Wolves at my Door

Several of the wolves have taken a rather permanent and serious residence at my residence! I walk past the window and grab the curtain and glare at them, catching their eye, seeing their bold stare. They are not afraid of me. They are pacing and wearing the boards thin that are just outside my door. And more and more of them are gathering, I see. Some days they seem to have formed a pack and make a barrier that stands between me and ... between me and ... freedom?

The wolves came when they were young and small and thin. Now, they're older and they're bolder and they're meaner and more determined than ever to taste my blood. I laugh at them sometimes and yell at them .... "Go ahead, I don't have much blood left! And it's turning into ice water anyhow, so you are welcome to it! I hope you choke on it!"

They just glare at me with those cold grey eyes. The only thing they want is their cup of blood.

So, I write letters to the various wolves and I explain to them that they will get their cup of blood on the 15th of next month for sure, certainly, most assuridly! And then I deliver the letters to them, each one of them, that are right outside my door waiting, licking their chops, drool dripping onto the smooth wooden boards of my porch. I grab all the letters that I have written and I fling open the door and announce to them that they don't scare me and I march out and shove a paper letter in their teeth, quickly, before they nip my hands.

Then I march down my own steps and turn my back on them and hear them at my ankles, following me to town, growling at each other to be the one closest to me, the one that is likely to taste the blood first.

Well, they'll get it soon enough. Meanwhile, I won't let them know that I can hear them. Perhaps the town people say "There she goes, with her pack of wolves nipping at her heels." There was a time when I never heard a single wolf anywhere. I read about them and knew they existed but never saw them up close or smelled their excitement in the air. It's the kind of scent that makes you want to run, but you know that's the worst thing you could possibly do.

So, you take every step determined and solid and one after another gets you to town and then back to your little home with the thin boards on the front porch. Somehow the wolves allow you to walk up those steps first and open the door and close it on them. And then they all take their assigned seat outside the door on the front porch, where they were yesterday.