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What is "taming"?
Antoine de Saint Exupéry "The Little Prince":"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."
"'To establish ties'?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."
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The dream changed his life.
In his dream, he was in a fair meadow. The fiery setting sun casted a layer of gold veil over everything in sight, blindingly beautiful. Warm summer winds tousled his hair and whistled through the long soft grass.
It was perfect, too perfect, that Hob Gadling knew it must be a dream.
Amid the grass came a soft rustle. Hob turned.
A great fox padded into the clearing, confident with the air of a King. They were jet black from the tip of their muzzle to almost the end of their tail, which was as white as if it had been dipped into a paint-pot.
They sat a few meters away from Hob, and curled their tail daintily over their paws.
Silence as they watched the sunset together, then it turned to Hob:
"You are the man who has no intention of dying?"
More of a statement than a question.
Hob remembered boasting in his waking hours that Death is a mug’s game, he nodded.
He was aware of the fox studying him in faint amusement, taking in his features, his gold scarf, and the way he held himself. Their eyes are dark pits in which distant stars glittered and burned, and they bore into his soul.
"Then you must tell me what it is like." The foxed mused, cocking their head slightly, "Let us meet again, Robert Gadling, in a hundred years."
Hob wanted to reach out to groom or pet them, but he also knew with certainty that they are sure to feel offended and disappear back into the wild if he did so. The fox has that aura around them, an air of pride, and Hob knew he has to tread carefully.
He chose to smile back, "See you then!"
The fox nodded, so slow it seemed to be a bow.
With that, they blinked, and the sun dipped below the horizon, and Hob’s dream faded to black like the night sky.
Hob woke, slumped amid his friends in the cold, his clothes caked with mud. The morning dew was chill, so he sneezed and wiped his face with his sleeve. Somewhere in a nearby field, a rooster squawked. He was not one to remember dreams, but the dream last night floated up from his throbbing headache and made him smile.
Why had the fox reach out to him in dreams? For he was sure they were some kind of faerie or a god. Hob has no doubt that they know everything about him, but for some obscure reason known only to themselves decided to approach him. Perhaps they were interested in him, or amused, or just bored.
But Hob can’t shake the feeling that they were seeking company, seeking a friend, seeking, perhaps, to be tamed.
There were a distant shadow of loneliness about the fox.
Whichever it was, In a hundred years!
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Why tame and be tamed?
Antoine de Saint Exupéry "The Little Prince":"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored.
But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow.
And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."
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Thus they met every hundred years. And Hob, whether consciously or unconsciously, began his long effort of taming the other.
It is said that words are the source of misunderstanding, but for them, it is not so. Hob talked about everything, and the fox listens.
Every time it was the same place, with them sitting and watching the sunset.
If Hob has talked too long— for he always has lots to share, always in awe of the wonders of life— and the darkened sky is turning light again, the fox would set to fix that. They would blink or swish their tail, and the sun would travel across the sky at great speed. Skipping from dawn to noon to dusk, illuminating everything in a glorious flash, until it is once more fixed from sunset to sunrise.
(Of course, they could make it so that it is perpetual night, but they seem to enjoy the passing and richening of the darkness, as the two stargaze.)
And every time, while Hob talks, he would sit a little closer, and open up a little more. But not so much that his fox would be scared away.
(He has come to think of them as his, his stranger, his fox.)
Taming, doing this long and exhausting and delicate courting dance is tiring.
But Hob Gadling has always lived with passion and love for life, and he is a patient man.
He has a day for every hundred years.
He dreams.
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Why every hundred years?
Antoine de Saint Exupéry "The Little Prince""It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox.
"If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am!
But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . .
One must observe the proper rites . . ."
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Life is not always kind, Hob has his ups and downs, but their centurial meeting kept him going, even at his worse.
He says a lot, and the fox says little. But they do ask questions, sometimes make comments, or even give advice.
By the fourth hundredth year, they’re almost acquainted.
