the wolf lurking in the shadows

The front door to the cabin was open.  November, a dark time after  leaves  fall from trees. November, death smells  rise in the margins of nature... it was damp... oaks, maples. The pines whispered  sounds, ghosts perhaps, moving in the forest as the early night becomes morning, when  light rises in the east well before the sun comes up and there is a pause. Light itself waits , a day inserted before day. Soon morning commences. when morning upon the land opens to those waiting for new stories, new events, new saddnesses.

the farmers were out now, chasing, looking for the wolf's tracks, hunting the hunter. Washbourne leads the hunters. he is intent, and intense. he is still carrying his wooden pitchfork. he is desparite, and determined. He and the others have been carrying lanterns and searching the forest for hours all through the long night.

the wolf makes things new. he puts right what he wants put right, for he has no consceince. he has not known fear in his life. he is cunning and a hunter, he is leading the morning out into the deeper part of the forest. he is maddness. he feels disturbed and cannot ever find what it is that he is looking for, he knows only that he wants and the want feels more terrible by the day. only night coming and falling from the sky in its gradual way and the momentary discovery made by the wolf that he could find some  comfort in a house of blood and chaos. when he tore apart flesh, when he hunted nthe movement of small animals, rabbits, cats moving in the forest  for food, but to unhinge the very earth from its place. The flat and hilly ground and the trees and the rocks and cliffs became truer, the very taste and sounds of the night grew keen and he could hear sounds, voices, far away on the other side valleys, could smell scents from the other side of the forest. The wolf became his own god when he was killing. it was the only time he felt truly alive, when he was taking life away from some other creature. and the most satisfying, was when he killed one of those of mankind. for he had discovered this recently. that he was no longer afraid of THEM.

The Afternoon Previous.

Avande Garde had no use for others. or that is what he said of himself, and to himself he said this but of course there is inside all of mankind a need for others of its own kind. avand garde was used to hard work. he carryed things, buckets, axes, armloads of wood. He had a relationship to the work he did. it was like a friend. he could work from morning to dusk chopping trees for fierwood, getting ready for the winter. work was his best friend in fact. he could lose himself, he could forget the lonliness (the lonliness that he denied ever having of course) during the day.

But of course night came after gthe day. and night called to him. it said things to him through the window of his cabnin.

Avande built this cabin with his sweat. he came to the forest with intent. he was leaving benhind a daughter and a wife, a new child on its way. the boy was born after he left the town he lived in his whole life. Avande was shoemaker. he could sit on the shoemakeers bench all day, making and make other people shoes. they would come to his very humble and dark shop to make their orders. I want leather leggins or heels in such a way, for shoes and shoemakeers were not held in much esteame, and so Avande was constantly unhappy. he was the kind of man at this time who saw himself in terms of others valuing of him. he took things others said and turned the words around and around inside his head until he saw them as people who hated and despised him.

this of course was not at all true. but that is how Avande saw things. and it was from this that he build many walls between himself and others. even his own wife he finally became distant from. he knew that she thought very little of him. he could not







it was now beyond recompense.