Shhhhh.
Smell
Salt? Sweat? Dead bird? Dry blood? You will know shortly. Dont try. No effort. Oh sweet. Poor little one. You are hot and sick. You have vomited up more than a small body should have inside. I know. You are all wet fur and slack jaw. I will sit here. I will not leave. Do you remember that little house on the fringe of the forest? Do you remember when we lived there?
Scent comes into you like colour. The bitterness of milk and charcoal, a draft under the door carries ferns and sweet dew. Clean humans smell gingery and salty. Dirty, theyre like rotting meat in wet grass. Not a bad smell but very strong. Its the skin. Sweat licks up scent on human skin and spits it into the wind. You can smell them before they even get to the forest. They crash around stinking and shouting. Those huge eyes they have. What do they see with those eyes? Nothing at all the way they bash into things! Ive never seen one be still for a breath of wind. Twitching. Even asleep. Ive watched them. Even the little ones. They roll around and sweat. They are exactly like their own pigs. They should fuckthe pigs with the humans. Imagine the children. Fat but very noisy.
You forget you were ever one of them. I would go back if I could but I know I mustnt and now there are others involved. I will sit here. I will not move. I will never leave. But even a gesture, a dancestep can remind me. Sometimes a sound. Flicker of the ear. Its radiant. I have no fear at all now. Death is nothing. You chew on it or else it chews on you. Once when my friend showed me her babies, I would have chewed on them too! I did just a bit. Just to fit them in the mouth. She growled to warn me away. She was serious. It seems cruel to say it. But really its nothing.
I will not leave. I will not even move. You are very sick, I know.
Im very sick now. I thought it would be alright, that it would go on for longer, but my vision started to go fuzzy and I started to stagger, at first only in the dark but then in daylight too. Then I couldnt walk properly at all and I was thirsty all the time. I suppose its bad for you. I suppose its poison. But we couldnt stop.
Its hard to speak about the holes. But theyre very important. When the change begins it comes from the rear first. The arse, the cunt. Excuse me, but thats how you know its working. The haunches push up into the gut and the arse and the cunt rise, become hot, stinging, like eyes. Im sorry to say it. Theres no shame. Its hard to speak about. You have never felt such feelings in the behind. Like being slapped, sitting naked in the snow, licked by a hot tongue. And fluids gush out of you, I dont know what, it doesnt smell that much, its not shit or blood. I swear all of this happens, all at the same time. No effort at all.
It is quieter than you would think. Breezes have a hundred separate sounds. You are in quiet like water. Even running. Youre very light. Sticks dont break under your weight, stones dont scatter, branches swish along your body but its nothing like when you have skin, how they whip and cut. With fur, everything is warmer, drier, lighter. Fur holds everything, softens everything.
It is the happiest I have ever been. Its why we couldnt stop. You forget. The light amongst the leaves is marvellous. The body of another wolf indescribable. The fur is whipped sunshine, like cream, the muscles wood, but honey, the heat. The claws and teeth. They have a special meaning I cant explain very well. Everything refers to them, everything is measured by them, how crunchy it is, or how it would come apart with the claws, how it would separate, even how it will just click against them. Bones, skin, fur, feathers too because we had wild turkeys and sometimes a chicken if you could be bothered with the dogs. Dogs! I once watched one choke to death on a bone. I couldnt believe what I was seeing. Incredible. But for us, even sounds, howling is all about the teeth and claws. If you blow a ripple in a pool of blood, the soft mash off the bone. To chew. Its all very soft and fragrant when you have this jaw and these helpful paws. Everything comes into the mouth, becomes very simple and delicious.
Even if I knew how much it would hurt and how sick we would get. I would have still put on the magic belt. Youre laughing. I must seem so stupid.
She got very sick and I told her it would get better. I didnt know. I thought it would. It didnt make me so sick. We had never been so happy. I miss her. She was so gentle, she would not have hurt a lamb.