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An innkeeper sneezes. In that time, he lives another life as a fox.
—@MagicRealismBot
An innkeeper sneezes. And I mean hard.
An innkeeper sneezes so hard a window creaks open.
A shingle flies off the roof.
The flames in the fireplace snuff out, and the hot coals murmur to themselves.
An innkeeper sneezes because he’s allergic to something.
That something is a fox.
And when he sneezes, he and the fox switch places.
Fox facts: it is quick, how fast you are out the door, as if there is lightning inside of you.
You feel it buzzing and blitzing—this internal static energy.
You jolt and slink and find yourself soon inside a forest.
Fox-you.
New-you.
❧
A leash of foxes awaits you.
A whole family of foxes.
Not a pack, but your fox-wife and the last of a litter: a single red fox-boy with eyes bright white as a fence post.
You feel the spines on your tongue raise when you see them. A little flag goes up in you: love.
You love. They love.
You see the world differently, as fox-you.
You can actually see the earth’s magnetic field. A dark arrow in your eyes, pointing north.
This is dope! you think.
You use it to line up your prey. When the sound and the shadow line up. When the sound and the shadow line up. When the sound and the shadow. The sound and the shadow.
You pounce. Your teeth are sharper than you expect. After you open them, you swallow them up.
You can feel it in your mouth, your tongue-spines, your meticulous little foxgloves.
When you get home to your leash of foxes, you have nothing to show.
You go out again at night.
Every night.
A whole year you hunt in the dark.
❧
Before you know it, it’s winter.
Your little red fox-boy grows up and abandons you. And you abandon your fox-wife. And you abandon your old life as an innkeeper. How stupid a life was that, you think, encircling your new-body with your tail, digging a new home for yourself in the hard, cold ground.
You like being alone, don’t you?
You like the idea of disappearing into the snow.
Winter lasts a long time. The trees are frozen solid. You leave neat little blood-prints in the snow after a kill.
A part of you remembers the concept of fire, how it gave light and heat. But new-you spends his whole life in the dark, or underground.
You sort of remember what it was like to have hands and lips.
You sort of remember what ‘dope’ means.
And a part of you, the old-you, ancient and seemingly buried, starts to sleepwalk your little foxgloves towards a village. Sleepwalks you towards a window, where an innkeeper sneezes so hard his heart gives out.
A shingle falls off the roof.
You watch from the bushes when they bring out his body to bury him.
You see the place they chose, the hard earth they loosened with shovels, so it’s easy, really. For you to dig towards that body in the night.
What the hell am I doing? you think. Fox-you. Was there ever any other? you think.
You don’t know. You don’t know what to think.
But your body is digging insistently. You are curious. That’s a fox fact. Foxes like to know things. Foxes explore.
You explore your way into the casket. Under the hands that are so familiar that touching them brings you a memory of being back in that body. Of petting someone’s soft hair. Of shaping bread. Of squeezing coins. Of lifting heavy things with a basket.
You’re not sure if you’re the fox or not, if you’re breathing or not. It’s so quiet you can’t even hear your own heartbeat. It’s surprisingly warm. It’s new.
You bask in it.
You are as singular/plural as you’ve ever been.
Melissa Goodrich’s The Innkeeper appears in Flock 21.
An innkeeper sneezes. In that time, he lives another life as a fox.
—@MagicRealismBot
An innkeeper sneezes. And I mean hard.
An innkeeper sneezes so hard a window creaks open.
A shingle flies off the roof.
The flames in the fireplace snuff out, and the hot coals murmur to themselves.
An innkeeper sneezes because he’s allergic to something.
That something is a fox.
And when he sneezes, he and the fox switch places.
Fox facts: it is quick, how fast you are out the door, as if there is lightning inside of you.
You feel it buzzing and blitzing—this internal static energy.
You jolt and slink and find yourself soon inside a forest.
Fox-you.
New-you.
❧
A leash of foxes awaits you.
A whole family of foxes.
Not a pack, but your fox-wife and the last of a litter: a single red fox-boy with eyes bright white as a fence post.
You feel the spines on your tongue raise when you see them. A little flag goes up in you: love.
You love. They love.
You see the world differently, as fox-you.
You can actually see the earth’s magnetic field. A dark arrow in your eyes, pointing north.
This is dope! you think.
You use it to line up your prey. When the sound and the shadow line up. When the sound and the shadow line up. When the sound and the shadow. The sound and the shadow.
You pounce. Your teeth are sharper than you expect. After you open them, you swallow them up.
You can feel it in your mouth, your tongue-spines, your meticulous little foxgloves.
When you get home to your leash of foxes, you have nothing to show.
You go out again at night.
Every night.
A whole year you hunt in the dark.
❧
Before you know it, it’s winter.
Your little red fox-boy grows up and abandons you. And you abandon your fox-wife. And you abandon your old life as an innkeeper. How stupid a life was that, you think, encircling your new-body with your tail, digging a new home for yourself in the hard, cold ground.
You like being alone, don’t you?
You like the idea of disappearing into the snow.
Winter lasts a long time. The trees are frozen solid. You leave neat little blood-prints in the snow after a kill.
A part of you remembers the concept of fire, how it gave light and heat. But new-you spends his whole life in the dark, or underground.
You sort of remember what it was like to have hands and lips.
You sort of remember what ‘dope’ means.
And a part of you, the old-you, ancient and seemingly buried, starts to sleepwalk your little foxgloves towards a village. Sleepwalks you towards a window, where an innkeeper sneezes so hard his heart gives out.
A shingle falls off the roof.
You watch from the bushes when they bring out his body to bury him.
You see the place they chose, the hard earth they loosened with shovels, so it’s easy, really. For you to dig towards that body in the night.
What the hell am I doing? you think. Fox-you. Was there ever any other? you think.
You don’t know. You don’t know what to think.
But your body is digging insistently. You are curious. That’s a fox fact. Foxes like to know things. Foxes explore.
You explore your way into the casket. Under the hands that are so familiar that touching them brings you a memory of being back in that body. Of petting someone’s soft hair. Of shaping bread. Of squeezing coins. Of lifting heavy things with a basket.
You’re not sure if you’re the fox or not, if you’re breathing or not. It’s so quiet you can’t even hear your own heartbeat. It’s surprisingly warm. It’s new.
You bask in it.
You are as singular/plural as you’ve ever been.
Melissa Goodrich’s The Innkeeper appears in Flock 21.
Melissa Goodrich is the author of the story collection Daughters of Monsters, the poetry chapbook If You What, and a collaborative collection forthcoming from Goldwake Press in 2019. She earned her BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University and her MFA in Fiction from the University of Arizona. Her stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, The Kenyon Review Online, Passages North, PANK, and others. Find her at melissa-goodrich.com and tweeting @good_rib.