#Communication phantasmic full

Off they trotted, jumping and scratching as if nothing had ever happened. It was mid-afternoon when I let my chickens out for one last run on the land, albeit under my watchful gaze. Our grey one is all alone anyway.” Her voice trailed off, and I bit my lip. “Yes yes, bring them this evening,” she said, generous as ever. “Can I give you my chickens? They’re all going to be picked off if they stay here. Yet deep down I knew what I’d always known, that despite it all, Fox wasn’t my enemy. The gridlines of my faith were shifting beneath my feet. Are we going to live by Nature’s rules, or by artificial ones? Are we choosing the riskier living world of quest and adventure, or the ordered death-world of algorithm and program? And it is here we are forced to make a choice. Why her? Why take a little life so innocent and young? These are the questions all of us who live in the bosom of the land must ask. Blackberry thorns were stabbing my butt, and I’d lost the little chick. I was no longer in the human realm but the Otherworld, where trees talk, moonlight casts spells, and spirit foxes do Gaia’s bidding.ĭropping to the ground, I winced. The landscape was something from a fable. My ash tree stood still, soaking up the remaining twilight.

#Communication phantasmic full

Night fell fast, and a full moon began to rise hauntingly from behind Dragonback Mountain. Faster than I can remember, he slipped over the stone wall, and vanished into the shadows of the woodland behind.

Still I kept striding, until I was three metres away. The markings on his face were sheer perfection as he held my gaze. His rusty fur glistened in the evening air, fat tail coursing behind him like a dowsing stick. I stalked towards the mutt, intent on catching him. “You took my chick, you bastard!” I yelled, the anguish fighting inside me. The sky was turning vaporous now and wafting towards the earth, and at that moment Fox and I were all the world. I could feel it all around us, the cool brush of the phantasmagoric. And I sensed that Fox wasn’t just a small red chicken-killing hound. Suddenly, with our eyes locked like that, we touched on another plane. It was a look so piercing, it made me shudder from my crown to the soles of my feet. I suppose I got it, because there was Fox wading through the grass, scapolite eyes staring at a part of me I myself couldn’t see. Clutching at straws – or perhaps their fraying loose ends – I walked down past the barn and the stone wall, to have one last look for Penny Black, or at least some evidence of what had happened. There you were, fur gleaming copper in the early morning sunlight, wrestling with a pair of my jeans before dragging them into woods!Īfternoon was tipping into evening, and the slope was turning the colour ofboiled spinach. Remember that Fox? Remember my trousers? Where are they now eh? Because I saw you, albeit bleary-eyed, as I peered from my bedroom window. Yes Fox, I’d known you were casing the joint since that surreal morning back in July when I’d awoken to a strange noise coming from my bedroom door. Swathed in rows of electric fence, the chicken estate boasts more security than the Crown Jewels, because hey, this wasn’t Fox's first visit. I shepherded the troop up to the chicken run. Penny Black, the little one who had looked like a penguin when she hatched.my favourite.she was gone. A lurching sense of doom flooded my stomach. Priscilla, Cengiz Khan, Amber, and Lawrence. Priscilla the Snow Queen hurtled in my direction, followed by her now adolescent brood. It took me a minute to register what was happening. For when I reached the brow of my dear land, there in the long grass, half hidden by the dry-stone wall, my chickens were bobbing up and down like a handful of feathered ping pong balls. I set off back up the hill feeling fortunate. Good neighbours are gold dust when you abide in nature. “Ah thanks! It’s so good to see the land again! I thought I’d lost it.”īrian turned around, and Julia waved from the jeep before turning the ignition. “I’ll come and cut the rest of those brambles this week,” he said, looking typically sun-thrashed after a summer of hay baling. Reaching the entrance, I handed him a small pot of jam made from some peaches he’d given me days earlier. I ran down to collect my latest winnings in the neighbourhood potluck. “Hey, have a couple of courgettes!” Brian called from the gate.