How Folktales Come to Be

Thought I’d share this real quick before I dive back into editing today. Turn the lights off. Make sure everything in the house is silent. Close your eyes and imagine that it’s late at night, or the wee hours of the morning before the sun has risen, and you’re still asleep. Then click play (do not do this at work — it’s loud!):

Chad and I have heard this sound from time to time pretty much since we moved into this house. We’ve never been sure what it was — maybe a neighbor with a weird taste in music or really bad skill on the theremin, or a police siren on its last legs, or one of those sonic machines that’s supposed to prevent tornadoes. All we knew was hearing it late at night, we could understand how certain myths and folktales came to be. When the fox took up residence under our back shed last year, we suspected it might be her. Yesterday morning, Chad confirmed it. At about 6:40 am, we were both woken up by that same eerie cry. We checked to make sure all the cats were okay, and even peeked out the window to see if anything was outside. But it was too dark to see anything — yet. I went back to sleep since I’d been up until midnight editing, but Chad stayed up to get ready for work. When the sun finally came up enough to see outside, he said he could see the fox running laps around our circular driveway, making this cry the whole time. She kept it up for about an hour.