She was a wolf

She was a wolf

I am talking about dogs. I hate dogs. I love wolves. I was raised with a wolf. Exactly the opposite of a dog : she was eating with me, same plate, same steak with extra sugar, same floor, same time, same tongue, same kitchen with the still young couple as parents laughing and smiling. Still, she had a baby, she was a wolf mother, only one. Sleeping at the deep end of a tunnel in the bales of straw. Deep heart of a mountain of straw. Deep black inferno at the end of the straw labyrinth. She could have bitten me, I had found her five days she had disappeared, I know she could have. Six months later, her again, same wolf, leading another one rambling with him all the time, some cows frightened and a dead sheep, another wolf, even more than a wolf, long, thin and black with red stripes : her son. Me and a friend, Gregory, we were 12, going home at night to get something we  had to bring back to our parents, dinner party at my friend’s home, winter in the village. Not even a single sparkle in the night. No glooming light from the lamps standing back in the street, like they chose to betray us. Black courtyard and suddenly a double bark and a fantastic twin move. Two beasts : them ? Two monsters we felt they were around us everywhere at the same time. Are you here ? Is it you ? Are you dancing ? My body embraced so tight with my friend’s body, laughing or crying, sport suits, shivering and me saying out loud I am afraid, I am afraid, like a confession, playing like in the movies, I am afraid, you know I’m afraid, to him a little older. Is it you ? It’s me, Vanina it’s me ! but they had just disappeared again. This beast more than a dog, so pure, so close to me all the time that I’m not at school. Me coming back from school and she the wolf running alongside the school bus, making the familiar stop by the house at the crossroad before the bus, waiting laughing her tong pulled out of her mouth, laughing breathing out loud waiting for me to come to her to say hello to her Vanina I am back from school let’s play ! I could not play hide and seek, she was always there with me once I shouted at her and maybe I beat her with a stick and I am still ashamed of it. She was never a dog. She was a she-wolf. She was always there, eating from the same plate, same kitchen. And once I came home from school and I was looking for her and I found her soon enough at the last place I wanted to find her in the basement and here she was dead. She had been lain down on a polystyrene plate by the not still young man as a father. And she is definitely a wolf now. I can’t like dogs, that would not be fair.

Copenhague, 21 Octobre 2016

© Sébastien Pellé