The lonely Fox

It was February, and rays of the winter sun glittered brightly on the snow that covered everything in sight. In other years, every animal living in these hills would still be fast asleep in winter hibernation, but this year there was one who was wide awake.

Although the first warm breeze of spring was yet far off. Konkichi the fox crawled up and out of the deep hole that he had dug to pass the winter in sleep. Young Konkichi was deep in thought. Now, before you say that this fox, an animal, could not possibly be deep in thought, remember that a fox, too, has feelings, and cries out ‘Kon’ whenever he is especially happy or sad. A fox these days has many things to be concerned about.

Through a winter so long that it seemed like forever, Konkichi had been thinking and thinking, not closing his eyes to sleep even once. It is no wonder, then, that when he came out of his hole, his eyes were tired and bloodshot, his fur coat was mussed up, and his tail, of which he was so proud, had lost its silvery sheen.

This matter that had Konkichi so deep in thought was well, something about a golf course! A golf course? Just what could a fox have to do with golf.

Since spring of the previous year, when the hill had been dug up and carved into a golf course. Knokichi had watched with envy the figures of humans swinging golf clubs as they strolled around the course. These people, called businessmen, wore smart neckties as they went back and forth to offices Monday through Friday, and when the weekend came it seemed that their job was to come out onto the green hills and have fun hitting little white balls into the air and then into little round holes.