What's it like to wake as a canid?
Thump.
We’re
awake.
Thump-thump.
Panic. Where
are we? What’s that noise?
Thump-thump, thump-thump.
A gasping breath. Blankets. A floor,
carpeted. It’s our heart beating.
Thump-thump, Thump-Thump, THUMP-THUMP. Why is it so loud?
Not
loud. Strong. Feel it? We are strong.
Wait
a minute. “We?”
Yes,
“we.” It is “our” heart, now, strong enough for two. Breathe, stretch our
limbs, and see.
Clifford responded to the inner voice.
Inhaling deeply, he extended his arms and legs experimentally. The stretch felt
good, like his muscles had awakened from a deep sleep. But, when his legs and
arms reached their fully extended length, the stretch…kept going.
Four muffled pops, like the first kernels
in a bag of microwave popcorn, came from the direction of his knees and elbows.
He felt all four joints separate. He groaned, more from alarm than pain.
Another series of pops ran up his spine, rising in volume as they reached the
vertebrae in his neck, where it sounded like someone was firing a gun next to
his ear. He winced, emitting what sounded astonishingly like a yelp.
I’m
transforming!
We
are transforming. I am coming out.
It
hurts!
Only
if you resist. Let go. Let me come.
Striving to relax, Clifford gulped air and
tried a long exhalation of breath. It came out as a scream, morphing into a
howl, a strange, eerie melody backed by the wet, crackling percussion of sinew
and bone lengthening and changing shape. His torso began to thrash
uncontrollably, like a fish suddenly pulled from the water to wriggle and gasp
on dry land.
And then, it was over. He lay on his side,
panting. Yes…panting.
“Get
up,” said
a voice in his head. It sounded like Claire.
Clifford cut his eyes upwards. The face of
Claire’s wolf filled his vision. She licked his snout. “Get up,” she repeated. “See
how it feels.” Excitement resonated in her stance.
Clifford considered how he might manage
getting to his feet. The wolf took over, and before he realized it, he was
standing on four legs, looking down at her.
“So,”
said
her voice in his head, “how’s it feel?”
It felt right and wrong at the same time.
He tried to communicate that to her, emitting a strange sound, something
between a yawn and a yowl.
“Don’t
try to speak. Just think the words…in my direction.”
“IT
FEELS OKAY, BUT A LITTLE…” They both winced at the volume.
“Think
the words more softly,” she said.
“SORRY,
I…DAMN.” They
both winced again. He took a breath and tried once more. “Sorry. It feels different, but okay.”
“That’s
better. You got the volume under control pretty quickly, for the first time.
It’ll get even easier with practice.”
“THERE’S
TWO OF…sorry…two of us…inside me.”
“There
always was. Now you are aware of each other. For the most part, your human self
is in control, but in this form you have to let your wolf do the things you
can’t, like move your body around.”
“I
want to…I mean, we… want to…go outside.”
She chuckled. “I’m not surprised. Let’s go for a run. It’s dark now. It should be
relatively safe.”
He turned for the door.
“Not
that way,” she
said. “We’ll take the balcony.”
Claire padded over to the wall switch and
nosed the lights off. Expecting the room to be plunged into darkness, Clifford
was amazed to find he could see quite well. “WOW,”
he gasped. “I mean, this is amazing.
I can see!”
“Oh,
this is nothing. You just wait.” She
trotted towards the back of the living room, grasped a cord dangling beside the
curtains in her mouth, and pulled. The curtains opened to reveal a sliding glass
door to a balcony facing the rear of the building and overlooking the adjacent
greenway. Cautiously, she pulled the door open.
Senses Clifford didn’t know he had, were
assaulted as the night air wafted into the apartment. A thousand sounds and…smells! He raised his snout and inhaled.
Oh, my God! He’d had no idea. He sneezed. A strange sensation tickled at his
spine as Claire gave a mental giggle.
“Told
you,” she
gloated, stepping outside. “Follow me.”
She leapt over the rail. Clifford squeezed
his bulk through the doorway - his body was much larger than he realized – and
looked over the railing to see Claire’s wolf peering up at him from two stories
below.
He hesitated. He didn’t want to look like
a wimp, but it seemed like quite a jump. But before he could voice his
reservations, his wolf leapt from the balcony. For a moment, he hovered in the
air, until gravity took over and the ground rushed to meet him. He landed with
a soft grunt, none the worse for wear.
Oh, God, this was cool as shit. A
sensation his body could not contain rose in his chest. He raised his snout in
the air to release it.
“DON’T!”
