Foxes

Foxes are part of the animal life returning to human spaces after the collapse of civilization. The narrative first places them in an imagined scene of nature judging humanity, then sets that language aside: fox cubs play beside a dry fountain, unaware of the history people might have read into their presence.

A Presence in the Reclaimed City

Near the end of a day spent searching, Ish passes through a detour around areas where the dead lie and returns to the house on San Lupo Drive. Elsewhere in the same account of the changed landscape, fox cubs play beside a dry fountain in a square, while a spike-buck grazes farther from the thicket and Quail hatch eggs in tall grass by a sundial. The fountain and sundial remain as human-made features, but the animals’ activity no longer depends on human use or attention.

From Prophecy to Ordinary Life

Foxes also appear in a passage that imagines animals rejoicing at humanity’s fall through the language of the prophet Isaiah. The narration then rejects that imagined triumph: no one will speak or remain to think those words, and the book of Isaiah will moulder unread. The fox cubs’ play gives the contrast a concrete form. They neither pronounce judgment nor register humanity’s absence; their presence matters because life continues without the human meanings once imposed on it.

Place in the Ecological Change

The surrounding account describes the eventual disappearance of domesticated Sheep after the loss of human care, as they struggle to find water and face predators including Dogs, Wolves, Coyotes, Mountain lions, and Bears. Foxes are not named among those predators, and the passage does not assign them a role in the Sheep’s decline. Their distinct image is instead that of wild animals inhabiting a former human setting, part of a broader return of nonhuman life to places shaped by civilization.