived in the most perfect realms of peace, where there was no fang, claw, or talon set against another’s life. There they had the ability to share, to give willingly their unlimited resources to one another. There, the animals would live caringly.The polar bear pleaded to the fox to for just once return to that era of mutuality, though it was poisoned by the fang in nature that grew when the garden was lost from the entire world, when it was lost from mankind, and when it was lost to the animals. He glared with those eyes to make the fox remember those days’ eras ago. The polar bear pleaded that the ability to give and to care for the well being of a fellow animal would come back with a passion into the fox. He wanted him to remember those times where animals shared all they had to each other, where resources never expired or fell short of anyone from thriving. The bear pleaded as if from heaven to the resource before him, to share all he had with him-his flesh, his essence-let it all given out of caring-that it could be devoured quickly and gently released for the nourishment of all of nature- that he, the polar bear, could thrive.And despite that fang of the wild, that urge to survive and be self-reliant, and to never yield even to his species in order to get by, the fox felt this ancient way of life. He felt empathy towards the bear and his needs. This seemingly old-fashioned lifestyle began to grow and make sense within him. The pain of the futility of such sacrifice was losing its intensity. Soon after staring into this plea all of his burdens seemed to sag off of his life out of such a request that got simpler each moment. The bears head hung lower and his body quivered as if it were ready to collapse as he came inches from him. His eyes had lost much of its red tinge and the snow surrounding them became moist. At that time pity regained itself as a feeling within the fox’s heart and he almost broke down completely. Compassion burst through his survival instincts like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon.Then he remembered his mate. She could still bring his seed into this world despite his sacrifice, and he would still have a presence within the arctic. Yet the fox could not bear to miss that peaceful affection they shared. That bond he had with mate, that bond of wanting to care for his family pulled him from the state of being a willing resource for the bear and back into that passion to thrive with his mate. He leapt back, noticing that she finally began to retreat through the rocks. He glared and snarled ferociously smashing any remorse or empathy he once had for the polar bear staring at him as well as into starvation and replaced them with his own selfish desires.The polar bear saw that he fox had ripped his plea to shreds and his desperation lasted only a moment until it switched into fury against him. The savage fang of nature overcame him and pushed his body to make a final strike against nature’s first bitter judgment against him and lashed out with the last remaining warmth in his blood. The female turned to be the second witness of the verdict given by this world of ice. The bear’s claws came with his meager weight upon the fox, and almost tore him in half. The bear then collapsed upon the fox, and began to lick the bloodstained surfaces in an attempt to revitalize his body.The female fox fled into the mountain caves. She lay there staring into the arctic. Nature seemed to continue to move without any trace of satisfaction or discouragement of the outcomes. The snow and the wind were as ever calm, and the clouds were as ever grey and sky as ever blank and vast. She stood up and howled against the world’s silent judgment, and continued to lay there silent with the world as if waiting for a response. The wait was long and weary. She lived within winter’s silent shadows for months on end wandering in the same silence as the trees that never swayed to any time. She gave back the same stare into the rocks whose foundations were never moved by any moment. She moved passively as the partly frozen rivers, gliding through time chancing every turn flowing around and through every occurrence that may get in front of them and her. Her life had become as blank as the sky, and as forbidding as the clouds. Yet in all her attempts to speak to nature in its own language, it continued its silent march right through her, as if her loss had taken her outside of this land of ice and she no longer was accepted into winter’s culture. Still she stayed persistently waiting for her answer, acting within the arctic theatre.Soon time eroded through the grey fortress of winter’s solitude and the life and the joyfulness of spring burst through the arctic region. At that time the response came. The valleys once sculpted by the forbidding ice now bloomed with welcome. The mountains radiated warmth and comfort and ushered in peaceful winds. The sky brightened over all the land and smiled on the rivers while they raced through the terrain. The creatures, the rocks, the waters, the grass, and the trees continued to move now in a dance-like trance. The warm hearts of those creatures continued to beat passionately for the life in the arctic. Their reason for their passion now renewed itself in the coming of their long expectations, they burst into bloom out of the dark shelters that kept them away from a darker force, and embraced life’s new stage of green forests and soothing geysers. They began life again outside of where they slept for days under winter’s blanket without any hesitation over the mundane tasks of life forced upon them; despite the changing season. The world over there renewed their lives replenished with winter’s sacrifices being reborn into the earth and the animals of the green valleys.At that time, the response came. The small, white fox saw her reply, not in the reborn season, but in the birth of her own two infants. Their eyes were closed, and they placed all their trust in their mother before them. Their attempts at movement were all in order to snuggle nearer to her. Though their senses slowly made them aware of what was around them, nothing could hide the love that embraced them and nourished their bodies. As thoughts slowly began to form into their minds, they began to admire, respect, and even adore this creature that could administer such willing devotion for their well-being. They began to issue short, quiet noises for her. The mother could understand them as they are. She heard their whispers of mutual love and adoration and saw tiny smiles form within their faces. She nursed these two messengers of the end to her silence with as much love and compassion she had showed her mate. The small, white world continued its silent progression through her life, yet now she lived to bloom as the yellow mountain flowers now covering the pale winter rocks facing a wilderness of clear waters. Satisfied with the response she had been given, she began to guide her kits to move passionately with the rivers and lakes, the trees, the rocks, the land and the mountains, and the dew of the grasslands, made out of the snow from the blue mountains.
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