I didn't know I was a wolf

Chapter 3

She went through the motions of her work day, morning lectures, afternoon office hours while researching and writing. Her skin felt funny though, like ants were crawling all over her. She wanted to go back to woods to see if she could find the wolf again. She needed to check herself in to see a therapist, the stress had clearly made her loose her mind. She was a professor at the university. She was in the English department but her focus was on leadership communications. She studied, analysed and taught how leaders communicate and how to do it better. She loved it and loved her career. It had taken her eight years of hard work to get were she was now and it was worth it.  

She checked the time, student office hours are done, all that was left was her research. ‘no’, she thought and dug through her bag looking for her running clothes. The woods of the university were far from the mountain but she needed a run right now like she needed air. There should be no wolf encounter today, it is so far from the mountains, the most she has ever run into here is squirrels.

Stepping outside breathing the brisk fall air. ‘Yes. This is what I need to feel better’. Crunching through leaves, feeling her breath, it was the first time things had felt right since she saw that wolf. She could not figure out why it had shaken her so much. Was it really just a near death experience thing? She was maybe 3 miles away from campus now in the woods. Not very far, but far enough to feel like she was in the middle of nowhere. Then she felt eyes on her.

It stepped out of the thick forest as if it owned it. There it was. That damned giant black wolf. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to feel scared. She felt relief. She was relieved that she could see it again. She now knew, that feeling she had been having was fear. She was scared she would never see it again and then there it was. Sitting, with its tongue out, looking as unthreatening as a Labrador puppy. She smiled and walked up to it as confident as if it was her own damn puppy. “I am going to need a good therapist after this bud” she told the wolf. “Not only am I happy to see you, but I am now talking to a wild animal who may shred me to bits”, then as if her body had a mind of its own, as if it knew exactly what it was doing, she knelt down and buried her hands in its soft fur. She buried her own face in the wolf taking in its smell. It smelled like pine trees and mountains. The wolf did the same to her burying its long nose in her hair, ‘probably looking for a good spot to bite my neck’ she though, but she didn’t care. She could not get enough of this wolf’s smell, the way it felt in her hands. “I am losing my mind” she told the wolf, and it looked like it was smiling.

Then something in her mind clicked back into place “ok wolf, this is f***ing nuts. I need to leave. I can’t do this” and forgetting every single lesson she has had since childhood about how to avoid getting eaten by an animal, she turned around and sprinted the 3 miles back to campus. The whole time hearing a sad mournful howl.