Every culture has a story of the Wolf. Sometimes it’s the black dog. Sometimes it’s called the hellhound. But it’s always the Wolf.
Like the flood, each of us carry the memory of the many nights our ancestors sat around the fire, wolves at the edges. When you close your eyes in your warm bed, sometimes you can feel the cold, the wind cutting through the furs you wear. You can hear the whispering of parents as they pull their children close, the shuffling of those unlucky enough to be at the edge of the firelight with nothing more than sharpened sticks to protect themselves and the tribe. No one is sure if the Wolf is there as a friend or hunter. But the Wolf is there.
The winter has been so long no one remembers when it began or can imagine it ending. Everyone around the fire has survived it, but so has the Wolf. We have that in common. Food is scarce enough that sometimes the Wolf sits near the fire, hoping to find scraps. Sometimes it leads our hunters to prey that the Wolf can’t kill alone. Sometimes it waits in the dark and snatches children away, only the cries of the mothers and shouts of the fathers to mark the disappearance.
Humans understand that a thing can be many things. We learned that lesson long ago. And the Wolf taught it to us.
See the author’s published work here.
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