With my paws splashing into the running water of a stream, I lower my head to drink. The obscure, ever-changing reflection that meets my eyes is not one I recognise, and yet, strangely enough, it doesn’t unsettle me. Studying my altering features, I stick my tongue in and out, and the water that hits my belly tastes sweeter than wine. At least the stuff I used to drink, anyhow. Watching me from the other side, the fox bows his head as I lick the fur of my front legs before taking a drink himself. Above us, the moon floats as pale as bone, and against the void that lies beyond, the music it makes is as deafening as the thunder that provided the soundtrack to my transformation. Standing on my hind legs, I tilt my head to one side wondering how many others have done the same. In this life, in any life, just how many creatures of the night lost themselves in what they saw, and how many found what they were looking for in the image of that lone rock circling a planet among many others almost infinite in number. All at once I feel as small as a grain of sand. Insignificant. Microscopic. My story without merit, destined to be lost among the dusts of time, and yet as I sniff the air and catch her scent, either from memory or reality, the beat she puts into my heart is unlike any other, changing me from a mere man into something beyond the flesh, again and again and again, and here I am, on the outside of society, outside of my own skin, hurtling down the rabbit hole not knowing if there’s a way back, not wanting to go back. Barking at me as I paw the bodies of light in the sky, the fox glances to his left, snapping his tail from side to side, impatient and eager to leave. Understanding, I drink a little more and swim across to meet him whereupon we scurry into the trees, disappearing into the darkness they bring.

A Journal for Damned Lovers UK

A Journal for Damned Lovers US

Anthology UK / Anthology US