Baby's Breath from Red

A reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood, told from the Wolf's perspective, about the complexities involving humans and their influence on nature, and the domesticating of canines.

He is not unkind. Only hungry.

Which is an instinct that Man has bastardized into their own, uncaring of the natural balance. Since times long before the canine was born, humans had overcome the power of evolution itself, inventing weapons to overpower and outlive their predators. They do not hunt, feed, honor, as other animals do, but dominate. Pleasure is taken from death, instead - and is Man ever so experienced in taking, taking, taking. Enough that it results in becoming rulers of the very Earth, outnumbering all other species, overconsuming its resources, upsetting the once believed unbreaking circle of life.

Nature cries. Slowly, she dies a painful, shameful death. One day, she will collapse on herself.
Until then, the Wolf can only feast.

Spring grows long this year, yet prey is nary to be seen, having either been wiped clean or driven out by hunters of a more two-legged variety. Meals have come few and far between, forcing the canine to seek unconventional hunts. He finds yet another weapon of Man, uprooting the elements in favor of protecting against them -- a cabin, in the middle of the woods.

Its occupant is but an old woman; grey, withered, ill, dying.

A platter given to the Wolf, as moral as he could possibly hope. She is not natural prey, but it will be a feast that will both relieve the woman of her suffering and - in perhaps some small way - restore an inch of balance. Because he is not unkind. Only hungry.

It would be a merciful and victimless kill, if not for a girl.

The Wolf spends the first day assessing the prey’s habitat, committing her schedule to memory, until another figure follows his path. She is lone, not unlike the Wolf, yet youthful and rosy-cheeked; a mere pup. Her hood is a bright, bloody contrast against the grey of the world, one of the few colors he can distinguish. Had he not approached her, she surely would be swallowed up by a far more sinister creature, who might've come to the same desperation as he has.

"What are you doing, so far from home?"

The skip of her step comes to sudden stop, liveliness curling in on itself like flowers in winter, shy with strangers, "I'm going to tend to my gran. I've brought a picnic."

What has Man come to, to send their pups into treacherous forests by their lonesome, only to be witness to dying relatives? To send children as figurative lambs to the slaughter of a world they avoid as adults, it is beyond him. He shall never understand them.

"Where is this gran of yours?"

"She lives in a cabin. It's right..." Red thinks hard, before clumsily pointing in the direction of his target, "That'a way."

He had been afraid of that; his prey and her gran are one and the same. Though the circle of life is necessary, it is one of little pity, and Man has long grown spoiled from it. This hunt is meant to be a victimless kill, and thus the Wolf trades one sin for another; it is a mercy that was not given to his own children, but perhaps life is made of little mercy's. "You are going the wrong way. Try going through the garden. See if you can pick a bouquet for your ill gran."

Just as he suspects, child-like distraction loses her into the waning hours of the day, where she must return to her den before the night grows predatory.

The second day, the girls hand basket is not accompanied with roses or peony’s, but baby’s breath. The Wolf cannot help but marvel at the irony that one from such an invasive species would, somehow, pull the weeds from a garden.

This time, it is she that approaches him, "What's your name, mister?"

"I do not have one."

"But then, what does your mama call you?"

"The animal kingdom doesn't have much use for names," he explains, albeit for reasons unknown to him.
Man and Animal have often met with only conflict, resistant to understanding, both species too simple and too complex for the other. However, perhaps it is something deep and reminiscent in him, to adhere to the never-ending curiosity of a youth. "I am here, therefore I am."

In reply, she stares in thought, the same way she did the day before; as if it's a very difficult, important task. The meaning does not reach here, either. "That's kind of funny, innit?"

Still, he cannot say he isn't endeared by her effort, knowing her lack of understanding doesn't come from malice but innocence. "...I guess it is."

"Well, what do I call you, then?"

"Whatever you like."

Once again, she thinks, and thinks, and thinks so very hard, and decides on something that's as simple and cutthroat as the forest. "How about 'Big'?"

It's an unfamiliar sensation to him, to be distinguished. To Nature, he is but another figure in her world, eating or being eaten. His life is made up of how he benefits; to the circle, to his pack before they died out, to his own survival, before he inevitably dies and becomes one with the Earth too. He has never been anything more than what he is, and now he is a who.

"A very fine name."

Yet, it is his undoing. By the third day, he is spending less time hunting, and more time picking baby's breath with Red, guarding her from other predators. By the fourth, he watches on as his friend nurses his prey back to health, too strong to feast upon now. As the days bleed into a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, he feels himself grow soft with fondness, but hungry all the same. His ribs push against his flesh, his limbs grow weak with malnutrition, Big becoming small as if she's cursed him.

It is, then, he realizes how Man has not been overthrown. Yes, weapons. Yes, overconsumption. But there is another, gentler factor.

It is that, just as Nature is considering her attack, Man forces her people to love them.

Just as her fellow species does, Red disrupts the natural balance of things by removing his taste for hunts, too; once her job with her gran is over, she brings picnics to him, instead. It is not the flesh of fresh hunts that nurse him back, but breads and cooked meats.

"My ma said it'd be easier to feed you. if you came home with me. That way you get to eat more than what I can carry," his young friend offers, "There's a bowl with your name on it, already."

Against everything, Man's best weapon against the unforgiving circle of life is domestication. He will live a life that is agonizing in its kindness, that will spoil him with lack of hunger, that will make him a who rather than a what.

So, he follows, a bouquet of baby's breath held in his teeth, both as an offering to his new home and one final benefit to his old one.