THE COMMON EGG
Ananke the red fox made permanent residence at Station Road on Corfe Castle. There She spent her nights as the Moon of gold attended to Her slumbering form; there She consequently rose when the Moon still kept its post in the wee hours of the dawning day before Her inevitable reunion with the Sun. As the Sun’s silver tails peeked from behind tall oaks and alder buckthorns, She would begin her climb over the Purbeck Hills, moving in a sort of symbiosis with the rousing Sun. They parted in the west where Ananke proceeded to wander through the vast heathland, languidly shuffling through the dense forests, stopping by to bid good night to the harbour shore in the north before inevitably resuming Her trudging walk back from whence She came.
This kept Ananke away from human eyes and their sticky fingers, far removed from the bustling society of shuffling feet and panting breaths – the race notoriously known for continuously hurrying somewhere as if time were an allusive being.
Ananke had moved in this divine order even before current-day Earth shifted beneath Her restless paws. She could’ve continued as such without complaint, as was done eons ago.
Until, deep in April, the Moon remained fixed in place far past its ordained time- frame and the Sun had forgotten to rise altogether; when it finally roused, bleary-eyed and yawning so remarkably, exuding enormous fumes which flattened the ruined castle, and the hill on which it once stood. On that fateful day, Ananke made Her way onto the first platform of the Corfe Castle Railway Station; there She remained unwavering, patiently awaiting its arrival. The train halted to a stop without its usual screech of rusty wheels, toiling wagons littered with dreaming faces. Amidst such peacefulness a form flittered through the aisles, moving with astonishing swiftness and skill. As silent as the slumbering crowds, a child of red-hair ascended down the lowered iron stairs. Its intertwined fingers held out in front of its meek body as it tranquilly approached Ananke, gusts of red locks streaming through the quickening wind. Deeply it bowed, palms remaining firmly clasped towards Ananke as the darkness of its hollowed sockets found Ananke’s phlegmatic form awaiting further instruction as it muttered Vivum ex ovo into the void between them. At Her bidding, it unlatched its trembling fingers to reveal a common egg, oval, plain and speckled. Ananke opened Her jaws to receive this egg, and, as if verbally instructed to do so, the child tenderly laid the egg onto the moist bed of Ananke’s sweltered tongue, swiftly reverted into a red-brested bird and with great haste sped away into the sky as it caught on fire and plummeted down behind the sinking oaks which had a mere blink ago reigned tall and proud above it all.
Ananke the red fox shook Her furs as the world folded in on itself, without so much as a whisper. She remained transfixed, the egg pulsating between Her locked jaws, Her eyelids firmly closing as She readied herself for the first cycle of the great day of reckoning. When the egg gained movement Ananke roused, lowering Herself to the ground as She placed the egg within the warmth of Her tail, which She coiled seven times about this egg and allowed Herself to fall into deep slumber as She initiated the second cycle.
The soft cracking of a shell had awakened Ananke as Her gaze intently focused on the hatching egg. Gently, She blew through the forming crack and the common egg promptly split in two. Out tumbled Everything, and with it the third cycle of the great day of reckoning had ended as swiftly as it had commenced.
The great day of reckoning now exists only as a part of a larger myth, and Ananke is but a figment of folk imagination, a story commonly conveyed in families with red-haired babes, who are as common now as any other.
At Corfe Castle Railway Station where Ananke’s kind looms near, the human society remains as bustling as it ever was. Tumultuous and in a terrifying haste to get somewhere, as they continuously fail to get anywhere at all. There, red foxes are a welcome sight, yet rarely noticed by society at large but rather by those early-birds and night-owls who stalk the station when these creatures tend to emerge, following the same tedious pattern Ananke once did.
Therefore I implore you, if you spot a red fox, or better yet, are fortunate enough to be approached by one, whether it’s Ananke or one of Her progenies; stoop low, bow deeply and with the utmost respect, offer them an egg.
Tiana Moira Moore, 21 York - UK ✯ tianam1002@gmail.com