Page 125 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

his family as in the case of Rosemary and Fern. Instead, Foster decides to live

as a badger, along with his cub, his eight-year-old son Tom.

In Wales, Foster’s farmer friend digs him a sett, the burrow in which badgers live,

on the side of a hill and Foster and his son settle in. Their trials are many,

including becoming nocturnal, eating worms, and staying very close to the

ground. But there are pleasures to be had, like sleeping in the burrow in a

thunderstorm, cradled in the tree roots curled up against each other along with a

dislocated mouse who sleeps in the crook of his son’s knee.

Foster learns a great deal about being a badger. For instance, earthworms form

the major portion (85%) of a badger’s diet. Worms, Foster tells us, taste of slime

and the land. They are the ultimate local food. But not all earthworms are created

equal. Foster has as many descriptives for worms as a wine connoisseur has for

wine; depending on their terroir, they can taste musty, like leather and stout, like

burning rubber and halitosis. He distinguishes between the taste of slime and the

worm itself. Few humans can claim such advanced knowledge. Foster’s list of

comestibles would certainly give anyone’s stomach a turn. But Foster is a

manimal. Most of what finds out about badger life he likes, or learns to like.

That is not the case when he tries to be an otter. Unlike the sociable,

communicative badger, they are not easy to like and Foster has nothing good to

say about them. Emulating one is like being trapped in a disastrously bad

marriage where the spouses are vicious and hate everything about each other.

Still he tries and his efforts are, if not rewarding, revelatory. These animals are

not the playful ones found in children’s books; solitary, food-driven, with needle

teeth, otters are known to rip the testicles off dogs and other intruders.

The title notwithstanding, being a beast is not Foster’s aim. He wishes to

become better at being a human, a father, a husband, a better friend, better in all

his relations. He does not want his kids to live a life in air-conditioned cubicles