Life is inevitably a fickle thing. It can alter in myriad ways that even the best possible thinker wouldn't be able to get their head around it, the variability of our lives is baffling. But I'm not saying that my life has been pleasant in any way, at least in the past. What I'm trying to imply is the fact of how it has changed within a few decades for me. For all my kind. For all predators. I can only compare it with...I don really know what, maybe with a revival? Yes, definitely that would be the accurate phrase to conjure up right now. A revival because I have always thought that there was no elevation from the 'caste' I used to find myself in. Probably it was this way for me because I got used to relenting, to obey the preys. To get along with my owners as somebody once has advised me to do. And you know what? That fact sometimes makes me cringe inwardly but I needed a woman to show me that the path I had chosen for myself was the worst of all possible options. 'People can't own people, people can't treat other people like property, they can't treat us like livestock. But we have some obligations towards them too. We must fight them! We mustn't relent to them! All we do need for this is just the right moment' these were exactly her words that had flipped my entire life upside down a long time ago. And frankly, I don't and never had any regrets of what I have done. Of what we have done together.
Today I'm old and all I can do all day long is scrutinize the present world as it is. Changing rapidly without sparing the ones who don't want the changes to infringe their daily basis, new wars blowing up in backward lands and matter-of-factly, those new conflicts are the most evocative things I experience almost everyday because they especially make me think about the gone past. Also, it makes me pity them. Not only because people die there on a daily basis, but also I pity them their stupidity, I pity their enormous craving for more, no matter how much they already have in their possession, they will always crave for more. Well, as I said before, I've never had much money, if any at all, but an old and worn bastard like me knows that money is quite useless when you're deprived of your freedom.
On the 4th of July, the sun was shining extraordinarily bright. Even for the Tundratown, it has come as a period of 'hot' as the local inhabitants of this district would refer to because the temperature there had exceeded up to 39 degrees Fahrenheit. But still many of them wandered off to some more sunny and warm places like Meadowlands where the temperature reached almost 90 and became sweltering even for the native inhabitants. Some other citizens who liked to bask in the sun but simultaneously being spritzed with a hint of rain made their ways to the Rainforest district where all could be found at once. As for me, I dwell in a pleasant and quiet neighbourhood where most of my neighbours are about my age, some of them even older. My house is kind of stately for me although others tend to call it 'modest', I have my own rights.
As to the district I live in, it's a verge of Meadowlands and Sahara Square which is the reason why the temperature around my lodging sometimes gets unbearable, but hey, I still have the porch to bask in the sun. So basically, to sum everything up, I'm Nick Wilde, an old and sometimes grumpy fox living his autumns years in an inherited house. At least, with some help from my children, I have enough money to sustain the house as it is now because I couldn't even imagine moving somewhere else. And not because the house is two-storied and made of white beautiful wood which particularly reminds me of somebody but it's because this house means a lot to me in terms of its previous owner. Oh, and by the way, I just love that little orchard placed within the boundaries of the house where I can have some fruits sometimes when the trees blossom. Another reminder of somebody I was and still am very fond of because every time I take an apple or a pear one of the trees had given me, I recall it as though it was from her hands. But for now, I have to contain myself because otherwise, I'm going to cry in mere seconds. Now I'm sitting in my favourite rocking chair and regarding my children with their children amidst the beeches and bugeyes in the orchard. Honestly, there is nothing as gratifying as watching your descendants and their beloved celebrating the Independence Day with you because it clearly shows that despite you're ageing, you are not forlorn. And will never be. From my place, I can see them all in order. My oldest son Michael who is a lean grey fox, his pelt is of a dark-grey hue so he wouldn't like ageing in the age of 40. Next to him my lovely daughter Maria is standing, holding one of her paws on her pregnant-swollen belly. She's much shorter than her older brother and her pelt is of creamy colour with a hint of snowy-white hue down her stomach. She's very alike to her mother not only in her appearance but also in her unrelenting and frivolous demeanour. Finally, my eyes wander to my youngest one, a purely red fox just like I am named Travis, a name which I think has no relation to any of the events I've experienced throughout my life. Oh, and by the way, Maria is 36 now and her younger sibling is also past his thirties. Of course, they haven't come to me only by themselves. Michael is standing proud beside his wife, Abigail, a red vixen of the fiery pelt. Maria has come with her husband Marcus who is a tall timber wolf and unlike the rest of the group his pelt is completely pitch-black and the only parts of his body that can reflect any of the sunlight are his green eyes. And for the youngest, he's with his girlfriend Rosie, without children for now but they're trying for them as far as I'm concerned (and I never tried to be too much concerned in other's private lives).
