Selections from FM GALICIA
25.01
“A fable, that’s all,” is what they say in the mountains when they are inferring that something is not worthy of attention or is trivial. “Tell us the latest fable,” they say on the street as night approaches, when a couple of friends sit by the fountain, enjoying a few beers at the end of a day of partying. It is then that true-yet-fantastic life stories are told, having been passed along by an acquaintance. And literary scholars refer to a fable as a short, allegorical work, in which usually animals, or other natural phenomena, embody various human characteristics, traits and conditions.
For too long, people have abused that last definition of a fable. As a result, an enormous number of mistakes and superstitions have occurred that twist the truths of natural science. Animals have become erroneous symbols, strapped with the burden of human faults and digressions that are alien to them. Yet, this can be looked at from another point of view. Instead of utilizing animals-protagonists when telling human stories, we can simply study actual situations that animals find themselves in and then recognize in those situations that which has happened, is happening, and may happen to us. So here’s a short and true, non-fable story about how foxes acquire dwellings.
For foxes, to live comfortably in luxurious burrows is of paramount importance. But they are incapable of, don’t want to, and don’t know how to dig them. Wonderful burrows are made by badgers— deep, dry, sophisticated, multi-roomed. Toilets and bedrooms are in separate rooms; corridors branch out; there are several entrances and exits. Badgers are born to be builders, while foxes need to find badgers’ burrows and take them over. It is impossible to do this by force. A badger’s jaw is among the most powerful, and a strike with its paw can kill two foxes, along with their babies. But there is another way, another approach. Badgers are extremely tidy animals. They hate— they cannot stand—the smell of a toilet. Foxes take advantage of this. Upon discovering a badger’s dwelling, they relieve themselves right at the entrance. The first time around, the badger gathers the feces and buries it somewhere. And then the foxes do it again. And the badgers do it again. This goes on for several consecutive days. The tired and disillusioned badgers gather their whole family, including their pregnant ones, infants, teenagers and the helpless aged, and abandon their homestead. They cannot take it anymore. They prefer to go a different place and build a new, ideal home—sophisticated, dry and deep. And the trashed, vacated burrow is then calmly settled by the foxes.
Translated by Mark Andryczyk