I read a recent SF story by Dave Lee, called Code, that fiercely describes groups of future youths who tool around with genetics to become the animals of their choice - an entirely feasible possibility, given our current grasp of quantum mechanics. The curious reader may be able to find the tale here.
Don't know whether it was coincidence, but in the few hours after reading it for the first time I caught sight of an unusual proliferation of animals and birds. From the window here in the dog's room I saw a big she-fox snuffling around the front garden garden. It was half an hour before dusk, and I'd only ever glimpsed her before in the dead of night. Moments later a familiar squirrel shot up an elder full of skittering bluetits. Then a young hedgehog appeared on the pathway. I watched him for a while as he snorted about, looking for his dinner. The notion occurred to me that these creatures were delivering a message to me. From somewhere or other. A warning maybe I guessed.
The hedgehog suddenly made for the front gate, and I pictured him the moment before being squashed under black car tyres on the main road at the top of the street. I can't think of an animal that could defeat a hedgehog's superb defensive technique. The spines are an engineering masterpiece, sharp as needles and pointing in every direction. ('The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.') Without motor vehicles, and allegedly Diddycoits, who some claim roast them in clay balls, hedgehogs could expect to live long and purposeful lives.
I went to fetch some gloves to shift him into the back garden. It's walled, and there's a compost heap where he'd find a very productive worm mine. Even with gloves it was tricky picking him up.
Bearing him carefully along the path I suddenly felt this enormous sense of privileged kinship and responsibility for the little spiked feller - and I thought, this is what Blake meant when he spoke to the worm. Here was the message being delivered.
Enchantment. Remarkable, don't you think?
Here's a song about foxes and snow by the excellent Seattle band,Fleet Foxes. It's currently 165 in the UK charts.
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