Being a cartoon is not all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get me wrong, when I first made the conversion from human to cartoon, I considered myself the luckiest sonofagun on the face of the earth. All my human frailties and limitations were gone, and I thought of myself as fully liberated. I could throw myself in front of a steam roller (which I often did, just for kicks), get flattened, then blow into my thumb and re-inflate myself. I jumped off skyscrapers and walked away, unscathed. I was able to execute taffy-esque contortions with my cooperative cartoon body. I was no longer bound by the laws that governed the physical human world. Free, right? Not exactly.

   Yes, I could vault from a tall building fully confident that death would not claim me, yet a small mysterious something inside me died after those falls. And what I noticed, as those tiny deaths accumulated, sort of like kinks and crimps in my cartoon-gummy stomach—I was driven to do more and more outrageous things. That is, my need for cartoon-dramatic effects and actions intensified. I had to fiercely assert my cartoonishness, lest that growing fear—am I really as impervious as I think am?—would sink its claws into me and not let go.

   For those who care to know—my cartoon alter-ego is Willis the Wolf. Who, exactly, was I before I became a cartoon? That’s a good question. I have forgotten my human name, and most of my human memories. There are some scattered bits and pieces, fragments wrapped in haze. It’s sort of like seeing a disconnected run of film clips through a foggy lens. I would like to say that I don’t miss my name or memories at all, but that is not true. There is a nagging curiosity, an under-the-skin splinter that subtly announces it presence. If that splinter could talk, what I might say: As long as I am here, under your skin, you will wonder who you are and what you’ve been missing as a human being.

   Lately, the urge has grown stronger for me to abandon my cartoon life, to shed Willis’s thick and heavy fur. But how? How to get back to my pre-cartoon form?

   I don’t know the answer, but I do know that I’ve started acting differently. I no longer throw myself in front of steamrollers, or off of skyscrapers. I no longer seek out accidents or commit frivolous “suicides.” I have started acting as I imagined I would if I were human. With concern and regard for my body and well-being. A respectful nod to mortality, and a toning-down of the dramatic and exaggerated. While I don’t know if the new choices I’m making will help me get back to my original human form, the other morning, when looking in the mirror, I noticed that I had shed a significant amount of fur. Enough that the bright pink flesh beneath was exposed.