You Asked for Little Red Riding Hood but That Story Always Scares You 

Assistant Editor Blessing Christopher: Today’s miCRo reimagines a cautionary tale as something more wholesome. There are no villains in this story, but it should not be read as an attempt to launder the wolf’s image. The story identifies the wolf’s appetite in the original Charles Perrault fairy tale as a source of strife, and although the wolf is not absolved of his transgressions in this retelling, he is made to undergo a process of diversion where his appetite, now more refined, does not pose a problem for others. Here, the internal audience member (to whom this story is addressed), exhausted from years of living a hypercautious life, gets a retelling that rightfully places the onus on the wolf . The story does not ask the listener to live recklessly, but as Chinua Achebe once said, “A fox must be chased away first; after that the hen might be warned against wandering into the bush.”

Listen to Zack Fox Loehle read the story:

You Asked for Little Red Riding Hood but That Story Always Scares You 

So, tonight I’m going to tell you a different story, one about the wolf, and this is not a mean wolf or a sneaky wolf or even a hungry wolf, but a curious wolf, and he is sniffing about with his wolf nose and trying to understand the house that he’s found in the middle of the forest, so he goes through the open door and sees chairs and a table and shelves; he looks at one of the books on the shelf, but it’s big and the writing is small and it’s a little dusty and it makes the wolf sneeze. The house is quiet, not an eerie quiet or an ominous quiet but a quiet like right now, in this room, where everything is hushed but you can hear the neighbors laughing upstairs or the faint whoosh of a car as it drives by. 

The wolf explores the house, but then he remembers there’s something much more interesting outside, and it would make more sense to read the book later, so he leaves and does not think about the house again, because he is on the trail of blackberries, their thorns worth the sweetness, and he trots up one hill and down another and through the meadow until he comes to the blackberry bushes and pushes their spiky branches aside and pulls a blackberry down with his teeth, gingerly, so the berry is whole when it snaps off the branch and rolls onto his tongue and he can crush it between his jaws and get the full burst of juice, eye-poppingly tart and rich, and it tastes like summer, your favorite time of year. Remember the blackberries we found in the park, the same day we saw the heron and you thought it looked like a dinosaur? The wolf tastes blackberries just like those. 

And after he eats the blackberries and is full and sleepy, the sun is setting, just like it’s setting outside now, and the wolf trots back into the woods and finds a soft spot beneath a tree where the moss is green, and he curls up there, tucking himself in at just the right angle so he can see the stars as they peek through the branches. Tonight, the wolf is full, and he has walked far, and the moon is bright and the air is cool. Tonight, there is no woodsman waiting somewhere, and there is no monster in the closet. Tonight, you are safe. Tonight, you are the wolf.