When the Wolf Comes Home

by Nat Cassidy

Conspiracy theories are basically just fairy tales for adults, aren’t they?

Soft fear creeps in from everywhere. You don’t even know you’re feeling it sometimes. Until it’s all you can feel.

I want my daddy, he thinks. I miss Daddy. He’s surprised at how brightly he feels this desire. How not conplicated. That comes a few moments later, when he remembers what Daddy can be like. But this time, even though the boy’s body fills with terror, a strange part of him welcomes it. That’s fine, this part of him thinks. Daddy will punish me … but I deserve to be punished. Because I’m bad. I’ve done such bad things. Daddy was right. And Daddy is the only one who can make him better. It will hurt. It will be scary. But it’s the right thing to do. And maybe … … maybe after the hurting, Daddy will love me again. He sniffles. Looks around at the dizzyingly vast forest. “Daddy,” he says. It falls out of him like the sigh of the condemned on the scaffold. His heart thunders with fear. He closes his eyes. Come find me, Daddy. You can find me again. Come punish me. Come take me home.

Oh fuck (holds back tears)

“I don’t know what to do. I feel like … like everything’s broke. Like I’m all broke.” “Yeah.” She squats down. “I know that feeling. Sometimes I think that’s just what being alive feels like.”

Our parents define so many things, she thinks. Love. Hate. Fear. Provider. Abuser. Abandoner. Monster. Mirror. They metamorphose. They mutate. They change. They are fairy tales with inscrutable illustrations.