Rage in Silence

I awoke to a throbbing in my ear. A thump thump thumping. At first thinking 'ohh...I'm hungover. What did I do?", I soon realized it was different this time. A deeper note of drumming. And something else---a smell or sense of something metallic. Mmm...this was not good, I thought. I started to open my eyes and arise....no...not good. Defintely not good. I lay back and felt the coolness. Slightly, through the smallest slits of my eyes, I could see, directly above me, the dark blue with pink---sky. Dawn, I thought. I am outside, on my back, recovering from ---something. As I lay there trying to access my situation, and remain calm, and try to remember---I became aware of a soft, rhythmic 'huffing. Very low and barely ---there---but there WAS a different 'breathing' going on other than my own. I slowly turned my head. First left and then right. Gazing through barely open eyes, I looked---allowing my vision to clear and define. Off to my left..grass and flowers. Slowly turning to my right and hearing the soft rustle of my head as I turned, I saw...just under the tall grass---an orange/brown patch of color. And then---clearly---a FOX!

A fox. Staring straight ahead and laying on a small rise of earth beneath the grass, there was definitely an orange fur, black snout, black and white around the eyes...fox. The turning of my head had started a stronger pounding and though I desperately wanted to watch this little animal sharing space with me, I closed my eyes---and went back to darkness.

When I suddenly woke again and wondered, yet tried to grasp where I was and what had happened, a voice---actually a 'thought' clearly entered my mind---"Another killer. You're surprised or confused? We all know what you are and your arrogance in our world. 'Killer'. That is our title for you."

"I heard the noise last night. One ---and then a second of your machines. crashing down off of the fast plain above us. One descending into the ravine and the other stopping in the grass. And you, and the other, stepping away from your carriers and attacking each other. I just came out to see what it all was and saw the other pounding on you and you, swinging with a part of the wooden barrier above, striking the other in it's head. I went back below. Nothing I had not seen before."

And it came back to me---some night driving dominance. A swerve and attempting to use our cars as weapons, extensions of our ego. It all quickly accelerated from slamming on the brakes and cutting the other car off, to a push off the road and uncontrolled slide into the gravel and grass edge and down into the brush and ravine. I somehow had managed to keep my car functional and stopped. The other had gone over the edge and disappeared. When I went to look, there was nothing to see. The other car had disappeared into the darkness. As I looked around in the night and walked around my car to access the condition, I was hit from behind and knocked down. The other driver had emerged from the dark and was now pounding on my back and shoulders in total rage. I,at first, crawled and then grabbing a hold on the wooden fence that my car had stopped against, I held and then swung a piece of wood at my attacker. I pulled back and attempted to use the slat of wood as a defense, but I could not retrieve it. It had become stuck to the head of my apponent. Or, rather, HE had become impaled on the rusty nails protruding from the end of the wood slat. And THAT was all I remembered until I fell down and passed out.

And awoke to a fox. Speaking inside my head....And as soon as I thought, "This can't be", the thought arrived "Your arrogance. You---all of you---think nothing else that lives on this world can POSSIBLY communicate and and exchange information. Why?Because our voice boxes---or some configuration in our throats does not allow us to communicate the way that YOU do? and therefore we are LESSER beings? Yet 'you', the killers, think it so amusing to see my brethren ----wolves and fox and coyote and even your companion dogs---to see us yapping and howling and chattering t each other. And you do not think we have something to say? Nor you never thought---or maybe you did---that we could exchange information or even simple conversations inside our heads? And WE are lesser?"

And though I knew it was a mistake as soon as I 'thought' it, I questioned--"Why do you keep referring to us--humans---as 'The Killers?" This quiet beautiful creature looked at me----and looked away and closed it's eyes. And then looked back at me, and said "You ARE! That is what you do. Not for food, though we know you feed on us--whichever of us you want. But you kill. For sport. For food. For amusement and without any intent to eat or sustain. You kill with your machines. Running over us without any thought to the lives your machines have crumpled and ended. Your lives alone kill us and bring us out of the air and poison our water and land. And--here YOU are. Killing another of your own because of-----ohh---tell me---what WAS the reason you killed the other?"

And there it was. There I was.....not only having some kind of mind conversation with a fox but trying to defend and rationalize ---humans?---and yet questioning how and why I was even able to exchange this---information?---with another creature WE had decided was not....worthy?

And I could hear the distain---the rage---lived with and accepted yet understood better and deeper than we had deemed possible.

All other creatures lived with and dealt with and accepted the blending of all the different 'beings' and their ways of life.

And we? Killed.......