Wolf Run - Taffiny

I feel their feet coming fast upon the earth. I hear them behind me, panting. My own breath hard and quick, burning cold, as it’s forced into my lungs. I can’t outrun them. The wolves will catch me. My body will fill their jaws. I can’t slow down though, I wont surrender. I will go on till my breath is taken from me, as they rip my body apart.
I would be dead already, but they are finding sport in the chase, not so hungry as to want the game to be over quickly. When they first spotted me, they yipped and wagged their tails so happily, for a moment I thought I wasn’t in danger. Till the saliva swept into their mouths, dripping out into the snow. Revealing their joy in knowing a good meal would soon fill their bellies.
I do not feel the numb toes I run upon, but the burning pain of my legs and arms pumping frantically says, “I am still alive”. I will fall soon, into snow, the pack upon me, hopefully my head will be struck upon something as I land, so I pass out, I want to feel nothing, none of this.
Have I been running forever? This moment seems the entirety of my life.
My eyes scan about desperately, wildly, searching for any escape. Through the trees, a building appears. I must make it inside. I hurl my body forward with all my force. Grabbing the handle, opening, tossing myself in. Shutting the door behind me, I hear the first wolf slam into it. I see their black nails through the space at the bottom of the door. Fear shakes me, I have to keep hiding. I have to tuck myself in, deeper, smaller, further.
I run about opening doors and cupboards, looking for a place to hide. I throw my body into one. huddled in darkness, but I don’t feel safe. I hear them scratching, and digging. Then a long “howl”. It is their victory. We all know I am trapped. It is just a matter of time till they find their way in. I jump out of the cabinet, searching for another place to hide. They whimper excitedly biting at cracks in wood, they will draw their own blood tearing this structure away, till the crunch of my bones, is felt between their teeth.
Another door reveals a narrow stairwell.
Climbing to the second floor I find a woman, or a beast. Hair of long wild tangles, hulking body naked but for the fur that covers her deep in places. I have never seen such a creature before, but know she has been waiting for me. She moves to the window, opens it, jumps down two stories, landing on her feet in the snow, she looks back up at me. Only her eyes speak, they say “We can do this, you and me, this is something we can do, this is a power we have”. She walks off into the woods.
I stand at the open window, paralyzed with shock. I can’t do that, my legs will break. The wolves are still down there. And as I think of them, I hear them again, pushing through the house door. Terrified, I run into the next room closing the door behind me. I hear their claws on the stairs. There is nowhere for me to run, to hide, to escape. I am frozen, still in the center of the room. They are at the last door, scratching, pushing against it, eager to get to their prey. This is it. It is over. I stand my ground, I have no other option. I wait for them to come get me. They burst through, charging, lunging. I open my mouth, screaming, louder, longer, wider, than I ever have before. So fast I hardly know what has happened. My finger moves up to my mouth to tuck the last bit of velvety ear inside, and I swallow down, hard.
I feel sick, nauseous, acid burning in my stomach, burning its way through fur, flesh, bone, blood, teeth, consuming rows of those black nails that had been clicking upon the wooden floor.
I fall to the ground, exhausted, uncertain, half dizzy with confusion. I access; I am alive, I have survived, they did not get me, they were coming, to kill me, to eat me. They burst through the door, and.......I ate them. Swallowed them whole. At the thought acid comes up from my stomach and fills my mouth. Horrified, disgusted, I want to puke them back out. But no. Then they will be out around me again, then I will run from the sight, from this act. No, I keep them in my belly, great as pregnant, while consuming them, devoured till they are no more, but what can fuel me, or become waste that will leave my body, thought of no more.
I stand up, walk down the stairs. Place my body unhidden in the open doorway to this dwelling. Knowing I can choose to walk out into the woods. Knowing I can stay and build a home here. I do not know at this moment what I will do. But I know I will no longer be chased. I know I will walk unafraid.

***

Taffiny blogs HERE

Goldiwotsit and Boldigrushin by G&G

She wasn’t the most affectionate person in the world, but when Goldiwotsit wanted loving she knew some covers she could climb under to reap all the affection she and Boldigrushin ever needed. They both slept alone most of the time just for the comfort of guilt free farting and collision free restlessness. They both had their middle of the night inspirations to get up and write, draw, make or eat something and middle of the day siestas and passed each other affectionately in their separate interests throughout their lives. When the weather grew chilly the farts and the nearness kept them warm every night.

