Wednesday Word Tangle: What wolves dream of

Image: Pixabay

Image: Pixabay

Sam realised he was changing on a Thursday.

Later, he didn’t call it Thursday. He lost the knowledge of what the days of the week were called – along with months, years, the concept of time passing. Afterwards he thought of that first day as ‘claw’. Until that word slipped away too.

Now he avoids the flicker of gold that means fire. The echo of curved sound that is a human voice.

He pads though the pines, flank shivering ice from the branches. The taste of meat lays metallic on his tongue. The blood smell is on his fur, the smell that makes his heart pound and brain sharp. The dark is not dark. Snow shimmers with the ghosts of rabbits and stoats, scent carving their shape from solid night.

He is claw and fang. He is need.

And when he sleeps he is the wolf who dreams he was a man.

Today’s Wednesday Word Tangle is brought to you by the word

ZOANTHROPY, defined as a kind of mania where a man believes himself to be an animal.

If you had the choice, which animal would you be and why? A virtual gold star for the most unusual or entertaining choice.

Thanks, as always to Kat for starting W4W. x

32 thoughts on “Wednesday Word Tangle: What wolves dream of”

      4. Not aggressive enough, you see. Letting those grey bastards bully you. Being of the ginge persuasion myself, will have to start a guerilla squirrel movement. The Re.S.Fre.G.S.A – Red Squireel Freedom from Grey Squirrel Army – with hazelnut bazzokas, natch. 🙂

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      10. Ah! Very cute. Though Googling ‘Russian squirrel’ I found a story about a ‘pack’ of them that attacked and killed a stray dog in a park – so cute but deadly!

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  2. I can go ahead and answer for everyone, here, I think. Hippopotamus, of course. At home in the water, able to swim and dive well. Able to gallop on land with surprising speed. A fierce defender of home turf, and skin so thick it can stop bullets. They even secret their own skin moisturizer and sunscreen, which I’m sure saves them a lot of money over time. So, Hippopotamus it is. (It translates from the Greek as River Horse!)

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    1. If this post reminds me of ‘Dances With Wolves’, your comment about hippos will, thanks to a memorable sequence in Disney’s ‘Fantasia’, always be ‘Dances with Crocodiles’!

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      1. Ah, Fantasia. That’s the film that gave me a fixation about ostriches in tutus and ballet pumps when I was small. I still think they’d look rather lovely like that, though I’m not going to volunteer to put a tutu on an ostrich 🙂

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    2. And, of course, a smiling assassin. A plump, cheerful face that belies the fact they kill more people than any other animal in Africa – that is, unless you’re a pygmy hippo, which I’m sure are much less confrontational.
      The thick skin would be good, though. And speaking as a freckled individual, I wouldn’t mind the built in sunscreen – though mildly off putting to others, I suspect.
      A well argued choice – I salute you

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    1. They do have an envious role in human society. I mean, we still have ‘working dogs’ but you rarely hear of ‘working cats’ these days. And yet people still feed and house them and put up with their felines ‘cheating’ on them with old ladies who are prepared to feed them fresh fish every day. They are the slappers of the animal kingdom 🙂

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    1. That’s a great call. They’re brave, fiesty creatures, along with the rest of their family. You have to admire any small mammal that will take on a snake. And ‘run and find out’ sounds rather like the motto for the human race. If we hadn’t thought that way, we’d still be lungfish, never having ventured from the primordial swamp.

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    1. Nice choice. I don’t know poodles too well, though I know Labradoodles are supposed to make great family pets and are better for people with allergies. Big soppy things, too 🙂

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      1. I know people think that about Labradoodles (and any doodle), not they are not better for people with allergies, neither are poodles for that mater. They can be great dogs, but seldom do they have the poodle brain or their athletic ability. And they often cost twice as much as a poodle and they are mutts.

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      2. My last comment posted as I was trying to correct it. Labradoodles are that better for people with allergies. Neither are poodles for that matter. People who are allergic to dogs are usually not allergic to the hair, but to the dander. Poodles do produce less dander, but not always so with a doodle. Many people are allergic to the saliva. You must go through and expensive testing process to see if you can tolerate a specific dog. Out of a litter of 9 only one dog may be compatible with you. If you are considering purchasing a doodle, consider a poodle instead, you will not regret it. I own a standard poodle named Charming who just jumped over me in a flying leap.

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      3. That’s really interesting, Cynthia – I had no idea about having to be tested for specific dogs. My husband’s pretty allergic to many animals, so I always discounted having a dog. I supoose it would be a way to gurantee his health – if an expensive one. Thanks

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      4. The guy that started the doodle trend, regrets it. He had to breed three litters to get a service dog the couple could tolerate and then that dog failed service dog training and he had to start again. It took a number of years before he bred a dog that worked for them.

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      6. He found a good home. Not all dogs are cut out to be service dogs. Poodles, being one of the most intelligent breeds, are seldom used as service dogs. Intelligent dogs can be harder to train. Poodles have a strong sense of humor. They will deviate from their training on a whim because they think it will be fun.

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      7. My parents in law had a bearded collie like that – way too smart to do as she was told and had a real traveller’s spirit. She often vanished and would walk miles, just because she fancied a change of scene I think

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