The fox wasn't even hungry. She'd had breakfast. She was just walking by and she saw the grapes.
They were hanging from a vine on an old wooden arbor, deep purple, that dusty look on the skin that means they're perfect. She wanted them immediately.
She jumped. Good jump. Her claws brushed a leaf.
Missed.
Running start this time. Got higher. Almost had them.
Missed.
She tried from a crumbling wall nearby. Slipped. Rocks fell.
A magpie was watching from a fence post.
One more try. The best one. She hung in the air for half a second with her jaw open, inches away from the vine, and then she was on the ground again.
She sat there for a minute. Licked her paw.
"Probably sour anyway," she said. To nobody.
Then she walked off with her tail up, looking like someone who was leaving on purpose.
They weren't sour. She could smell them. She knew exactly what they were.
She just didn't want to sit with the other thing, which was: she tried her hardest and couldn't reach them.
You do the same thing. Not with grapes. The job you didn't get — "would've been miserable there anyway." The person who didn't text back — "they were boring." The thing you gave up on — "didn't really want it."
Your brain does it automatically. Wraps the bruise before you even feel it. You say "sour" and move on and skip the part where you just sit there and admit you wanted something and it didn't work out.
The grapes stayed on the vine. A bird probably ate them.
The fox went home and didn't think about grapes. She was very firm about this.
But sometimes on warm afternoons, when the wind came from that direction, she'd stop for a second.
They were probably great. It's okay that she said they weren't.
Goodnight.