1.

There is a bird of some sort in a tree. There is a beast of some sort below the tree. The jaws of both animals are wide. There is a circular object in the tapestry, which hangs in the air between them. This image reappears in the tapestry three times.

2.

There is a crow in a tree, its plumage a brilliant jet. Clasped in its beak is a piece of meat, dripping red with juice. The fox prances below, all teeth and cloying grin. It is hungrier than the crow, it is larger, and it is far more cunning. The beast could climb the tree and eviscerate the crow if it wished. But it does not. More than honeyed words and might, the fox knows that it has time.

The fable runs out eventually. The crow, too, knows this well. It clings and clings and clings on to the dripping meat, which bleeds onto the forest floor below.

3.

The event horizon of the fable is discernable as a dark line through the trees. Clenched in its jaws are the two agents of this story: vanity on one hand, and greed on the other. There is no symbolism associated with the piece of meat. The event horizon runs through that, too, denoted by a striation in the fat.

4.

There is a crow in the tree. The crow has an OnlyFans. The crow uploads images of its open, drooling mouth, to which the fox subscribes for 5.99 USD a month.

"The trick," writes the crow in a post-mortem tweet years down the road, "is not to open all the way."

5.

The crow now has a Substack. The Substack is full of meaty opinions. The fox feasts on these opinions. The forest's ecosystem is fuelled by a constant stream of left-of-centre takes at around tree height, as various flight-capable species capitalise on the monetisation of free speech.

Eventually, the crow runs out of options.

6.

I am the crow and you are the fox. We have been talking to each other for months. You compliment me on my latest tweet. I am too distracted to say thanks. In my video calls, my face appears cratered and white, ringed by the jet-black halo of my room.

7.

The crow is replaced by a Javan mynah. The Javan mynah's plumage is not a brilliant jet, nor is it known for its pleasant song. Its eyes are wide and filled with a kind of eternal panic. It is missing a leg. The Javan mynah does not know how it has gotten itself into this mess.

The fox continues to bay. "Your wisdom shines like a jewel in the forest! Your lovely song would grace the morning! Readings from your recent chapbook would enliven this allegorical space, which is, frankly speaking, getting kind of stale!"

The mynah understands none of this, being neither eloquent nor wise. It has no song that it knows by heart, and if it did, it would not think it worth singing. In fact, it has nothing of value to give the forest or the allegorical space, save for a deep and unspeakable ancestral knowledge that beats at the core of its ragged heart.

In this story I sometimes think that I am the fox.

8.

Let's say, hypothetically, that you are the fox, and I am the crow. Your red fur is rich and deep, translucent at the fringes where the sunlight shines through. My plumage is dull and matted and missing in spots from lifetime of scavenging from the garbage cans in the city. I am missing a leg. Your teeth are bright, and very, very clean.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I will be dead in a week. In that scenario, you would agree, the logical thing to do would be to let me die. Let's just say, because it makes sense, that the meat I have scavenged would feed you and your cubs for a week. Would the rational thing to do, then, be to sing?

The meat falls. The fox screams. The mouth of the crow opens, and opens, and opens.

9.

I am the fox, and you are the fox also. We scavenge in the dead forest for survivors. Now and then, a stray cinder burns our paws. At daybreak, we drink from a stagnant pool, black with ash.

Here and again, we hear the distant laugh of a crow.

10.

Six weeks into our relationship, you tell me about your relationship to your mother. You tell me this is not something you share with other people. There is a nervousness at the heart of your soul that prevents you from relating to other people. You think people with healthy blood relations are not neurodivergent enough to trust their own feelings.

I hold you tight through the tears and prosecco. We are always like this when we are drunk, spilling into each other so clumsily, expecting neither reciprocation nor hurt. And yet no matter how tight you squeeze back I am acutely aware that my skin is still my skin and your feathers remain your feathers. We push into each other and only find more of each other and you are acutely aware of this, too.

You wipe your tears on my blanket and ask me how my day is. I push you away. There is no piece of meat in this version of the tale.

11.

In the mathematician's version both agents are perfect logicians. The arrangements of their bodies and the caloric value of the piece of meat become terms in a solved decision grid. All versions of this puzzle result in the crow flying away. "The only winning move is not to play."

12.

Neither the crow nor the fox are aware of the fable they find themselves in. Each creature encounters the other in the woods as a shining presence, inhabiting a realm each thought the other excluded from. They revel in each other's beauty, and the shapes of each other's bodies. They make castles for each other in the various spaces of the forest, from the airy tops of trees to the soft forest floor. Only when the crow finds the piece of meat does its role in the story becomes clear.

13.

There is a mynah that lands on my windowsill every morning after we have sex. Eight weeks into our relationship and you start to draw the curtains. It is one week after recess week and we are too tired to withstand yet another pair of eyes. Every morning I go downstairs and steal two pieces of white bread and a boiled egg for you from the caterer. Meanwhile you put on a new shirt and continue working on your chapbook. We continue like this until the renovation at your place finishes and you have no excuse to stay over anymore.

One day I come back up to find the window open and the mynah eating last night's vegan cassava jerky from the palm of your hand. You're laughing, telling me to take out your phone. Your half-stitched chapbook lies open on your desk. I take a picture of you with my phone. In it, you have your mother's eyes.

14.

I am the crow and you are the fox and your stories are the piece of meat.

I am the fox and you are the piece of meat and your stories are the crow that can never consume you.

I am the stories and you are the crow and the piece of meat is eaten by the fox.

I am you and the stories are each other and the stories are of crows and foxes and pieces of meat.

We run out of analogies, gasping for air.

15.

"You have to give him something," begs the event horizon of the story. The crow shakes its head and laughs. The piece of meat in its beak shakes with it. What reason has it to abandon such power, such teleological leverage?

The fox has run out of words to say. It only knows not to aggravate the crow.

Time passes. The dark line in the tree shifts. The fable collapses in on itself. Neither fox nor crow survives.