Wolf Stories

  The dark sky sparkles with Dots of brilliance. Waiting for the waxing sphere. Safe. The fingernail moon, The moons in your fingernails. A crescent shining Anticipation. Half circle shining down Illuminate the night with Gibbous light swelling Anxious. The finality of the Twenty-eighth day A lone, full howl. Fearless. Dark sky, sparkling stars A waxing moon soon is full Melancholy howl

  Yellow eyes shining in the dark, he crouched low behind the underbrush. The small, unsuspecting creature nibbled calmly at the grass, stopped for a moment to look around. The furry creature sat up on its hind legs to get a better look, perked up its ears and sniffed at the early evening air. It sensed no danger and went back to its evening meal. It wasn’t that there wasn’t a foreboding danger, it was that the rabbit didn’t recognize the danger. While it sat calmly in the small patch of grass and clover nibbling on a tender white flower, the creature pounced. 

  Sunday, Moonday It wasn’t exactly a lazy weekend, but he had a difficult time getting out of bed. He didn’t have any memory of the past few nights and it wasn’t the first time he had these blackouts. Blackouts — was that right? He didn’t have another word for what was happening to him. Jim did have some flashes of memory. Running, possibly being chased, a carousel were all in these visions. And then there was the scratch on his arm. Actually, it was three long scratches about one inch apart. Jim had tended them for days as they continued to fester and looked like they were healing funny. He thought about going to the Urgent Care but wasn’t sure what he’d tell them. All he knew was every few weeks he had those blackouts and they all stemmed from the first blackout about four months ago. He remembered he was hiking in the woods. He had some recall of running through the woods and then stumbling onto a carousel. He remembered a movie about a carousel that saved two kids from a...

  A merry-go-round, that’s what it was.  He focused on the merry-go-round and then realized he was on fair grounds. They hadn’t been used in a long time, the field overgrown, the rides a mossy mess. He remembered a story in which the merry-go-round saved the protagonists but he didn’t think this one would save him from whatever was chasing him. He wasn’t sure how he got turned around, he’d hiked those trails for years. But here he was unsure of his position, injured where the beast – bear, wolf, who knows – scratched him. Luckily, it was on his arm so he could still run. From what he could see and feel, there were four deep gashes. He only caught glimpses of the wound when the moon shone through the canopy. Now that he was in the open field he could see the mess of blood and torn meat that used to be his left forearm. He wrapped his shirt around the arm again, although it was soaked with blood, and scanned the area for a hiding place. It looked like the merry-go-round itself w...