Hour of the Wolf
© 1999 Andrew S. Fuller
As he had so often said before, in the same place, the same way. In his bed, in the dark, on his back with arms crossed not unlike a child, after hours of sleeplessness, over and over. Same words so often repeated through hundreds of long, stark and stale nights, that they had lost all meaning.
“I hate you,” he said again. Arms crossed, into the dark, on his back. But differently. “I am not a vampire, but I hate you.” Silly at any other time. But it has become too late with him. “Hate you.” Fresh as the first. Directed and exact. With feeling that made him forget he was alone, lonely, and truly stopped being the least bit concerned who heard. Who was missing. To hear, to ask. To laugh a little, not too much. And hold him.
“I hate you,” he said, full of focused, deep wrath and loathing. He said to his enemy. Whom he could not see. Not yet. For a few hours. Too many. Too few.
Till dawn. Till the light came. And the enemy rose.
Then he would have to rise again too, would carry the weakness that was the corpse of hope in his gut, to wander around the apartment, delaying and denying himself enough(/any) breakfast, would stare at the people moving on the TV, then hurriedly dress when the clock showed 8:50, and rush out and drive fast as though it might accelerate the day to its end, would (un)intentionally wait to button up and tuck in the fourth of his five light blue oxfords embroidered with the corporate logo he tried to ignore in the rearview mirror. Rush. Drive. To a day — the word itself, a nightmare! — of smiling smiling smiling for the people — them more like vampires! — who could not stop saying, “Can I get some help over here? This copier keeps copying the blank side of my pages! where does my laser print come out? Do I have to pay for this time it takes to send? Do you have any other stationary besides this stuff?” Who could not stop complaining, “A dollar forty-nine is just outrageous for a color copy.” Who could not stop lying, “these aren’t the colors I proofed,” and “Yes, I paid for it already, I just forgot the receipt.” And the weakness in his gut would subside around noon, as the hunger grew and a real hollow need would rattle in the stomach, the joints ache, the eyelids crawl. But smiling smiling smiling all the while as lunch time would come and go, and disappear — another lie. Till hours later, the stomach would shrink, lost behind the numbness of the body, only the sheer fuel of anger keeping him upright.
And he would come home — at least two hours late, because three co-workers would call in sick and another would have to leave early for a wedding shower, and the manager would have the day off — too weak then to fix dinner, too disappointed in himself to stand, he’d collapse in the papasan chair, go fetal, and wait. For someone. To call him. Save him. Just talk. Make him smile.
Wait, staring into the dark behind his eyelids, for the enemy to leave the sky.
“I hate you.” The first time now that he’s meant it.
He would fall asleep in the round cushion, unable to keep the vigil. The fitful dreams would be quick and controlled, simple and real and dull. The same since she left. That the phone really does ring. That the door knocks and opens. That the mail comes. Again. That he stands, showers, eats. Maybe the false dreams would stretch until midnight, while real sleep was never longer than one short morph of the clock’s fourth digit. The more he would sleep in the chair, the longer the night. He used to dread the night coming on. Not the dark, but the very length of it, growing on, waiting him out. But he knows the real enemy now.
“I hate you.” Having long since forgotten there is a name for this time of night.
As he lays in his bed, arms crossed, in the dark. Still terribly awake, finally feeling the loneliness fade, knowing something is different about this night, he gives away his ability to cry water and meaning as the price for the means to do what he craves, and pretends to feel love — his last — for the black and empty around him, and stares into absolute nowhere, convinced of such bliss as has no end, that his arms seem to float and his toes tingle, but that he doesn’t notice the cease of the distant A.M. Amtrak, the hush of the passing police siren, the sudden silence of the neighborhood dogs, nor the single unknown howl in the city.
Still lost in the furrowing of his brow, the cruel hiss of his breath pushing through his nostrils, that the scratches and yelps at his window go unnoticed. Even when the wolf crashes through into his room, bringing glass and noise and cold wind, he doesn’t blink, doesn’t hear. Ears flat, the beast plants its forepaws and snarls its lips back with teeth that seem to glow, dripping dark that the moon shows color as red.
“I hate you,” he says into the dark, not to his visitor in the least.
The wolf snaps and growls and bites at his comforter, jerking its head side to side, tearing pieces. To no avail. Its teeth disappear, as her ears come up. “My son,” she says, “I have missed you all your life. You must, please, come home.”
Not when she lays on top of him and puts her head down on his chest does he look at her, or when she kisses him does he notice her, or stop hating. Not when she weeps for him, or finally leaves, or the neighbor dogs bark anew, or the jet passes over. Not when he vows never to sleep again. Or bites his lip on purpose for the first time and eats some of his blood down.
Not. When. The unrecorded black hole be/hind/low/yond radio galaxy M87 opens for ten seconds to show its secret to no one who is watching with the right kind of eyes but him. He is too far to see, even with a radar array, but too close inside not to feel what it has to offer. Too late not to become.
When Hell comes down into his dark room, he finally moves. He rises. Earlier than usual, fourteen minutes till first light. He sees now — for the first time, he’s sure — as Hell stands before him, saying nothing at all, and opens itself, and gives. And he reaches forth, eagerly though gentle, and takes the sharp black from deep within Its middle. A piece he holds close now, welcoming the burning of its cold, the magnitude of its emptiness.
And Hell musses his hair and smiles for true. And leaves.
Him with the new killing blade. To wait. Hating.
For dawn.