A Fox at Three in the Morning

A Fox at Three in the Morning

I was in bed at 3 a.m., trying to keep my eyes closed, but I held them shut too tightly, which made relaxing into sleep impossible, and so I was in bed at 3 a.m., awake.

My wife was in bed at 3 a.m., asleep. She was taking liberties with the concept of her side of the bed, so I shoved her with my knee and then she was awake, but only for a moment before drifting back to sleep, leaving me alone in the world at 3 a.m.

Well, not totally alone.

A fox, somewhere out there in the early morning fog, thought it was a good idea to start screaming. The screams were distant and muted in the fog, so they didn’t bother me all that much. I remembered when I’d first heard a fox’s scream. It had scared the living shit out of me.