Dan Sheehan - I Am Not a Wolf

To Mom and Dad, my sist er Becca,
and my girlfriend Julia, for their
encouragement, sup port, and
unending tolerance f or my use
of the phrase Wolf Twitter.

Chapter 1

Youre scared. You knew today was coming, but you thought it would be easier to do what needs to be done. You thought youd find yourself overwhelmed with adrenaline and ready to complete the task at hand. You know nothing happens without hard work. Your mother used to say that the only guarantee any living thing has is that each moment of its life will be spent in a desperate fight to justify its existence. If she saw you now, shed tell you that youre a coward. Shed tell you that if you were going to do this, youd have already done it. Shed wonder why you were even bothering. But your mother isnt here, and today, youre going to do it. Today, youre going to take a shower.

You are a wolf. But this is something the world cant know. Some people arent ready to know, some arent willing to understand, but most are just terrified of wolves for some reason. Youve spent much of your life integrating into human society. You have a job, an apartment, several online dating profiles, and a terrible roommate. But human beings are expected to maintain a certain level of cleanliness that youve let fall by the wayside. You refuse to risk sacrificing all that hard work just be fear running water. Its time to make this right. You ease your paws over the shower knob and gently move it to the left. The shower sputters to life, spraying harmless water into the tub. You watch the water run into the drain and glance back at the showerhead. Harmless. You leap into the tub, and the water strikes you. At first, you bristle at the sudden warmth, but you take a deep breath and allow yourself to relax. Its just water. Youre safe, and soon, youll be clean too. You dont find yourself showering often, and youre certain that your roommate wont miss a little bit of his shampoo, so you wrap your jaws around his bottle of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. All you need to do is get a little bit of it on the floor of the tub so that you can evenly distribute it across your fur and bestow upon yourself the smell of fresh rain, or at least its chemical approximation. You squeeze your jaw shut to squeeze the shampoo when suddenly, the water gets hot. It shoots from a comfortable lukewarm temperature to something more along the lines of hot knives, and you suddenly feel extremely uncomfortable. Caleb must have run the dishwasher in the kitchen. Your jaw clamps down instinctively on the shampoo bottle with incredible pressure, causing your mouth to fill with a goop that tastes nothing like rain as the shampoo explodes into your eyes. You howl in rage and sprint out of the tub, blind. You run into what must be the shower curtain and tumble out of the bathroom and into the living room. Still completely wrapped in the shower curtain, you run toward what smells like your room and violently shut the door behind you. You escape the shower curtain and shake yourself dry, taking a moment to note that while youve definitely ruined the bathroom in a big way, you do smell dirt now. You really hope your roommate didnt see that. Speaking of which, its time for breakfast, and, based on the nightmarish smell youve just caught on the air, Caleb is making his ridiculous vegan sausage patties again, so youll be fending for yourself. As if thats a new concept.

Y ou pop up on two legs and begin the complicated process of getting ready for work. Once youve fully dressed yourself, you fiddle with the door until it swings open. You stumble into your living room, briefly dropping down onto all fours and forcing yourself back up again. Your eyes dart around the room to see if youve saved face. It would appear that you have. Caleb is too busy frying up impostor sausage and playing some sort of game on his phone. Caleb is a frail-looking young man. He is tall, which often signifies strength in humans, but his form is thin and, to you, seems malnourished. You assume this is likely the result of countless years of indoorsmanship. Hes a young man but seems to not have any sort of job. He often talks about a screenplay that he is working on or workshopping or getting some notes on from his friend who works on Rick and Morty , but his day-to-day efforts seem mostly dedicated to binge-watching Netflix shows. You are unsure where his money comes from, but he occasionally mentions a temp agency. Calebs lifestyle and various nontraditional food smells are often annoying, but Caleb has a quality that you value above all others: he has never asked you a single question about your personal life. You walk over to the fridge and wrap your jaws around a rotisserie chicken sitting on the top shelf.

Youve managed to integrate into this world because human society is too self-absorbed to pay you much mind. Without any natural predators, the human race has become content to keep most interactions quick and easy. In fact, youve found that the more someone stands out, the more people tend to leave them alone. You recently saw a man dancing shirtless in the street in broad daylight. Not a single person even looked at him, let alone said his behavior was incongruous with that of a normal human. It seems that everyone is terrified that the person who seems dance in the street interesting might also be secret murderer interesting. For a moment, you think that this is sad before you remember that it also helps you rid e the bus.

You gnaw on your morning bird, and its bones crack loudly. Calebs face grimaces, but he doesnt avert his gaze from his phone. He doesnt seem to care what type of interesting you are as long as you pay your rent. You worry sometimes that your relationship with Caleb could be better. You do not have many human friends, and it would be nice to spend mornings and evenings in something other than odd silence. You think today may be the perfect day to forge your first true human friendship. You are under the impression that true roommates communicate mostly through low-stakes arguments. You clear your throat and prepare to address one of Calebs many trans gressions.

HELLO CALEB, GOOD MORNING I WAS WONDERING WHAT YOUR REASON WAS FOR LEAVING THAT BOWL OF RIGATONI A LFREDO IN THE SINK ALL WEEK BECAUSE THE CHEESE HAS BEGUN TO SCAB IN A WAY THAT I HAVE PREVIOUSLY ONLY OBSERVED I N WOUNDS.

Caleb briefly looks up from his phone. You put on your best smile, which, if youre being honest with yourself, is mostly just you leaving your mouth open and panting a l ittle bit.

Oh yeah. Sorry. I forgot about it. Ill totally get it this afternoon; I just have a thing to get to this morning.

Nailed it. Today is going to be amazing. Caleb walks away in a manner that you assume is more friendly than before. Caleb is a big-time introvert, he talks about it almost all the time, so you know that your friendship may be slower to develop. And he does always have a thing to get to. But today was a big step for the two of you. Perhaps after work, you can address the fact that Caleb has not purchased any toilet paper for multiple weeks. Interpersonal relationships are a whirlwind! You grab your backpack and head out the door, determined to conquer the day. Human life is about being as stressed out as you can possibly get without throwing up, and today you intend to get extremely close to th rowing up.