So when the adults are managing the gridiron, I'm basking in the lucid sunbeams with my grandchildren which I have a lot of, fortunately. All of them are foxes, not same coloured though. Three dark-grey, one red like me and two black-and-white, presenting themselves like facsimiles of Ying and Yang and honestly their pelt's colours match their nature perfectly since they are the most even-tempered of the whole bunch. I wake up from my reverie as I observe a little red fox named Olivier, the youngest of my grandchildren open and take out old photo album as well as a metal collar from an enormously big, gilded chest placed in a corner of the room.
-Wow, grandpa what is it? - The little red fox said as he started to eye the heavy steel collar. Suddenly, like a tsunami floods a coast, an innumerable amount of old memories, both joyful and dour, has flowed back into my mind. I beheld the metal object in the kid's paw and took it in my own, thoroughly scrutinizing every detail of it, especially focusing my eyes on the distinctive emblem etched on the worn electrocuting device in the front of the collar. Right after my eyes have savoured the thing, I took an old and tattered book bounded in smelly leather. The book itself, despite the considerable size, wasn't very heavy. And then it occurred to me almost instantly. It was an album, an old album of mine. But before I had any chance to ponder more on it, Olivier asks.
- A collar? what is it for? Tell me, grandpa. - Olivier said with determination in his voice I couldn't resist no matter how I tried because this story surely wasn't one of the jolliest ones I often told to my family. At the same time, it wasn't none of a short one. It was a story of my young life I have tried to get rid of since the nightmare ended but apparently couldn't do so.
-Okay, gather everyone and I will tell you a story.
I take a more comfortable position in my rocking chair as I watch little pup shout at everyone to take place near me. Few minutes passed for everyone to congregate and as soon as my whole family took their places I started.
-So, a long time ago when I was young and handsome...and maybe less grumpy.
Everyone chuckled at that but soon let me continue.
-Olivier my dear, could you open this album on page 17 for your old man?
I didn't have to wait long for a reply.
-Sure thing grandpa!
And when I handed him the thick book the little fox opened it immediately on the page I asked him to. There was only one, ragged photography depicting a bunch of predators namely three foxes, four wolves, one aardwolf and a female dhole. I was one of the foxes standing in the centre and like others, I was clad in a heavy moro uniform, a helmet and I was holding a big, black rifle. But, to my astonishment, it wasn't particularly the rifle in my hands that caught Olivier's and the rest of my grandchildren attention. It turned out that the most interesting things were the collars around our necks, most of them with the same emblem etched on them as mine had. Before Olivier could inquire about it, my other offspring, this time my granddaughter Allie pried in.
-What's about these collars on the picture. They seem to be the same as yours grandpa? I just smiled and fulfilled her curiosity.
-Because it is so, Allie. They were all the same. All heavy and unpleasant to wear.
-So why would you all wear them?
She asked innocently
-Couldn't you just take them off? And where had this whole idea of the collars come from?
To be entirely frank right now, this question somehow made a little angry inside but even despite that, I would never shout at my granddaughter, nor at any of my children and grandchildren. I would never make the same mistake my father had done in the past. So I just reply as amiably as I can.
-That's what the story is all about. But before I continue, Ollivier, please turn the page to 34. There is someone I'd like to show you. I handed the book back to Olivier and he turned the page fastly. Before my eyes occurred
an only one picture I'm fondest of. Olivier took in the beauty and as well.
-Oh my...she's beautiful! Who is she, grandpa? Please tell me, tell me, tell me!
-Ok, ok! Look.
I said, my voice tender.
-It's your grandmother.
The little kid beheld her features for a moment seemed like not saying anything else for now so I went on with my story.
-Where was I? Oh right! I was less grumpy and, and despite the harsh times, I was deeply in love...
to be continued