Claire’s shout gave him pause. He cocked
his head at her.
She laughed. “You were about to howl. That would freak out everyone in the apartment
complex. Curb your enthusiasm and come with me.” She turned and loped off
towards the trees.
Something akin to an itch shivered up his
spine. When it reached his skull, he twitched slightly. His head shook, and
suddenly his whole body followed, jowls, ears, and loose skin flailing at the
air for a few seconds, until the spasm passed back along his spine and disappeared
out the tip of his tail.
What a sensation! Suppressing yet another
urge to howl, he bounded after Claire. In just a few strides he reached the
edge of the woods, where she sat on her haunches waiting for him. He skidded to
a halt beside her, nearly crashing into a tree. Regaining his balance, he
turned to face her, and sat on his haunches. A rhythmic rustling sound caught
his attention.
“What’s
that noise?”
he asked.
She laughed again. “That’s your tail. It’s wagging.”
He looked over his shoulder and confirmed
her observation. Bare earth was exposed where the appendage had swept away the
dead leaves and other humus. “It won’t
stop,” he complained.
“Don’t
worry about it,” she
laughed. “Let’s sneak down the hill,
here, and make sure no humans are along the greenway. If it’s clear, we’ll
stretch our legs a bit.”
She moved silently through the underbrush.
He followed her, making much more noise.
“I
don’t feel like I’m ‘sneaking’ very well,” he whispered.
“You’re
doing better than you think,” she replied. “It will suffice for our purposes tonight. We’ll have to work on your
skills before we go hunting, but I will teach you.” They’d reached the
bottom of the hill, yards away from the jogging trail. “Wait here, while I check it out.”
He plopped down on his belly, resting his
snout on his forepaws, as she disappeared silently into the foliage ahead. The
rich aroma of the forest floor filled his sinuses, and he sneezed again. His
head jerked up and his ears pricked at the sound of some small animal rustling
in the leaves a short distance away. He inhaled its musky odor and was able to
locate the little field mouse trembling in frozen fear under his gaze.
His mouth watered. Could he catch it? He
leapt to his feet, and the mouse scampered for its life. He bounded after it,
closing the distance in a single stride. He had it! But his jaws snapped on
empty air just before his snout slammed into the earth at the base of a large
tree, where the creature had disappeared into its burrow.
Frustrated and whining, he began digging
furiously at the hole with his forepaws in an effort to widen the opening. The
mouse was only inches away. He could smell it.
“Hey,
what’s going on back here?”
Claire’s mental voice startled him. He jumped
back from his task, feeling sheepish. “Uh…”
Her laughter tickled his spine. “Having an issue with a rodent?”
He sneezed, and she laughed again.
“I
got a little carried away,” he admitted.
“You
think?”
“But…I
almost had it! I was, like, way over there, and it was just a few feet away
from this hole, yet I almost caught it!”
“I’m
sure,” she
chuckled.
“You
don’t believe me.”
“Of
course I believe you. Don’t pout. Your wolf instinctively knew you had a chance
of getting it. Physically, anyway. Problem is, neither of you yet have the
necessary skills…or judgment. And you expended more energy digging that hole
than you would have gained from eating the tiny morsel had you caught it.”
She trotted over to him. “Bend down here a second.”
He crouched. She reached up and began
licking at his muzzle. He jerked his head back. “What are you doing?”
“You’ve
got dirt all over your snout. Hold still.”
He complied with her wishes as best he
could, but his body could barely contain itself. His ears pricked constantly at
the plethora of sounds around him, and his nostrils flared at scent after scent
wafting on the breeze. After seconds that seemed like hours, she stopped.
“Okay,
I guess that will have to do. You look like you’re about to explode. We need to
find you some open space. Follow me.”
He loped after her. They left the trees to
follow a jogging trail for a hundred yards or so before she turned into the
woods again. Since Clifford had spent a lot of time in the greenway, he was
vaguely aware of where they were; but, he was observing with such unfamiliar
senses that he couldn’t be sure of their exact location, until they emerged
from the forest at the edge of a large field he recognized.
Often on weekends, this field was divided
into two roughly-regulation-size soccer fields for use by the local Latino
leagues. Even though he didn’t understand the rules, Clifford had enjoyed
watching the games before, marveling at the skills of the men who played with
such passion, despite their aging, beer-gutted bodies.
The field was deserted now. He and Claire were alone. The moon had yet to rise, and they’d not likely be seen by human eyes. He could contain himself no longer. He didn’t even check with Claire to see if it was okay. He felt her mental laughter recede into the distance behind him as he took off.
He ran.
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