Cry wolf cry

It was a full moon on All Hallow’s Eve when I became a werewolf. Well, alright, maybe I wasn’t a real werewolf, and it was a Waning Gibbous Moon (only about 80% full) and Halloween wasn’t for another 6 days. But it was close enough. And epilepsy is close enough to lycanthropy when you really think about it. 

To begin with, I don’t remember much. I wasn’t really there, I was out somewhere in an animal rage, howling at an 80% full moon. I wish that in an essay about my most challenging moment, I could relay to you the actual moment from my perspective, but all that would be is meaningless whimpers and growls. 

I was told after the fact that I was right about it beginning with howling. I tensed, grinding my teeth, biting my tongue, and foaming at the mouth. My poor mother tried to shove a silver spoon into my locked jaw before I went catatonic.

When I woke up, everything ached. Worst of all were the muscles in my jaw, I thought perhaps I had bitten through that unfortunate spoon. I asked, and no, I hadn’t. The doctor explained that the soreness was the result of my own strength, when every neuron in your brain fires at once, every muscle in your body tenses right along with it. I cannot lift my feet as I walk to the bathroom, I shuffle instead. 

People looked at me differently, after my transformation. In most werewolf stories, the villagers look at the wolf like they’re terrified of them. 

In my case, they were terrified for me. 

I couldn’t tell which was worse. 

The first thing I noticed was that my tongue was too large for my mouth. I knew I had bitten it, but it went beyond just a bite. It wasn’t mine anymore; it was the lolling, slobbering appendage of a wild animal. I had forgotten things. What day it was, the word “sesame seeds”, my friend’s name.  

I want you to picture if you can, a muzzle on your brain. I’m a smart girl, at least I’d like to think I am, much as I think a dog knows the strength of its own bite. It might not have mattered to anybody else, but the moment I forgot the word sesame seed, I was rocked by such a terrible feeling of loss, of helplessness, that I wanted to cry. It didn’t matter whether my bark or my bite was worse, I had lost access to them both. 

The doctor explained that the first seizure you have is a freebie, something that can be written off as a bad day, but since I had had two (the second I didn’t remember at all), I officially had epilepsy. The diagnosis sits on my neck like a collar. The doctor barked on, that it had likely happened as a result of stress, dehydration, of hunger, that I, as a result, could not swim alone nor drive for the next six months. The leash tightened. 

    My favorite animal is the African wild dog or the painted wild dog, a small member of the genus Lycaon a close relative of the fox, known for its round ears and distinctive spots. They’re cute, albeit perhaps odd-looking animals, but that is not enough for them to earn the top spot in my heart (even above wolves).

    No. 

    I like painted wild dogs because they are one of the only animals, besides humans, that have been observed in the wild with healed femur bones. 

    In most species, a broken femur is a death sentence. You can’t find food or avoid predators; it’s a slow and painful death at the unforgiving and unyielding hands of nature. Unless of course… you have a pack to take care of you. 

    In the midst of my wallowing in my collared self-pity, I received a fat yellow manilla envelope.

I ripped into it, clumsy and hungry. Inside, was a collection of carefully hand-made “get well soon” and “we miss you” cards from my speech and debate team. I wanted to cry again, for a completely different reason. They missed me, they cared about me, if I snapped fingers at a sushi bar trying to remember the name of the little crunchy things I liked with the spicy tuna, they would remind me that they were called sesame seeds and they would bring me gazelle legs until the broken femur healed. 

I had always prided myself on my independence, thinking of myself as something of a lone wolf. But, the truth is a lone wolf is a dead wolf. Or at least a lonely wolf, with no sesame seeds for their sushi. 

So, I might not be a real werewolf, but I am happy to be a pack animal.

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