A brush with perfection
A wolf's encounter with a fox leaves him contemplative after disembarking.
Why hadn't he said anything?
The wolf paced up and down the vestibule of the bus terminal, narrowly dodging bustling passengers, his mind elsewhere, on the fox he did not know, and never would.
He saw him from across the aisle, the sun's rays making his fellow bus passenger's ochre fur glow distractingly as the wolf looked up from the novel whose title he'd already forgotten.
He'd seen plenty of foxes before, but this had to be the Platonic form come to life -- everything about him was perfect, from his slightly rounded ears, to his finely tapered muzzle, to the bushy tail curled up in the empty seat next to him. Looking at this stunning creature made the wolf feel warm all over, his chest rising and falling as he became suddenly aware of his breathing, and how heavy it had become.
The fox was not quite sleeping, but he didn't seem to be alert enough to notice the wolf who had now turned to stare at him shamelessly, eying him up and down like a tasty morsel he'd hoped to snap up. As the wolf spied on the fox more closely, he noticed that this oh-so-perfect fox did have some features to distinguish him from the Platonic form he so clearly resembled; his muzzle had the habit of twitching every few seconds as he dozed, and every time it did, the wolf's breath caught in his throat, at least for a moment. The fox also had a slight nick in his left ear, as if some creature had bitten him long ago, and the fur had had plenty of time to grow back, like grass after a brushfire.
The wolf found himself lost in thought, trying to imagine how some beast could dare mar the perfection in front of him, but a cloud's passing in front of the sun shook him from his reverie as it interrupted the gods' rays shining upon his subject's vulpine, ochre fur. Suddenly, the fox looked plainer, less ideal. More like the college student he probably was, mathematics textbook spread forgotten in his lap, and less like the fox of his (many, many) dreams.
Just then, the gruff voice of the bus's driver crackled on the intercom, causing the fox to stir long enough to turn away from the lupine voyeur he still hadn't noticed.
"Next stop, Beaverton. We'll be pulling in to the terminal shortly. There will be a brief layover before we continue on to Spotted Cove," the driver said matter of factly, as he probably had hundreds of times before.
"Ah, Cerberus, that's my stop," The wolf thought to himself. He wanted to see that fox's perfect face again. He felt like he was already forgetting the details, and he was rueful the physiognomy of that handsome vulpine had not been seared into his brain by the intentness of his earlier gaze. The fox stayed in position. Clearly, Beaverton wasn't his destination.
The wolf's ears twitched in response to the screech of the bus's tires as it pulled into the terminal, the fox now cast into shade as the awning of Beaverton's bus depot overshadowed the window that had so nicely highlighted his features earlier. The wolf closed the book he'd been reading, not even bothering to mark his page, and stood, gathering his things quickly and hurrying off the bus, suddenly conscious of the strangeness of the connection he'd felt to the fox who was a stranger to him.
The bus's doors hissed shut shortly thereafter, and the wolf knew he'd never see that fox again.
Why hadn't he said something? He knew calculus, he could have asked about the fox's studies, or made some lame joke about lying tangent to his curves if he wanted to make his not-quite-innocent intentions *very* clear. But somehow, he knew it was right not to rouse the fox from his rest. Waking him would have made him real, would have revealed his flaws, surely something more substantial than a nick in his ear. Somehow, the wolf knew that if he'd heard that fox open his muzzle, the spell would have been broken.
"It's better this way," he admitted to himself, finally.
The wolf headed out from the bus depot, back into the sunlight, now content having experienced a brush with perfection.