Mr. Buttercup Creates Himself a Fox

In its thirst for knowledge, the rabbit managed to get inside the Natural History Museum just after 3 p.m. Unmolested, it hopped past the watchful old lady at the cash desk as she attempted to explain the merits of the great museum guide in color to a group of Spanish tourists. The human visitors gaped at it, but since it ignored them, they left it alone as well. Only one American woman exclaimed: "Oh, how cute!"

As an experienced cave dweller, the rabbit somehow managed to find its way around the labyrinthine complex. The map in the entrance hall wasn't bad at all. There, for the first time in its life, it saw a stuffed elephant and dinosaur skeletons from the Mesozoic era, relics of the crude primeval life. Feet had the annoying habit of stepping everywhere. In the elevator, the rabbit felt quite uncomfortable between pantyhoses on women's legs and rasping shoes. The elevator stopped with a ping! on the second floor. It dismissed all hurrying and hopping visitors into the realm of mammals. It took the rabbit a long time to find its way through far too many display cases with bones, diagrams and stuffed bodies, but finally it read on a plaque: "The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is the only Central European representative of the foxes and is therefore usually referred to as 'the fox'".

A barrel-shaped body stood behind glass on much too thin legs. The tail was bushy. The whole appearance seemed somehow ridiculous. The rabbit hopped around the corner to get a closer look at the triangle of the face: the nose gleamed black, like a teddy bear's. The white fur on the belly reached up to a strangely delicate snout. The ears were huge. Whiskers bristled in all directions. This was a fox! Only two details were wrong: First, the infernal stench was missing. Secondly, the rabbit missed the typical expression of the eyes. Just the thought made his heart race. Already it felt the urge to pound on the floor and whistle loudly!

By the way, the rabbit was a male and his name was Mr. Buttercup. "Hush now!" said Mr. Buttercup to himself, "You made it this far, now finish it!" He took in information with the meticulousness of a technician: There was a longitudinal section through a burrow. Very impressive! There was also a schematic representation of the foxes' digestive tract, which enabled them to eat mice, rabbits, earthworms, partridges, mallards, lambs, chickens, geese, fruit, carrion, refuse and compost. Mr. Buttercup learned that foxes in captivity live up to fourteen years and a fox (38 chromosomes) can never have offspring with a dog (78 chromosomes).

By 5 p.m. he was done. He hopped under the turnstiles, past all the museum attendants, and through the automatic front door to the outside. It was still cool outside. Mr. Buttercup sniffed the wind full of human smells, car fumes and humidity. As soon as no car was approaching, he crossed the road and made his way back into the forest.

It was dark two meters below the sandy soil on the hillside, where alder trees dug their roots down and a brook rushed by not far away. It smelled of warmth, children and half-digested weed. The narrow cave was filled with a hundred voices: at every step, the inhabitants of the colony pleaded with Mr. Buttercup, whether he had found answers, what he had seen, whether he wanted to stick to the plan known to the whole colony and whether the human city was really full of big carrots. He reached the setting tube with his female and the five cubs from the last litter, who immediately swarmed around him. And his partner, her name was Elderflower, asked, "Do you really have to go?"

In the aisle, the many others kept their distance. Out of respect. But everyone thought that Mr. Buttercup's plan was madness and must bring great misfortune. On the other hand, he was the fox expert. After all, he had even visited the Natural History Museum.

What mischief could such a long-eared cave dweller cause? What powers could he use? The answer is: magic! It spread like a ground fog through the whole forest. Every animal from the ant to the siskin has understood that matter is the same stuff as thought, and an idea that dwells constantly in consciousness inevitably materializes. Mr. Buttercup in his ambition has been making a fox in his dreams since last summer, worked out down to the smallest detail, from the whiskers to the tail. He didn't want just any fox, he wanted the best possible. He wanted to think through the fox and impose it on the world.

"But why a fox?" asked the oldest of the colony, Mr. Rosehip, who was respected throughout the forest. Mr. Buttercup answered with stubborn silence. He didn't really know himself. It might be because the subject of the fox kept haunting him: the death of his father and mother, of fifteen or sixteen siblings, of cousins, and of all degrees of friends and acquaintances: a fox every time! In addition, the task was challenging and he enjoyed it.

"But you must see that a new and better fox will kill many of us. This increases our problem. It doesn't bring a solution."

Mr. Buttercup looked into Mr. Rosehip's mumbling face. What could he object to such a primitive argument, aimed only at application and utility? He thought of the horrible moments when he visited the mangled corpses of those torn by the foxes. Every time he reconstructed the events from the traces, he encountered a certain clumsiness. At some point he had known that he could do it better himself. Was that nothing? Shouldn't everyone be cultivating the skills nature gave them to advance the course of the world?

So it happened that on a sunny day full of birdsong, Mister Buttercup hopped into the clearing where the magic was deepest. Here stood yellow ferns that reached over his ears. The trees stood at some distance all around, as if making room for all that was happening at their feet. Mr. Buttercup sat down in a hollow that could not be seen from the sides in case a hunter came by. Here he crouched on the ground, laid his ears back, breathed evenly, and settled into a state of utter concentration.

He still didn't know if it would work. He began by imagining a moving torso on legs that were far too thin, writhing and slithering, all still air. He imagined the snout with the whiskers, the whole head, an inverted triangle with big ears listening in all directions. How difficult it was to delimit the dreamed form from the airy space! The stuff dreams are made of is changeable and fleeting!

He imagined a beating heart, the network of veins and arteries down to all the ramifications. He could zoom into areas, rotate the fox in all directions, make it bigger and smaller. How exciting and thrilling that was! He gave the fox lungs and blood and hair and eyes, a memory and knowledge of simple things like jumping mice and complicated things like strategies for hunting different animals. All of this put a lot of strain on Mr. Buttercup, as he always had to make sure that the line between the aerial structure and the air and the sunlight and reality didn't blur. But it filled him with deep satisfaction. He savored the foreboding of something big, something psychic, and the approaching danger.

In the afternoon, as the sun threw the long shadows of the trees across the clearing, it all seemed to freeze like Mr. Buttercup's pupils, staring immovably at the sky. The scenery jerked, as if the world were being pulled apart a tiny bit to make room for something new. Mr. Buttercup fell on his back as if a thunderbolt had mown him down. He opened his mouth and showed his rabbit teeth and was tired and exhausted and blissful...

Suddenly the fox was in the clearing. He looked around as if he had materialized on a stage in a theater full of spectators. His yellow eyes darted around. He saw the rabbit lying between the ferns, he felt an emptiness in his bowels, in short: he attacked the rabbit! Mr. Buttercup had time to open his eyes and utter a whistle of terror before the fox tore him to pieces, splattering his blood in all directions. The fox looked around again as if someone had caught him committing a crime. The white fur on the belly was covered with blood. Then he bent down and ate his maker.

This story was written at the end of 2009. It was influenced by some tales by the magical realist Jorge Luis Borges and the title of a children's book about a wolf that I saw briefly but have not read. This is probably my best short story so far...