Goldiwotsit had a special life all her own of which she never spoke nor would he be aware had he not loved to watch her in his idle hours as she followed her muse about her day. Without benefit of books or teachers he watched her learn about reflection, refraction, spectrums, magnification and fluid dynamics by experimenting in the pond near their home. These were experiences she would never forget due to complete lack of need to explain herself to anyone. The closest she came to discussing such things was gazing into Boldigrushin’s eyes until they both slowly closed them with a nod of mutual understanding and ultimate love.

When he was rapt at his drawing board at times of her repose she could just sit and watch his concentration, his inhalation upon inspiration, his exhalation of herbal dilation, his tongue flicking in and out as if whittling out the precision of his expression. She wondered what the source of his need to have the rest of the world see what he sees might be. He’d spent a lifetime getting better at it and when they’d met he’d left the city behind to establish this wooded home as a place he could draw his pictures to trade for bullets to keep the wolves from their door. This gave him the quiet solitude to write his stories and tootle his flute for the pure pleasure of expression and learn to grow his vegetable garden for the satisfaction of self reliance in supplying the absolute necessity of life. She didn’t understand and felt no urgency to end such an interesting, alien mystery.

When she needed his attention, his touch, she knew she had only to nuzzle his ear to draw him back from the world of his imagination and gain him all to herself so long as the feeing was mutual or until either one became interested in something else. No matter who they may be with or what they were doing, they both knew their primary interest was in each other. It was less concern about whether they were doing well and more admiration for how well they did everything in their lives, even the learning from their own mistakes part.

Her curiosity was mostly satisfied by watching one place for long periods to let the pitter-patter pattern of local activity establish itself wherever she alit so that she could filter it out of her attention to spot the anomalies by the slightest glimpse, peep, scent or electric charge out of the ordinary. Boldigrushin had learned the method from her while they meditated on the mystery of life each sunrise sitting in his potting shed over looking the garden. She knew he understood her when he entered the state required to notice and watch a clod of dirt become dislodged and unbalanced by an emerging broccoli sprout and roll several inches away.

When this autistic, fugue, trancelike patter analysis state gleaned curiosities sufficient for further investigation, she was all over it whether it was a slithering lizard, a four leaf clover, new noise, scent of jasmine, nose right down in it for all the rare sensations to be offered. Seeing life be a such joy for her, whether snoozing or active, lightened his sometime jaded attitude toward his species’ jaded attitude toward the nature of the planet that sustained the lives of all its species. He got especially upset with their treating the rest of the world as property, always prompting him to explain to her that they even think they own their daemons and call them pets. When he got this agitated she knew he needed to be kneaded in his tense shoulder muscles now that she’d learned to hold in her claws.


G&G blogs HERE

Dragontale by LM Noonan

My mother was a dragon.

Did my father know?

Well not until the moment of his passing—gods rest his ignorant soul.

Ah, I see the doubt, I hear the chary thoughts—another gift of my ancestors.

How could he not know? Or; how could…he know a dragon?

She was bathing in an icy puddle of snow-melt, surrounded, suffused with steam and dragonbreath. The milk thistle sun glancing off her scales created a hall of mirrors effect. My father— hallucinatingly malnourished survivor of the harsh northern winter but rather handsome in his gauntness; caught sight of himself reflected, refracted as a hundreds of winsome, angular girls, all with the same startled blue eyes.

What can I say in his defence—there are no mirrors in the village, no reflective surfaces, the only potable water, dull, tea coloured, choked with debris; what can I say…I have my mother’s intellect.

Any normal yokel would have turned tail or hurled a testing stone or two. My father began instead to stroke her scales so enchanted was he with the fractured vision. He didn’t stop to wonder when they rippled beneath his hands—she says she will always remember his touch. He dropped his trews and pressed himself close to her trembling scutes, rubbing, caressing—she turning, turning.

Just as Daddy found the chink in her armour, a place less hard, less chitinous and—it seemed; a perfect temperature, she opened one dreaming eye to regard her lover.

She assures me that he died instantly.
The human heart can only take so much, which is why….it is a good thing I have a dragon’s heart.
But still, she wishes that her dragongirl had at least a few scales.

LM Noonan blogs here at Failed Painter