FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Consciousness is a fickle thing: always coming and going, too slippery ever to be grasped even by the firmest of grips; sometimes, as convinced as you might be of your lucidness, you find yourself waking up from the most vivid and realistic of dreams that blurs the line between what is real and what isn't.

I therefore know that I cannot be certain of my reality, but my best guess is that I am, indeed, awake. Yet I keep my eyes closed, for I do not want to be faced with my banal existence, the daily grind, endlessly scraping together enough to allow me to exist; that's all I can do, exist, until I have the means of truly living, though I haven't the first clue how much a fulfilling life costs, nor what I would consider to be fulfilling.

I listen but hear nothing: no rumble of traffic, no muffled voices, not even the faint, high-pitched electrical hum that forms the background to the soundtrack of so many lives. Absolute silence.

But how can that be? I'm surely curled up in my bed in the middle of a bustling city; even if the power was out, the city would not have died with it. Something is very wrong, yet could it also be right?

Tentatively, my eyes creep open, millimetre by millimetre revealing to me, not the off-white of my bedroom ceiling, but open sky. Wisps of cloud drift by miles above me in the vast canvas, already daubed a diluted dark blue, ready for the artist to raise their brush once more to begin the rolling landscape of lush green hills, perhaps some grazing sheep or cattle in the foreground.

How strange...

Tilting my head just a little, catch a glimpse of a faint pink glow in the heavens to my left, close to the horizon; it is, unmistakably, dawn. Dawn is something I have lived through so many times, vaguely registered but never taken the time to truly witness and appreciate: when I've been conscious for it, I have never failed to be in a hurry to be somewhere, to get to work, to meet a deadline, to reach an appointment; on my days of rest, I have always chosen to sleep through it, oblivious to what I might be missing, far too intent on attaining the rest I so crave, that I so lack, the rest of the time.

As I am clearly not in my bed, not in my apartment, not in my city, perhaps not even in my own world, I turn my head fully to the left so I can watch the sun, that great fiery ball in the sky that is the source of all life, rise steadily higher into the sky. Helios in his mighty chariot brings forth the light and warmth of morning, turning the heavens paler and paler shades of blue until he is blazing in the midst of an ocean of uninterrupted azure.

The show at an end, my curiosity is drawn to matters closer to home: if I'm not in my bed, where am I?

Sitting up, the first thing that I see is, a few hundred metres distant, a forest that extends from horizon to horizon, the peak of a mountain just visible above the canopy. Everything before me is liberally sprinkled with white, be it powder or crystal.

The ground that separates me from the wood is just as uniform in colour, yet the frost-covered grass glitters in the sunlight; it is a friendly twinkle, one which tells me that, though my surroundings may be cold and unfamiliar, this is a place where I can feel safe, where I could even be happy.

It is only then that it strikes me: if I'm in a winter wonderland, why is it that I'm not feeling the chill as I might have expected? I can feel neither clothes no blankets covering my body, but surely there must be something keeping me warm.

My eyes fall to my legs, curled beneath me slightly in my sitting position.

A yelp, high-pitched and shrill, echoes back to me from the forest. My legs are not my legs: I see no bare flesh, but thick, shaggy fur, dark grey, covering my thighs, my calves, my shins, and...my paws? Yes, they are certainly paws now. My heels have narrowed and slid up my legs to form digitigrade limbs; my soles have flattened and grown tough, durable pads; my rounded toes have also narrowed, their nails longer, shaper, far more akin to claws.

I hold out my arms. Yes! My arms are covered in that same fur. My hands are still recognisable as such, but my palms now sport pads just like my soles and my fingernails too have become claws.

I scramble up, allowing the legs built far more for speed as well as stamina to bear my weight for the first time, so I can get a good look at the rest of my body. My torso is furred just like the rest of me, though the grey fades lighter across my chest and belly. My back hunches forward, pushing out my broad shoulders from which my longer arms dangle.

Knowing what they would find but eager nonetheless, my hands fly to my face to touch and caress my thickly-furred cheeks, the shorter hair covering my long muzzle, my large, sensitive nose.

Something moving behind me! I twist around, looking back over my shoulder to see a tail wagging enthusiastically, betraying to the world around me my feelings on the situation in which I find myself.

AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I throw back my head in jubilation, crying my thanks to whoever has brought about these wondrous changes. Finally, I am free.

Without a moment's more delay, I set out for the forest, allowing my legs to spring me onward. I drop forward onto my hands as well, pounding joyfully into the trees. The ground is thick with fallen leaves, their erstwhile homes bare but for those few of their siblings who remain clinging on, unwilling to embark on their journey back onto, and into, the earth. Their braver brethren share blankets of soft, powdery snow that keep them tucked up peacefully in the slumber.

