Missives from Isolation #2 – On Writing

I’m still writing every morning, as normal. It’s actually a bit easier, because I’m a) writing Untitled Boiling Seas Book Two: Maybe Magical Boogaloo, and it’s flowing really nicely, and b) because I’m getting more sleep. It’s amazing how much difference that extra hour makes.

I thought it’d be good to stretch myself in some different ways, though, so I signed up to Curtis Brown’s weekly writing workout. They’re posting a new exercise every week to keep our creative brains alive during isolation, and it’s free, which is very nice of them.

Of course, I forgot about it, so I’m a week behind, but I’m catching up, I promise.

The first week’s exercise was to pick a prompt and just write whatever came into my head for 10 minutes – and then work it up into a short piece. I thought I’d share what came out of my head here. Maybe week 2 will be a post of its own.

If you’re looking for something to do in isolation and you fancy a crack at writing, I recommend this!

It was that fox again – the one with the limp.

She watched it from the window, pressing her face at an awkward angle against the glass to get half a view of the street two floors below. Amber streetlight spilled like dirty honey across the tarmac and the pavement, touching the edges of the houses opposite. It was bin day – recycling – and the green wheelie bins stood like squat sentinels at the mouth of every little driveway, watching over the scattered cars, their paintwork glinting orange and black in the muted, washed-out light of the city night. There was no moon to speak of, no stars, hidden by light pollution and the clouds, and so the sodium glow leached all colour from the scene, turning it into an ancient photograph, all brown and grey.

And there was the fox, bold as brass in the middle of the street. There were no cars at this hour – not that there was ever much traffic up here save just before nine and just after five – nobody out walking, nobody to disturb it. She’d been idly looking out at the distant skyline, the scattering of blinking crimson lights atop distant towers and cranes, when she’d seen it limp cautiously from the shadows, muzzle high, sniffing at the air for any hint of life, or, more pressingly, of food.

She watched it now, seeing it limp across the street, checking each bin in turn but only paying cursory attention. It was wise enough to know that the heavy bins could not be toppled – save by a high wind, as had happened in that storm the previous month. She’d not seen the fox in the night then, but she’d seen the feast he’d made of the scattered rubbish in the morning. That night he’d eaten like a king.

He hadn’t had the limp then. That was new.

She thought of the fox as a ‘he’ even though she hadn’t the faintest clue if he was such. It was in his bearing, the broadness of his shoulders, a slight bluntness to his snout. A lady fox, she’d always thought, would be sleeker, more slender. But regardless, the limp was a new thing. She’d noticed it first two weeks prior, and it had been bad then, clearly a fresh hurt, the fur still a little matted with blood. She’d almost made to ring a vet, ring someone, but by the time she’d reached her phone the fox was gone. The next time she’d seen him the limp was there but the blood was gone, and she’d thought no more of it.

But now she looked at the fox properly for the first time in a long time, as he slunk along the street sniffing at the bins. He was thinner, his broad shoulders carrying far less weight than they once had. He spent longer and longer at each bin, and something in her heart broke, just a little, as she realised how hungry he must be. And he’s slower, so he can’t get to food as quickly. He must be starving.

But then she saw him pause, stop, at number thirty-three. She was craning her neck now, the fox almost out of sight. She saw him dip behind the recycling bin – and then a heap of stuff poured out into the street with a dull thump; peelings, bits of fruit, old vegetables, and she knew that the Davisons had gotten the week wrong, again, and put out the little food waste bin like fools. But she smiled to see the food there, to see the fox sniff at it, and –

And stop, step back, and turn to the other end of the street, and raise his muzzle, and she heard the edge of a little howl. And then, from the shadows, she saw a sleeker silhouette step into the street, a slender muzzle sniffing at the air – and behind it three smaller shadows, less than half the size, a little unsteady on too-big feet.

The mother fox peered down the road, saw the coast was clear, and from her window the girl grinned as she saw mother and cubs pad softly down to number thirty-three. Not starving, she thought, as the two adult foxes greeted each other with a silent sniff, the cubs trotting happily behind. Sharing.

She watched, a broad smile on her face, as the fox with the limp and the slender lady stood back, very close, and watched over their cubs as they began to eat.