And even though the fox still remains an enigma, Hob has opened up enough, and has sat close enough that should he move his pinky finger he would touch them.
Perhaps, his fox was so ancient and powerful that a hundred years meant nothing to them, that Hob was not even a passerby or a speck in their impossibly infinite life. But taming is tiring work, and a hundred years can leave a mortal man weary, so Hob Gadling finally mustered up the courage to make a move.
"You know, I think I know why we meet here, century after century." He started, heart racing, turning slightly to carefully observe the other.
The fox’s sharp profile showed little emotion, "Is that so?" They asked.
"Yes," Hob replied, too late to back out now, "It’s not because you want to see what happens when a man doesn’t die— you know what happens."
He took a breath, "You’ve seen me at my best and worse, you’ve seen me learn from as well as commit more mistakes."
The fox made no comments, only slowly turned and listened.
"People don’t change, not in the important things. I doubt that I’ll ever seek Death." Hob said, "I think you’re here for something else."
"And what might that be?" Their face was unreadable.
Hob gently laid a hand on the furs on their back. "Friendship," he said, feeling like taking the last step off a cliff, "I think you’re lonely."
The muscles beneath his palm tensed and stiffened in an instant.
They sprung up, quick as a whirlwind from beneath his hand, hair on end, hissing, "YOU DARE!"
They turned and snarled. Teeth baring, brow arching, fire in their dark eyes. And Hob’s heart sank in his chest.
"You dare imply that I might befriend a mortal? That one of my kind might NEED companionship?"
"Yes," Hob said, for he had already crossed the point of no return, "Yes I do."
They stiffened mid-crouch, ears flat, tail swishing agitatedly, "Then I shall take my leave, and prove you wrong."
With that, they turned and disappeared into the long swaying grass without a backward glance. The final tip of their tail flicked once and then was gone.
"Tell you what. I’ll be here in a hundred years’ time. If you’re here too— "
Hob yelled into the empty grassland as the sky began to pale. "it’ll be because we’re friends. No other reason!"
"Right?"
The sun climbed to the highest point within two heartbeats, everything withering beneath its heat and glare.
"… Right?"
It glowed bigger and brighter in the sky until everything is devoured in its blinding light.
Hob Gadling woke, the dim light of the morning piercing through his curtains.
He lay there on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a while, hands on his chest.
He felt like crying.
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It is the toughest century, the world was shaken and sharpened and changed.
Hob dreamed on that day.
He sat on the hillside and hugged his knees, silently watching the sunset.
Until he drifted awake.
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Why the sunset?
Antoine de Saint Exupéry "The Little Prince""You know--one loves the sunset, when one is so sad . . ."
"Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?"
But the little prince made no reply.
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Somewhat unexpectedly, he was there again. The sight of the sunset and the wind on his cheeks sent a pang of hurt in his chest.
In the last century, he had often dreamed about this place, whether swept here by the stream of the dreaming or seeking it himself. He would sit there from the earliest evening stars to the evening star Yvaine, until he woke. It is his refuge, his harbor.
(This small corner of the dreaming has persevered, even when other dreams fuzz and blur and disintegrate without their curator. For Hob Gadling has so often visited it, as one would polish a treasured trinket. Or perhaps more like how a ring gleams from everyday use.)
But this time, there was a rustle between the bushes, and his stranger emerged. Fur sleek, eyes glinting.
They sat a few paces beside Hob, with their tail over their paws.
There was a moment of disbelief as they regarded each other.
"I wasn’t sure you’d be coming." Hob managed to say while grinning like an idiot.
Something was bubbling from deep within his chest, perhaps from all the bottled-up worry and longing and every other unnamed emotion screaming to get out. Words, his life, love wanted to burst out of him.
"I have always heard that it was impolite to keep one’s friends waiting." The fox, King of Dreams, Morpheus of the Endless, bowed a little in reply.
And they crossed the last few steps to sit beside Hob, and to lean their cheek into his touch.
They sat, side by side, and watched the sunset.
Beautiful as all the others, but even more so with the company of a friend.