A few days ago I saw a dead fox. The train was just arriving at the station and people were getting up from their seats and gathering at the doors to alight. The machine decreased speed and finally came to a halt. One more second of silence and with a highly annoying beeping sound the doors opened. We stepped outside onto the platform and were looking forward to get to the restaurant that held our reservation, when suddenly one of us said: "Look, a fox!"
On the side of the platform, the part where the cobblestone meets the grass, it was lying still, looking very much dead. It could have been just super fast asleep, but none of us believed that. We walked on and, after a few steps of bewilderment, we joked about picking it up and using it as an expensive scarf. Although I was honestly more amused - but amused is not the right word - by the fact how leisurely we were dealing with a subject as serious as death.
"Maybe it falsely ate some rat poison," one of us said after we had kept a minute of quiet. "They distribute that a lot at trains stations, you know." I thought about that and it sounded plausible to me. Not that I was to investigate the death of the fox, but that explanation did the job for me. It made enough sense for me to let it go. The thought of it, and also the question of how it might have died. I'd never met a fox before. Too bad this one was sleeping. Exhausted from fighting the rat poison.
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