Lame Fox: The Allegorical Backstory

Lame Fox was once the young leader of the Fox Clan and had on many occasions rescued his clan from near starvation and had twice saved them from the loss of the clan’s ancestral land (by invading mortgage lenders, of course!).  At that time he was called simply ‘Horse’ after being nearly trampled to death by one as a kit. As the years passed, the fox people led their comfortable mundane lives while Lame Fox’s reputation grew. There were those in his small band, however, who were envious of his achievements. Obsessed with power and control, beyond their myriad other selfish, petty concerns, four of them, (who will remain nameless but will in the future only be referred to as “Codependent Party Of Four”), had spent a long winter devising a way to rid themselves of Lame Fox forever.

On a pleasant spring day while Fox was out foraging in the forest, a large group of his back-stabbing kinsmen sprang from the trees and from holes in the ground. The ambush was well thought out and he was sorely outnumbered. They beat him and cut him mercilessly and left him for dead in the swamp with his neck broken in six places, sure they had seen the last of him. They returned to the ancestral land and, without batting an evil eye or missing a beat, the codependent four took up residence in Lame Fox’s lovely home that had taken him many years of blood, sweat, and tears to build.

They continued on from then as if nothing untoward had transpired, whilst spreading vicious lies (no one was buying) about Lame Fox and trying to convince the others that the clan would be better off without him.

Wet and shivering at nightfall, and in excruciating pain, Lame Fox gathered all of his strength and pulled himself up out of the swamp and into the hollow of a giant Bur Oak. There he layed still for six months nursing his wounds, taking what sustenance he could from his immediate environment (acorns and bugs, mainly). Slowly, he began to heal. He regained the straightness of his neck as the bones mended of themselves, and little by little the feeling began creeping back into his nerve-damaged limbs. When he was able to move about, he fashioned himself a crutch from the same oak he now called his home, for his right leg was still a bit wobbly at times. As the leaves were starting to turn the beautiful reds and golds that mark the change of the season, he prepared himself for the winter by gathering firewood, acorns, and hunting for a cache of small game. In this fashion, he grew stronger by the day.

He was quite contented during the winter in his new home. He enjoyed the comfort of his small fire, and the quiet solitude away from the low-life’s who had betrayed him. Those same who had professed to love him. By the following summer he would be stronger than ever.  He would still carry his crutch always as a reminder (and as a weapon). He would gather together a new band…and one day he would be avenged sevenfold.

THE END

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