On The Outside

There are two I can think of, and now I can't remember the title or author of either.

The first one I checked out of the school library in fourth or fifth grade. I remember the school-Manning Oaks, which for some reason we were originally told would be called Minted Oaks, so the students referred to it as Demented Oaks-a brand new school with a big satalite dish and no windows. Except in the library. Which was called the media center then, just like the mess hall was really called a cafe.

The library there was primarily taken up with computers, a few books holding out their last refuge before being converted into digital format or whatever we expected to do with books. There were windows there-big shatterproof glass that you could throw a rubber ball against without making a sound. Nearest these windows was the begining (or end?) of the Dewey Decimal system. I have no clue who Dewey was. I've always imagined him as that duck-you know, Huey, Dewey, and Louie? Anyway, there in the 0.00s was a book about werewolves.

Now, I'd been a sucker for werewolves ever since I read about them in the book my friend Elaine stole from the public library. At that point it was probably a relatively new obsession for me. In the last chapter of this book was a section on "real life" werewolves, which quoted discussions from alt.horror.werewolves about people who claimed to be wolves.

It exploded my world into chunks. I was floored-other people felt like this? I wondered, my throat in a knot. I read about claims of pyshical transformation, dreams, phantom limbs..and then the chapter ended. I read and reread, desperate for anything I could've missed. As long as I could read those words, I knew I wasn't the only animal person in the world. 

The second one..that was about the Jersey Devil. But right now Raki Suta is on, and I need to pay attention to my Kona-chan. <3