2025 Competition
Third Prize
Christopher Horton
Badger Man
Fixing and restoring cars became second nature.
His father taught him how to deftly remove
a serpentine accessory belt, to replace a crankshaft.
Other more complex procedures were learnt
from manuals but the core skill of how to repair a car
was based on years of watching and taking notes.
What got him going was the completeness of the cars
on the forecourt, the ones that were ready to be given back,
and knowing his toil had brought them to that point.
The garage he now owned was by two badger setts
and from dusk he lay hidden with his binoculars,
as they burrowed their way from the earth.
Infrared wavelengths could be detected with a night camera
but he mostly preferred to see them in the fading light.
The human eye could register things the camera couldn’t.
He left fruit for the them so they might venture further.
Draped in a thick coat, they still sensed him.
He could walk closer in when they knew his smell.
It was this kind of watching that he never tired of,
each detail of their routine became his own too.
He gave them names and traced their family lineage.
When he came a across a dead badger, laid cold
by one of the sheds, he buried it by his watching point
and said a prayer as the day descended into darkness.
Another time, he found an adult badger’s skull.
It didn’t seem unnatural to refix the jaw then relocate it
near to where he kept all his tools and did his work.