What The Wolf Dreamed

Written for a writing workshop I attend about a minor character, Afton, from my webcomic, "Awaken My Heart To Joy".

Once, there was a wolf who dreamed he was a man.

Afton shed short grey fur for black dreadlocks and brown skin, his long body for a tall one, the shape of a wolf for the shape of a human, all for want of a girl who was only dreaming.  She had slept herself into his home, and now he curled up in a hidden cave and slept to go to hers.  He would be happy, he thought.

And, for a time, he was—but four years later, he lost the girl, all for want of another—a mild one, not an eager one, not a sincere one.  Wolves choose their mates and they stay with them, but his mate didn’t seem to care or know.  She left him and he was alone, suddenly, in the world that wasn’t his.

Afton opens his eyes every night, but he is never in the land he calls his home.  He watches jealousy as others drift adream, to the place he seems unable to return to, and there’s an ache in his shoulder and a tightness under his throat that are so purely human.  Sometimes he imagines that he can feel his fur again, thick on his back, that everything in the world is his.  Sometimes he swears he can smell the yellow flowers that grow just inside the mouth of the cave his body slumbers in.  Sometimes he closes his eyes and sees a land more vivid and green than the concrete tangle of the city he is forced to wander in.  Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, he feels all these hallmarks of home—but alas, though a dream lasts only for a night, his night is not yet done.

Sometimes, before this night began to feel so endless, he and the girl would go to the movies, rapturous over the newest blockbuster.  They were happy.  There was an aspect of unflappability to their relationship; nothing could change them, nothing could make them change.

Outside he would pretend to be a comedy impresario, telling bad jokes like they were good ones, bantering with his girl.  She laughed.  She always did.  But all that is unraveled now, and he is left aching for his waking world, to leave behind this human dream-form and wake up a wolf.  She is gone and she is moving on, but Afton is cursed to stay stuck, trying to dispel thoughts of her.  Every night, he tries to wake up.  Every night, he fails.  Afton—poor, foolish Afton!—is stuck in his no-longer-mate’s world, and he hasn’t a way to escape.

Author's Note

Do the last two paragraphs belong? What do you think of the last line, i.e, could this be ended in a better way?

Reviews

[Legion]

I like the idea here. You have a great story in the making. The writing as it stands at the moment falls just a bit short to make it memoriable. Perhaps a rewrite and tell more of the tale. Put some feeling into it as well. It reads somewhat like a news article in the morning paper. Not that that is bad mind you, but it is nothing that the reader will remember the next day among all the other articles that were read. I hope that makes sense. Once again, great idea but needs work. Keep on writing.