1.
Red Riding Hood loved her grandmother in spite of what everyone else might think. Love does crazy things to you; makes you walk through dark woods filled with animals full of bad intent. Suddenly here you are, walking in places without thought, skipping about like unfettered stones on water, or daydreaming like flowers that send their scent heedless to the air. This is Red Riding Hood: heedless, traipsing, singing into the wind. She meets the wolf who looks like a cuddly lamb, and oh! How she loves lambs. The lamb-wolf convinces her to go off trail, to gather flowers for her grandmother because she loves her so. This looks fine on its face, but Red Riding Hood was told NOT to stray from her task. This can be dangerous, this act of transgression.
2.
The wolf-lamb just wanted to delay her as he fantasized about a feast on the fat bodies of two women. But, as you might imagine, this is not about fat bodies or even women. What you might not realize is that this is about predators. There are two kinds of human predators: sexual and religious. Well, three types when the sexual and the religious get mixed up. It’s all about control. About eating someone else’s power. Sexual energy and spiritual energy are sustenance. Food is life. Life is energy. Energy is food. Food is bread. Bread is life. As long as we have it, we can live.
3.
We can’t live without bread – or some cultural variation of it. Maize in the Americas, rice in the east, millet in Africa. This is the staff of it, the stuff of it, the scent and the texture of it – consuming that trapped life, that heat is enough to make us weep. But there is still the question: why would Red traipse through a scary wood to bring her grandmother bread?
4.
But then again, why wouldn’t she? Remember the 10 Commandments: honor thy father and mother? Then, honor your grandmother and grandfather by extension. Riding Hood was young and still bound by the precepts of her parent’s church: honor the ones who gave you life. She was taught that the eucharist was the body of Christ. Take this bread and eat it, she was told. What more precious gift than bread… I am the life and the resurrection.
5.
In dreams your predatory ghost is constantly resurrected. It can’t be helped: just ask Red. You are a bad dream that occurred sometime in another life where a picture of you still exists with bread coming through you like divine fire. Doesn’t everything come through you: bread, life, love? Think about Red. Identify with Red. Become Red.
6.
Red brought bread to her beloved grandmother and found a predator in Grandma’s clothing. This fire of betrayal was puzzling to her at first. Who is that grinning beast? What happened to her beloved? What caused the smile to grow grim and toothy? Ahh, this is what happens: but this is Red and yet this is me. I found my wolf in religious garb as Red found one in a sheepskin: both predators in a costume used to hide rapacious teeth behind an exterior of piety. Red ate ravenous words like bread until they turned to sawdust in her mouth, my mouth, our mouth: our teeth rotting in our smile.
7.
Aren’t costumes just that? A way to hide, to bluff, to fool. But teeth will show.
8.
It took a while for Red to see through the disguise. She kept peering at the long nose and thinking she was dreaming, wondering about the whiskers and the dark, glinting eyes. The truth is, that is a lie. She noticed right away but ignored her intuition. Denials like this result in disaster. Denials like this come from a need to be loved. Denials like this are death and heartbreak. Loss and regret. Red and her grandmother were feasted upon by the beast. There is no intuition in the belly, only desire and craving.
9.
A predator is a predator. It took me a while to see through your disguise. No. that also was a lie. I noticed right away, but ignored my intuition. Why? It took me time to admit that I had been fooled, that my energy was your breakfast. Did I taste of sunrises or moonsets, or the bitter spray of an ocean wave, or was I thin and tasteless as an overboiled potato? I did not follow my heart, and although the words you spoke were bitter on my tongue, I lied and told you your words were ambrosia. The longer I lied the harder it became to admit that I was wrong: it’s hard to admit that food tastes like shit when you’ve been saying for years that it tastes like heaven.
10.
A wolf is a wolf. And here is Red: she delighted in bringing grandmother bread. Her journey through the woods was alight with expectation, with love and with happiness. The wolf saw a juicy young girl walking through the woods and simply said, “Oh my, that looks good to eat.” He was a predator by nature. A wolf is a wolf. It eats to live. It wasn’t the bread he wanted.
11.
You used bread to get what you wanted; you were a predator by intention, draping your purpose under a piety of words. Yes, a piety of words: the collective noun for your predation. Well, a wolf is a wolf and a liar is a liar. But a charlatan is only as good as the fools who follow. Red and I were excellent fools.
12.
A wolf is a wolf. A girl can’t change that, but she can stop lying to herself. A predator can be unmasked, the crimson robes of false piety unveiled as the flapping of painted lips, the gnashing of teeth against the crunch of bread crusts, the cloying taste of honeyed lies upon the palate. It is so satisfying to reveal the wolf underneath the clothing of the lamb. The wolf is just a wolf after all.
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When Ginny is not examining flowers with a close-up lens, or watching how the scales on a lizard’s back glint in the sun she can usually be found writing. She has been published in many venues. Writing has always been her salvation, and is a passion that comes from her love of the natural world. She is a proofreader and book reviewer for Ribbons journal. She loves reading, writing, digital art and playing with her abundant menagerie, all of whom are rescue animals. She can be found at www.ginnyshort.com.
© 2024, Ginny Short
Halfway Down the Stairs 