The Curse of the Wer.. - Site de Thomas - Free

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE WEREWOLF
to which it could never fully belong; and the occasional spectator would
applaud these excesses and wish to emulate the werewolf’s disdain for
human culture. Increasingly, however, the werewolf would struggle
miserably and futilely to deny its lupine cravings. Those who heard its
dismal howls and felt the urge to respond with a sympathetic answering
call found new ways of explaining the werewolf’s presence, describing
it as symbolic of fundamental psychic structures, or as a behavioural
archetype…
As forests dwindled, cities spread, and the air began to carry new
and unpleasant odours, the werewolf found increasing refuge in a
few remaining pockets of wilderness, where it could lick its wounds,
contemplate the damage wreaked upon itself and the environment by
modernity, and rediscover the pleasures afforded by its lupine form.
After its period of alienation from its lupine endowments, a soft footfall
upon wet earth, the scent of pine needles, a warm cave, a bask in the
sun or the intimate nuzzle of another wolf now seemed more intensely
pleasurable. Those patient enough to follow the werewolf to its secret
sanctuaries felt admiration or envy as they watched it cast off its human
form to cavort in the snow or tear across a prairie. At a time when many
had come to feel frustrated at humanity’s increasing estrangement
from nature, the werewolf’s easy converse with its environment, and
the richness of its sensual and spiritual existence, had come to seem
desirable.
Yet the werewolf has not forgotten its sojourn in civilization. Even
though the wilderness offers a kind of forgetfulness, the sound of
children playing or hikers talking animatedly still transports it back
to the bittersweet challenges of being human. But, no longer consumed
by rage, fear, self-loathing, or the desire for revenge, the werewolf
lets such humans be, respecting their right to exist. Often, it even
returns to the city, taking pleasure in the diversity, the ingenuity and
the promise of humanity. And wherever it goes, people are struck by
its generosity, fairness and warmth, and find themselves emulating
those qualities, even as they wonder at the origins of a wet footprint
consisting of a human heel and four padded toes.
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