The thuds of my heavy paws are softened by the wintery ground as I follow the seemingly random path my giddy brain has set out for me through the maze of trees. Every so often, whump!, I bound over a patch of thicker, denser snow, leaving behind me the unmistakable tracks of my kind.

I run on; for seconds? Minutes? Hours? It's impossible to tell. Eventually, however, I slow to a trot, then a walk, before finally stopping.

I stand in the shadow of a tall pine tree; other than its discarded, orangish needles, the ground around its trunk is bare, protected from snow and frost by the greenery it sees fit to maintain year-round.

Something has compelled me to pause my jaunt here, but what could it be? I sniff the air; yes, that would be the best way of finding out. Lowering my snout to the ground, I snuffle eagerly around the tree's roots, sifting through the information my olfactory centres provide me. There is certainly something different about this spot, but what could it be? I scent no other animals, at least none who have passed by recently.

Yip!

The startled cry comes as one of my hind legs slips on something smooth and colder still than forest floor. I wheel about and see, wide, glassy, and perfectly still, the frozen surface of a small lake.

I sniff again, this time at the icy bank, then tap lightly on the very edge of what would once have been lapping water; it seems quite solidly frozen.

A few cautious steps confirm my suspicions, breaking the bonds of uncertainty that have been withholding my enthusiasm. I leap forth, the relatively smooth undersides of my paws skidding on the glassy surface, sending me sprawling and skidding into the middle of my personal ice rink. I skate around gleefully, spinning, gliding, and tumbling my way around its perimeter before charge towards the centre once more. What little grip I have vanishes and I am sent spiralling onwards on my belly, coming to a halt with a faint squeaking a few feet from the bank opposite my origin.

In my fervour I hadn't taken the time to look at the ice, my wish having merely to glory in the fun that it presented. Now that I have calmed somewhat, I find myself gazing down at the bluish surface, captivated by my reflection.

I look just as my wandering fingers had guessed: large black nose on the end of a long muzzle covered by coarse, light grey fur; my cheeks fluff out considerably on either side of my face and my ears stand tall, perked, and alert atop my head. It is my eyes which have my interest, however: they gaze back up at me, wide, round, discs of the deepest gold. I paw at my reflection longingly, wishing to meet this beautiful canine, to cuddle into their warm, soft body, to run with them through the wilderness, to play endless games of our own invention.

And then I remember: I am that canine.

I grin at myself - it feels good to know that I can still grin - then scramble clumsily to my feet, slipping and stumbling my way to terra firma once more. I shake myself off, though I am hardly more than damp, before my attention is caught by something new.

The forest has thus far been utterly calm, but now a light breeze rustles the trees around me, drawing my eyes skywards; there, way off at the horizon but approaching steadily, a bank of cloud approaches. Though I do not anticipate a storm, I sense that seeking shelter would be prudent.

My loping run through the wood resumes, nearly as jubilant as it had been, but with an added feeling of purpose. Absorbed as I had been in the pursuit of joyous amusement, I had not noticed the sun sinking towards the very horizon from which the unsettled weather approached. I dash through the slowly gathering darkness, able to see a sliver of something silver emerging into the clear skies to the east; my wolfish instinct leap at the prospect.

I reach the foot of the mountain, its majesty capped by a crown of the deepest, purest snow of all which it wears with pride. Nestled among the iron-grey rocks, a dark opening presents itself to me. Trotting forwards, I poke my nose into the cave and sniff: nothing there but a carpet of long dead leaves that have drifted in to provide me with a comfortable place on which to sleep.

Looking to the east once more, I see the worshipful one climbing into the sky: pale, seeming almost translucent in the fading daylight, but as full as I have ever seen it, the moon has come to take possession of the heavens.

For the second time I lean back and howl, my heart and soul going into the sound that declares my adoration for that mystical object that summons a thousand diamonds to sparkle through the night, a time so much more magical and wondrous than that over which the sun reigns. Though I know my beloved moon will soon be obscured by the oncoming clouds, I feel still more at peace with the world knowing that it will be up there, watching over me.

As the first snowflakes start to drift down around me, I retreat into my cave. I shuffle in circles for a moment, adjusting my bed of leaves here and there, before settling down, curled up and facing the dark world outside. I gaze peaceably out as the forest, my forest, acquires a fresh coat of nature's paint, smiling to myself, no thoughts running through my head but for a general contentment. Each time I blink, my eyelids become that little bit heavier until I can no longer raise them.

Even if I wake up in my bed once more with the sounds of the city around me, I know that I will be happier now that I have been a wolf.