Little fluffy feet minced along a winding path covered with grass fresh from the morning dew. The fox ran without looking back. He was looking for something, but couldn’t find it. Hearing a quiet hooting, like a sigh, he silently stopped, lifting his little nose up towards the place the sound came from.
A sleepy owl sat on a branch of an old ash tree. Barely opening one of his eyes, huge as the nocturnal suns, he looked down at the grass in which fluffy spot was reddening, and snored. Moving his ears and looking with curiosity at the master of the nocturnal forest, the little fox paused. But the delay did not last long, and again little legs trotted along this wild path, overgrown with the rarest herbs.
The little fox did not know why he was in a hurry. His little heart was leading him somewhere, to some place he had long forgotten about. A long time ago, when nature itself was only a fabulous vision of an unknown power, when all the animals were colorful spots in the eyes of the Creator, shut in pondering, a tiny spark was lost and hid in these lands, which by then were merely a dust of time…
The fox cub was tired of running and quickly sat down to rest. Looking at the forenoon forest, immersed in greenery, he suddenly clearly distinguished a bell stealing among the grass somewhere nearby. Jerking his head in the direction of the alluring sound, the fox froze. The trill of bells repeated, ringing and playing with countless magical, sparkling grains of sand. Rising high so as not to touch the grass, the legs of the little hunter carried their owner towards the mystery.
The sparkling ringing repeated, and right in front of him, in the spot where the road went somewhere down, the fox cub saw a sky-colored silhouette, wavering like heat haze. Noticing a crouching beast behind its transparent back, the silhouette dived down the edge of a new turn in the path. Pricking up his ears in surprise, the fox took off and rushed after the mysterious stranger.
The sun, the grass, the singing of birds had remained somewhere above. Diving after the silhouette, the fox fell into a lowland, dark from dampness and watery undergrowth. Without stopping, following the winding path, the fox tried not to pay attention to the slipperiness that unpleasantly chilled his paws. Realizing that he had lost sight of the miracle, the fox cub sat down to rest inside the hollow tree trunk lying on its side. Sneezing from moss pollen, which thickly covered everything that the dim light reached, the little fox sighed and began to doze off.
At that moment, a sound was heard behind him. The damp soil played under the fluffy legs, as if somewhere nearby a gigantic bear was snoring. Finally waking up, the fox rushed away from the ground-shaking roar. The little legs carried him like wings, knocking against small cold stones, but the feeling of persecution would not leave the little traveller, and he continued to run.
Gradually, the wilderness parted sideways, and the fox ran out to the river. Being sure that some terrible beast was chasing him, the fox ran as close as possible to the water and looked back. The exit from the dark thicket, widening its bottomless maw, blackened with danger. The ears pressed back, the tail crept up to the fluffy belly. The fox was shaking like an aspen leaf. But the legs of the animal were wiser. They carried him away from that place.
He ran along the river without looking back until he saw a piece of old tree bark swaying on the waves. A jerk and a dive, the movement of dexterous legs underwater, and the little fox reached the patch of safety, presented to him by some good-natured tree. Everything went quiet. The fox’s ears were filling with the measured murmur of water. The world around him was shrouded in thick fog.
The gentle course of the waves rocked him, the grey mist whispered charms, the sparks of anxiety gradually faded within small brown eyes. The little fox sank to the bottom of a dream. Stinging like the first frost, a quiet ringing was heard again. Red ears stood up like little columns, waiting for a sign. The sound repeated, this time louder. The little fox jumped up and shook off the sleep. Realizing that the sound was somewhere on the shore, he jumped into the running water of the river, and, overcoming fatigue, reached the sound hidden in the fog.
Before him opened a damp road, embraced by the veil of a descended cloud. Moving along the road with his little legs, marvelling at the majestic bushes growing by the sides of this mysterious path, the fox went forward. He was moving forward because he couldn’t go back. Only forward, because the fog was thickening behind him, swallowing forests and glades, draining the river to the bottom, crushing the monster that was chasing him in the lowlands…
Counting dewdrops, the mist slowly revealed a silhouette ahead. The little fox stopped in doubt; it was the same mysterious beast he was trying to catch up with before!
This time, the stranger didn’t move and let the fox come closer. Revealing the details playfully, sparkling, ringing, shimmering grains of sand circled around the silhouette… The fox cub came very close, and the silhouette acquired the density and the shape of the same fox cub as he was. The fur of the wonderful fox, of course, differed from his own redness, shimmering with silver of the stars. A smile froze in the eyes, bright green and sparkling, like diamonds.
The little fox sat down beside him, looking at the face of the one who had accidentally brought him to these lands. The silver fox also sat down and looked at the fox cub as if it were his reflection. Having studied the stranger with his sight, the fox wanted to sniff him, but ran into an invisible wall. The fox behind this wall mirrored all his movements, and began to anxiously look for a passage in an unexpected obstacle. Both foxes got tired, and sat down opposite of each other, trying to figure out what was wrong.
The fox was out of breath. The silver reflection also seemed to be tired. Twisting like an echo, weaving out of the canvas of riddles, the answer came quite suddenly, and rang the loudest bell in the world: “It is ME!”
Overflowing with joy as warm as the sun, the little fox rushed to meet his silver reflection and entered it, as if it were soft cotton wool.
There was no more forest and fog; there was no evening, no river, no wall, no reflection… Beautiful, divine, wonderful, surrounded by ringing radiance, the little fox was sitting on the snowy peak of the highest mountain in the world. Silvery, shimmering with the twinkling of stars, fur swayed in the wind, and his eyes, green and bright, like diamonds, looked into the lilac heavenly distance of thousands of suns and moons…
He understood what he was looking for. And trust me, he found it.