A Boy Cries Wolf

“Wolf! Wolf!”

The shout rang through the valley, carrying into the village.

I was the first to arrive on the scene, though the men from town would not be far behind.

I found the boy there, a grin spread across his face, clearly pleased with his performance. With some effort he banished the glee from his expression, putting on the guise of the frightened child. A story spilled forth from his mouth, claims of a wolf almost impossibly large.

It had run off, of course, disappearing into the nearby woods.

“Isn’t it obvious,” I guffawed to the assembled crowd, “this bored child is just having some fun with us.”

“Don’t be a fool, boy.” I shift my gave in his direction, softening somewhat, “I know there isn’t much to do to occupy yourself, sitting among the sheep, but don’t claim that there is a wolf when there is none. No one likes a liar.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but the fun has apparently gone out of the game, and he lowers his head and returns to the sheep.

The crowd dispersed, the promise of danger having turned to something that masked itself in relief but was really disappointment. Everyone returning to their homes, and the business of the evening, in some ways as bored and lonely as the boy with the sheep.

Not unlike the rest of the village, I picked up my night’s plans where I had left off with them. A stunning evening, the moon hanging bright and full in the sky, lending a quality of mischief and drama to the proceedings.

The cry came again, “Wolf! Wolf!” a panic ridden shriek splitting the silence of the summer night.

I was once again the first to reach the boy, practically rolling on the ground in laughter.

The townspeople once again crested the hill, prepared to defend this young boy who was so set on toying with them for his own amusement.

By the time that they were in sight of the scene, the boy had gotten his mirth under control and had settled his form back into the character of the distressed shepherd. Despite the falseness of the previous alarm, they arrived more confused than angry to find the boy alone and the sheep undisturbed.

The wolf, of course, had once again escaped into the woods when he heard the boy’s scream, but apparently unsatisfied with the enormous wolf of his original tale, the wolf in this new iteration of the story had been embellished until it had become a creature who walked upright like a man.

“Are you all really as gullible as this child has made you out to be?” I implored the crowd.

“Not only are we to believe in this wolf who conveniently runs off every time that we come near, but now he wants us to believe in some sort of wolf-man. Boy, keep your tall tales to yourself, the rest of us have better things to do.”

Once again the crowd parted, grumbling with not a few muttered curses and angry stares in the direction of the boy. The child, for his own part, would not let the act drop, pleading with them to stay as if his preposterous stories hadn’t been works of obvious fiction.

In their wake, I removed myself from the scene once again, eager to return to the true focus of my evening.

“Wolf!” Not a cry or a shout this time, but a throat shredding scream.

I came into his presence one last time, finding him a whimpering crying mess, shaking with fear. The night had gone quiet, the normal quiet complaints of the sheep replaced with a vacancy of sound that made the remaining sniffles and squeaks of the sobbing boy all the more… satisfying.

The smell of blood seeping into the soil fills my snout, more sensitive now that I can fully turn myself over to my true nature. Changing that many times in a single evening was hungry work, and painful, but there is always pain in the change. It was nothing to me, or at least nothing in comparison to that about to be felt by the boy who cried wolf.