By: Jennifer Richardson Holt
You would be surprised how difficult it is for me to not force upon you the same ideas over and over. If nothing else, writing has informed me of just how much I think about the things that have a deep impact on me. And every time I see or hear one of these things I immediately think about how much I could write about it and then this little condescending voice in my head scoffs at me that I have already talked about said thing ad nauseum and that I really need to get some new material. I honestly do try to seek out new things to tell you about. I read others who blog and have all these magnificent stories that it seems they are constantly experiencing. While I love reading them, I don’t care for how achingly dull they make me feel my life must be. I don’t have regular occasions where I interact with a stranger and suddenly have the text of a Hallmark card. I must pull from what I know, from what I feel and what rabbit trails my brain takes as I travel the road of everyday life. If you are a regular reader, I want you to know how much I appreciate you for humoring my tales that I am well aware are often return trips to frequented locales. I’ve said all that to say this: maybe, just maybe, the rabbit takes a new path this week.
It began late one night when my daughter and I were taking the dog out for one last attempt to relieve herself before we all turned in for the evening. She’s good about that and doesn’t usually make any demands to go out during the night except for special occurrences (such as we’ll cover shortly.) My daughter and I were out looking at the stars and waiting for our dog to decide to handle whatever business was required rather than sniffing and chewing anything that she could get near her face. In the midst of childlike potty encouragement that was growing into frustration and commands to “don’t eat that” there came from the woods beside my home a sound. Now, allow me to give you some context here. My home is surrounded on two sides by pure unadulterated forest. Not some artificial plot of planted pines (though the foul trees are naturally occurring in the mix unfortunately) but native Alabama forest. Hearing wild animal sounds is not uncommon. But this sound, this sound was different.
I am a wordy person, (I know, stating the obvious) and I have tried repeatedly to come up with accurate descriptors of this noise, but I cannot seem to do it. It lasted a fair few seconds, so I had time to contemplate and attempt to analyze what I was hearing. My first thought, as it is for most animal noises at night, was coyotes. We have a good number of those in the area. However, this sound while it had canine qualities to it, it also wasn’t so very canine. I stood with my brow furrowed trying to figure out what in the world I had just heard as it didn’t fit neatly into the sound files I had in my mind.
I guess my dog’s shenanigans had adequately distracted not only her from hearing the sound as she continued to sniff and root around in the grass, but it they had also apparently taken the fullness of my daughter’s attention as well because she didn’t react to it at all. I just stood and wondered. Then the sound happened again, and it was loud and sounded disconcertingly close. This time my daughter heard it and looked at me with wide eyes and asked if I had heard it. I was still desperately trying to make the sound make sense and assured her I did but was still very much focused on identifying its source.
My daughter was not concerned with identification in the least. She immediately began to shoo the dog back in the house as though a grizzly with a chainsaw had just opened the back gate. She was very distraught at what was clearly in her terribly dramatic presumption, something that wanted to eat the dog and likely us as well. I reassured her it was probably just the usual animals we hear, and nothing was coming in our back fence. She seemed temporarily satisfied with this. I did not tell her that a few days later in the middle of the night our dog woke from a dead sleep under the covers up against my leg to fly to the door of our bedroom that goes to the patio. She was barking and growling and insisted that she shoot outside like a little chocolate bullet. We could hear the sound in the house that she was reacting to, and it was that same sound. My husband asked what it was, and I said I couldn’t figure it out but had heard it before. She barked at the racket and returned to her spot under the covers once I suppose she felt she had accomplished her duty. Fortunately, my daughter had slept through that episode with the mysterious call from the wild.
My husband described the sound as a scream. I am not sure what screams he has heard in his life but in all my days I have never heard one that sounded like that. I am not disputing him, but it really didn’t sound like a scream. It was something else altogether. Of course we discussed the possibilities. It wasn’t the coyotes because they have pretty obvious calls, or if it was one, the poor fellow had something severely wrong with him. We discussed the possibility of bobcats but after listening to some examples, I knew that wasn’t it because those sounds are very clearly feline, even when they are very screamy. Panther was mentioned and while not out of the question, that option isn’t very likely. And of course, in all these discussions my daughter became more and more convinced that the dog, all 11 pounds of her, was in grave danger. I wasn’t particularly worried, but I was terribly intrigued to figure things out.
It was a coworker that suggested I look into the noises of foxes. I admit I was skeptical but not long into the research I discovered the sound. It makes sense really since foxes are obviously canine but have a lot of feline qualities as well. Of course, they would be able to make a sound that seemed to be the muddling of different creatures. We were all happy to have the conundrum solved and some of us were especially happy to know that the dog was safe, confirming what her parents had been trying to convince her of all along. So now when I hear strange sounds in the darkness, I know what I’m hearing, and my daughter can visualize an adorable red fluff rather than the demise of all that she loves. It seems a good upgrade I’d say.
Prose and Possibilities 