The Black Wolf of the Skies flees from the power of Men, while the cycle of civilisation moves from survival to liberation. Sometimes you wonder why there's a God at all ...

Inspired by  poetigress's Thursday Prompt.


oOo

Once the black Wolf left the night skies behind he was one with the forest, moving like a moonbeam through silvered trees.

There was nothing to stop him running for the rest of time. He was immortal, unstoppable, and faster than dawn. His pelt was a galaxy in the night sky: a milky way of fur that glowed with an infinite sparkle; his black nose absorbed light as tenderly as the soul of a dark nebula.

He was alive.

oOo

A single howl echoed in the distance, and reverberated through the darkness. The man heard it and shuddered. He pulled his blanket tight around his shoulders and threw another dead branch into the fire. The flames grew, holding off the night, crackling redly even as they devoured the fuel; just as the Wolf would gnaw on his own flesh, to leave dry white bones as fragile as the grey ash in the fire pit come morning.

He didn't hate the Wolf. He feared it. The Wolf was wild. It ate when it was hungry, drank when it was dry. When tired, it slept in a round ball, but its ears were cocked; awake; alert. On wet days when the tracks became a quagmire of stamina-sucking mud, he knew the Wolf would quietly shelter beneath a wide tree and wait for the weather to pass. White-filled winter days lay a soft anonymous quilt over black fur as the beast slumbered beneath, warm as simmering stew.

The Wolf didn't know God.

God could not accept random freedom. God sent the Wolf to test the man’s resolve. The man could not eat only when he was hungry. He had to do his day's work before he could sit in the company of his fellow men and—even then—he gave thanks for God's bounty before he filled his belly. If the food was too rich it would offend God, for the man was being too indulgent. If it was barely adequate, the man had to enliven it to prevent his taking pleasure in his own humility, for God did not enjoy the sin of pride.

Man could not sleep when he wished. Sloth beckoned there; sloth, too, irked the deity. God could not accept the man's casual relaxation, for there were too many tasks to be done, all awaiting completion, for the betterment of all God's creation.

Yet God accepted the power of Fire. God's greatest gift to Man, it forever separated him from the wolves and the bears, and the lynx and the deer. The animals, God told Man, knew not how to make fire, therefore the animals knew not God. As the animals were without God, they were less than God and less than Man. Man understand that the animals offended God with their flaws. God made the animals, but they were imperfect. Man was perfect. The man believed this without question.

He believed it was God’s will, and that he was all-powerful, a subject to the needs of God. He was grateful.

The wolf smelled the fire from afar. It frightened him, for it drew from the dark recesses of his species’ memories of times where whole forests blazed; when all creatures, predator and prey, ran shoulder-to-shoulder, their white-rimmed eyes betraying their innocent panic, the scent of terror and the fear of the unknown. As the smoke faded into the distance and the wolf remained, the fear faded. There was prey aplenty to fuel his needs after the journey. It left a new lesson in his mind, should it ever happen again. Run away from the fire. Run.

This smoke, however, was sweeter. It carried the aroma of roasting meats and men. Men often left many good things in their wake: untouched carcasses of beasts that could feed a pack for several days, abandoned and uneaten, hunted by man for no reason the wolf could fathom; areas cleared of forest, where prey could be seen for long distances. The wolf found it uncomfortable to be without the cover of trees, but men were sometimes helpful to the wolf, although the wolf did not have the ability to explain it.

The wolf approached cautiously. The man was staring into the flames, poking the small fire with a stick. The wolf sniffed the air. The smoke was blowing away downwind and he was upwind of the man. The wolf cringed, for the man should surely detect the wolf’s scent on the air. The man had a poor nose, as Man always had. He did not detect the wolf. This was good, helpful to the wolf, as men had strong scent, traceable many days after men had left.

The man stiffened as he sensed the stealthy furry body in the trees nearby. He had no idea how he knew the wolf was there, and the wolf was no wiser. He had been very quiet. The man lifted a flaming branch from his fire. With a whoop of defiance and false bravery, the man set flame to the forest, to the trees, to the life, to kill off the wolf, for it was not in the man’s nature to permit the wolf to continue to offend God.

And God saw the burning, and it was good.

The man killed the wolf. Other men killed other wolves. Soon there were many men and no wolves, and the city lights flooded the black Wolf in the sky with brightness until he too fled, never to return.

Evening came, and morning came.

oOo

Dark deeds. Dark days. Low ground. The sun has grown large and cold, red and tired, never rising more than the level of the dead trees. All around the ice is crystalline beauty that glitters deceptively. Water diamonds. Winter and death is everywhere.

In the skeleton branches of a bare sycamore, a thrush is forever frozen in a pose that suggests it is about to sing. It shall never manage a note. Its future is worm, slug, beetle and bacterium. When the sun finally returns to full health, the feathers and meat will be no more.

Dark days. Low ground. A fat hare stirs from its burrow, needing to feel air on her whiskers and light on her face. She spent the warm summer grazing and feeding, plumping her frame to last through miseries of winter. Her shed fur lines the abandoned burrow in which she is wintering, a delicious softness and comfortable scent that holds dreams of meadows and birdsong. Her long ears twitch as a thrush’s corpse falls into the snow nearby—a soft puffing noise in the white silence. She scraps delicately at the ground, removing hoar frost from the hibernating green of the field, then nibbles delicately at the green treasure. Nervous now, she finishes the patch of icy clover and hops back to her scrape. She enters the peace of the short burrow. Within, however, unnoticed by her as she ate, is a sharp-toothed mink.

Low ground. Dark deeds. A man once thought that the pelt of an animal would make him as warm as the animal itself. It was good and God smiled on the man’s ingenuity. Another man thought it might be better to keep all the animals in one place, for he could get more pelts faster, and God smiled on his thoughtfulness.

Another man thought that it was wrong to treat the animals this way and God smiled upon him for his consideration. He went to the place and opened the cages on a cloudy night. The animals within were confused. They were not wild and they had lived in the cages all their lives, as had their sires, and their sires' sires. They did not dash for the proffered freedom, for they had no concept of freedom. It was alien. They cowered from the man that wished them to live again as wild animals, for God wished it and God must be obeyed. They were driven from their captivity into a hungry, frozen land that they did not understand ... but easily mastered.

Soft water. Gentle ripples. Waterbirds camouflaged for riverbanks raise broods for many generations here, knowing what is safe and what is unsafe; what is dangerous and what is benign. It is as it always has been and will always be.

Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Mink. Duck. Feathers. Death. Swan. Feathers. Death. Squirrel. Fur. Death. Rabbit. Mink. Red.

oOo