Please leave a comment for feedback! What you liked or didn’t like is greatly appreciated.
Out of the whole campsite, it was the log cabin that I hated the most. It reminded me of the reason I was at the campsite in the first place, to do the terrible work my dad wanted me to do. He’d got me like a fish on a hook with promises of— doing just that, fishing and also hiking up the Adirondack. But the dripping carcasses of freshly killed animals inside that cabin was really why I was here. I’d rather do anything than skin those animals, but my old man always said it was what I was meant to do in life.
I dragged my feet around the trees surrounding the campsite, procrastinating on the work I didn’t want to do. The trees were giants then, protecting me from being seen, creatures I could trust in their stillness as they stood tall and silent out of the endless carpet of dried foliage, frozen snow, twigs and sticks, creating little walls I could hide behind. I wanted to find one big enough to hide me as I ran away, only to return when the sun began to dip as my dad finished the day’s work. After some slow and quiet wandering, I found one, stopping behind a tall oak with a wide waist of bark, tracing the endless ridges in the wood with my eyes as they raced to the sky.
“Patrick!”
The boom of his voice made me quiver. It boomed whenever he was irritated with me. I could still hear the fireplace flames licking the air in fluttering motions. There were animals hanging over those flames, and I wasn’t ready to skin them. My chest tightened with anxiety, freezing me. Ever since my mom started chemo, the animals he skinned were his favorite pastime. He was so sure it would make the money he said it would—as long as I helped him, of course. It was his way of guilting me, of punishing me. He hadn’t mentioned it before we came, but I knew he’d bring it up by the end, to twist the knife either way. I didn’t like doing it, he knew I didn’t like doing it— he wanted me to like it, but he’d criticize me regardless.
Before I could move, something else did, crunching the leaves next to me. Breaking through a clump of drying, dying leaves hanging from the branches of a bush near the oak tree, was a small furry paw. My head buzzed, and I leapt backwards, my feet jostling more leaves than it. As its legs reached out, and dug into the earth, he turned his head around the bush. Peering at me with small beady eyes, he almost looked cute, except for the sharp claws that tore holes in the leaves as his paws sank through the foliage.
“Patrick!” roared my father. “Don’t make me come there and drag you! You’re old enough to know when you have to work.” The wolf slowly creeped around what was left of the bush. It opened its mouth as if to yawn but bared its sharp fangs at me— like a snake. I wanted to run and run like I was trying to impress the girl I liked in my gym class. But I couldn’t. I was frozen. As long as I stayed still, I could imagine the wolf walking about, a part of the world, like in a game of Pokémon Go, instead of my mind. I heard my dad’s footsteps behind me, a constant thunder, pounding on the earth, breaking the foliage, trampling the snow. His trampling was when I knew for sure I would get hit. Usually, it was down the staircase back in the shack we called home. There weren’t so many trees back there. Hiding in the trees here, I felt like an animal. At school and home, there were so many expectations— how to sit still, who to talk to, who not to talk to, how to play on the baseball field, how to be a good boy. With the trees— and the wolf, I felt like more than just a boy, but free— wild like an animal.
As I waited for the lightning strike of my dad’s body, I wanted nothing more than the wolf to bite me. I see that a lot clearer now. In the moment, I just wanted to stop slaving away for my dad. I wanted the wolf to jump on me and tear through my skin with its fangs. To hurt so bad that my dad would finally see me. Care for my wounds. Care for me. That as my dad’s footsteps grew louder and his ragged breath more imminent, I’d gasp and collapse to the ground, unable to stand up, a fetal animal in the throes of death or worse, lamentation.
“You’re still standing there!” my dad grunted. “Turn around and face me! I’ve called you six times now—” The wolf skidded its feet at the sound of my dad, turning around and looking me dead in the eye. “—but you have the nerve to stand with your back to me!” It took a long step forward. It’s happening. The outstretched claws stabbed the leaves, sinking its paw. Dad’s breath was like a snowblower, a spitting exhaust, behind me. I could hear it against the roof of his mouth and the insides of his nostrils. “What in God’s name is into you-”
The wolf opened its mouth wider, showing me its pale pink gums, the length of its long gray teeth, and snarled a hissing snarl. I remember thinking I’d rather feel them cut into me than whatever it was my dad was going to make me feel, in my body or my mind.
“Patrick! You lost all your chances!” my dad roared. The wolf’s paw almost disappeared in the leaves. My dad’s footsteps crushed the leaves and sticks behind me, snapping, crunching with no thought. With none of the quiet and gentle of the wolf. The wolf stepped forth with its hind leg, this time wobbling it. The wolf was stuck. It was taking too long to turn around, its hind and front legs stuck together. “Just when I thought you were good for something,” breathed my father.
The wolf collapsed, shivering on the way down. Instead of jumping on me, it limped around the bush before it fell on a pile of snow. Blood dripped out of its stomach, a pool of red bigger than I’ve ever seen before. Its head crashed, its eyes staring into mine as life escaped them. It went completely still. Its limbs curled up, eyes still staring into mine.
A painful blow struck the side of my head, burning across my ear and the side of my face. The sound of crashing skin came first. Then my exploding cry. Then the ringing in my ear, louder than everything. The burning grew over the side of my head. My blood rushed to the side and then it rushed up. Cold hard leaves and dirt met the other side of my face, prickling my skin, burning as hot as my dad. I grunted, tasting bits of dirt in my mouth, feeling hot tears grow in my eyes. I blinked them away in a hurry, seeing the top of the dead wolf, me curled over him.
To this day, I wonder how different a man I’d be if the wolf had bitten me.
G.R. Nanda 