A Stained Red Wolf

We scream.

The wolf pup and I

are howling and screaming together.

We watch and choke and scream together. 

In terror,

in horror.

He staggers around the ring, wounded

crimson cuts flashing in the dim flickering lamplight.

I watch him lope around, trapped like a rat, 

eyes burning sickly yellow-white and bloodshot red,

mouth frothing pathetically.

I never signed up to this.

I joined the circus for some money,

cash for my dying family.

We are starving to death.

My siblings are laboring in much less pleasant places,

slaving away in the steaming, toxic mills and tar-black mines.

I was lucky--

I didn't sign my death warrant for those few extra coins.

Animalgirl is a good position;

take care of the beasts, clean up after the show,

send the animals into the ring,

and once a day, tend the cages.

But this was not what I signed up for.

The Wolfman, with a barbed wire whip

slashes,

rips, 

and slices

the wolf's bruised and bloodied skin 

under his beautiful once-white fur.

He howls and whimpers, trying to back into a corner

but there are none. 

The circle is wide and black and bloody,

and there is no escape for man or wolf.

The screeching crowd jeers and throws cans,

betting chips, checkers, cards, half-broken beer bottles.

They reek of drink and filth.

Most of them are alcoholics.

More of them are gamblers.

All of them are men.

Ugly and misinformed betters

who come to the circus just for a way to spend their hard-earned checks

on something other than their beer.

The wolf is only a pup.

I cared for his mother when she gave birth in her grotty, blackened cage.

I buried her when it was her turn in the arena.

She had only one pup. He was once white-furred and small and innocent.

And now is his time to run.

He runs well. 

The crowd is cheering brutally

(only ever against him, like always).

"Kill the blighter!"

"Slash 'is 'ead off!"

"Run, idiot! Run, ya' flea-bitten puppy!"

"Squelch the mongrel!"

The crowd always orders them to die.

And the wolves must always listen,

because they always stop running in the end.

The Wolfman is chasing after him,

cracking the rusty red-brown whip.

The Wolfman doesn't have to chase too long or quickly.

The bloodied creature can only drag himself so fast.

"Well, I can't disappoint the crowds," he often tells me.

All the circus Wolfmen have to make them run.

The monsters in the crowds will always 

outnumber the ones 

in the circus cages.

Wolfmen will always have to whip,

and the wolves will always have to be chased.

And all the stained red wolf can do is run and run and run

his last minutes away.

The once-white creature crumples,

beautiful muscles ripple as he falls.

The seats around the ring explode in drunken stupid cheers,

and some of the men get up to leave.

Wolfman raises his whip for the barbed bite of death.

In the silence before the blow, I scream.

I duck from the box,

running through the grimy crowd 

and jumping over the wolf-proof wall into the ring.

I crouch in front of him and hug the soft, bloody body,

almost dead.

I WILL NOT LET YOU TAKE HIM!

I remember his mother, licking a tiny white pup.

I remember his crying when she was pulled out into the ring.

I remember my own tears as he licked her silent corpse

and I closed her burning amber eyes for her.

No more wolves will die by my hand.

Never again.

The Wolfman pulls back, startled, but it is too late.

What should have been the wolf's final lash was intercepted 

by my little human face.

I howl again, but it is not in horror. 

I scream in pain.

My head is burning. I am going to die. 

"Death blows hit the head," I remember Wolfman telling me. 

"I have to hit the side or leg until the end. If I went for the head first thing, it would't be entertaining, see?"

My entire body is floating, and I am now only connected to my body by my consciousness.

My head is crowded with pain and ideas and thoughts, 

and they all try to carry it off;

float away to the heavens.

But even in the haze of pain, I remember one thing: 

The pup.

I reach out feebly for the panicked Wolfman, 

desperately assuring me he'll get help, he'll call the police, he'll do something to save me...

I gesture for him to stoop, and he quiets.

I cry silent tears of pain. 

I lift my head slowly to speak into his shivering ear:

"Save him. Please, save the wolf. I- I want..." I gasp a final breath, and whisper,

"I want to be the last death tonight."