The largest single example of a wild creature in the English countryside is the magnificent emperor stag which can be found on Exmoor.
Or, rather, he could be found there up until a week or two ago, when he was shot dead by a hunter. The great emperor's antlers are presumably now sitting over someone's fireplace like a halo - a testament to the powerful beauty of nature, and humanity's knack of curtailing it.
The strange thing about the death of the stag, though, is that no carcass has yet been found. The newspapers in England have all reported the incident as a fait accompli without any corroborating evidence.
This is the victimless crime; the murder in cold blood without a body; the accusation without proof. Subsequent back-tracking from the papers suggests that the stag has been sighted, alive and awe-inspiring. So what's going on?
There is a narrative here, and whether it's happened by accident or not, it differs from what I understand to be the usual position of a cynical and mocking Press. Or, perhaps, your author is feeling too sensitive to reason with at the moment, and observes the world through an improbably soft focus.
It's like the plot of a Hollywood film, observed through the prism of the one group of people (journalists) who like good-news stories the least. Never can a journalist be more true to their profession than when they are writing an obituary with its solemn black border, and the flaring capitals which read: DEXTER THE EXMOOR STAG 2004-2010 - the gentle giant with his glorious turrets who was snatched away from us all too soon. We're offering a bumper reward of £20,000 for anyone who leads us to Dexter's killer. Call the newsdesk on 0208....
Yet the kink in this story is that the stag might still be alive, and we are thus no longer able to project our loathing onto the banker or hedge fund manager or Premiership footballer's agent who perpetrated the crime - a member of the moneyed, insulated classes who are the subject of much distaste.
The stag is a metaphor for everything that we feel has been taken away from us by distant, anonymous figures - our civil liberties, even more of our meagre wages, and our proximity to nature, eroded by boredom, technology, and the pressure to step into line by effacing our ugliness and insignificance with a quick shot of money.
But look: he lives! in the same way that we too persist, even as (we are sure) our lives are being progressively reduced to a nub by forces beyond our control. The stag is, if you want to believe it, a message for the 21st century, along with the birds who happily divebomb from telegraph poles, that all hope is not yet lost.
