Journey of the Wolf

The Wolf had been lurking around the zoo, the circus. She didn't quite know what it was, but it was life. It was a great attraction to paying customers. Here, she'd been taught to "be nice" to everyone, but a fire burns inside her. Under the guise of niceness, true domestication, she'd been gaining her sense of smell...

What is she sniffing out? She didn't know yet. She sat with the monkeys, the horses, she'd listened to the penguins and the rabbits. She knows better than to eat them... but not just because the cagers, the Owners, told her to "be nice...." Wolves are nice!

Lurking and gathering evidence, she starts to hear whispers of harm. She starts to see strange behaviors. Her friends looked at her with pain in their eyes, and she felt they were suddenly afraid of her. She is a predator, sure, but a mother first. She lurked, sniffed, and listened, like a wolf does.

Soon, Wolf caught news from Fox that Elephant had been put in an isolation cage. Elephant had trampled a beaver! That didn't sound like Elephant... Something smelled foul. Wolf tried finding Elephant. Far away, in a corner, where Wolf could barely smell her, Elephant sat alone in a small enclosure. Wolf sat, wishing to be closer.

"Elephant. What happened?"

"They called me a killer. The Owners. I'm not good enough."

"I know you're not a killer." "I killed him!" Elephant cried, "I killed him with my own feet!"

"Beaver."

"He was my friend! They want me to work harder. For what? I killed him!"

"I know you didn't mean to," Wolf saw an Owner go up to Elephant's cage, which was entirely too small to even rest in."

"Beast!" he sneered, "what do we do with you?" Elephant hung her head. Wolf could feel her trembling, even from that distance. It made Wolf tremble, but not with shame. She trembled with anger. Protective Wolf wanted to show the Owner her teeth, to say, "don't talk to my friend that way!" But she was being nice...

"We will have you go through more training, maybe a specialist," Owner said, "if that doesn't work, we will have to put you down."

Wolf shifted onto all fours, "don't talk to my friend that way!" She growled. Owner heard her, but they always act like they don't understand. He turned and laughed, "oh, wolfie, you ever have elephant meat?"

Elephant's eyes flashed in fear at Wolf, who closed her mouth and sat down.

"No, that's not what I want!" Owner knew what he was doing, pitting friends against each other. Disgusting, how he liked showing off his power. She knew he'd sneak Beaver into her food that night.

"They think I did it on purpose," Elephant said, quietly, as the Owner sauntered away. "They will never listen..." she sobbed.

"I can listen," said Wolf.

"I saw it," cooed Owl, sitting on the rafters. Owl is still wild, he flies in when he wants and leaves when he wants. He is very quiet. "Why don't you tell us in your own words?"

"They had me practicing moves for a new performance act..." Elephant started, but it was painful to see Beaver like that, again. She closed her eyes.

"Tomorrow," Wolf interrupted, "we don't need to hear it now. Just take care, Elephant." At this, Elephant nodded, eyes still closed. Owl shifted in his knowing. Wolf stayed as close to Elephant as possible all night... without eating.

"What are we going to do?" Jaguar asked Wolf, startling her awake. She looked up at empty rafters--Owl had gone. Wolf looked at Elephant, still sleeping, then shook her head with no answer.

"We are lucky she didn't do it in front of an audience, she'd been gone by now," Jaguar said, quite unrelenting. Wolf huffed at the thought, feeling the truth in it.

"What do you think they had her doing?" she asked, stretching. They began to walk together, but Jaguar said nothing. He walked as if he was one with the ground, gentle but firm, never looking at his paws, only ahead. "Something unnatural," he finally uttered.

"Must be," Wolf agreed. They parted ways, silently, knowing there was enough said in their alliance of truth.

Back to lurking. She pretended to be very sleepy as she arrived in a common area. The birds were being especially talkative, no surprise there. She lay down to take a "nap," listening to the opinions tweeting and repeating.

"Young Beaver's family must be hurting," said one.

"He had such a bright future ahead of him," said another. Wolf tensed up. The "how sads" and "what loss" never measured up to the true feelings of the matter. It seemed like there was a truth hidden here that the birds would not say. They were only saying what the Owners would award with chips and nuts and crumbs. As if riffing on Wolf's thought, a small voice spoke up from the ground: "I can only imagine what Elephant is going through. I'm going to pray for both families,"

It was Skunk. She walked away from the group, self-assured. Wolf watched, realizing the reputation Skunk bears from knowing how to protect herself. Skunk left everyone completely silent for a moment, a perfume of that hidden truth lingering. Wolf had been uplifted by the self-restraint the birds had for not bad-mouthing either party, but also sulking in the distance they kept from Elephant. She stood up, looked at the birds with an open mouth, as maybe a warning, before making a show of following Skunk to pray outside.

"Thanks for saying--"

"--I knew you'd come," said Skunk, without looking back, "those dodos don't think before they speak!"

"It's like they don't want to care..." Wolf acknowledged.

"It doesn't affect them unless it does directly."

Arriving at the edge of the fence, was a forest. The two sat in silence facing the trees. The trees listened. Wolf watched. Skunk felt. Suddenly, Wolf felt, too. She felt something strong. She felt like going to Elephant. So she did.

Elephant was being led to a roundpen by a new person. An Owner? Wolf trotted up to them, watching New Person closely.

"I'm being trained today," said Elephant, defeated.

"Trained to do what?" asked Wolf.

"I don't know," Elephant sighed, "but this New Person isn't like the Owners..." At that, the New Person glanced at wolf with a smile and said, "hi, pooch!" Wolf stayed stoic. She didn't trust New Person, but didn't want to say so to Elephant. She just watched.

Once Elephant and New Person were in the roundpen, Wolf ran up to watch from the outside. Panting, Wolf asked, "what's their name?"

"Hey, Wolf Woman," New Person chimed in, "my name is Sky." Wolf froze, wondering if this new person was actually hearing her! She decided to watch what she said around New Person.

Sky and Elephant did some easy tasks--nothing Elephant didn't already know. Elephant did them with more difficulty than usual. Wolf knew it was from grief. Not much to be done about that. Beaver's family had been kept away from Elephant, which made Elephant feel worse.

"I don't like making you do this, but it's part of the regimen," Sky said. She led Elephant out of the roundpen and to somewhere Wolf could not go. What were they doing? Was it dangerous? Is Elephant going to get hurt? Wolf paced back and forth, trying to see, whining, trying to smell.

"Trust goes a long way," Jaguar said, as if appearing out of nowhere. Jaguar's mouth gently hung open, panting slowly, tasting the air. Tasting Wolf's worry, tasting Elephant's tears. "She'll get through this, whatever it is..." He had a faraway gaze, as if he could see something that Wolf could not. Wolf tried sitting, too. Sniffing. Settling. She tried to think like a Jaguar. They were both predators, after all.

"Now, Elephant is seen as a predator," Jaguar said, as if reading Wolf like a book, "only she can decide what she does with what happened."

Wolf became strangely curious at her own predator power. She could eat many of the animals here, other's she'd need help from a pack. 'Wait,' she thought to herself, 'aren't those my friends? I shouldn't eat them...'

'But I could..." Wolf feared the fact that she wondered what Beaver tastes like. Is it Beaver's fault that this happened? She had to find out.