There was a woman who lived in the woods, and she had lived there so long it was all she knew. And yet occasionally she dreamt of other people and other places and worlds beyond her knowledge.
Each night a wolf came to her house, and rattled the windows and raged against the door and tried to force its way in, but her house stood firm. Each morning the woman checked the locks and tightened the latches and made sure everything was as strong and as tight as could be. And this went on for some time.
But one evening in the depths of winter the wolf rattled the windows and raged against the door and scratched so deep into the walls that eventually it found a way in. And it burst upon the old woman and knocked her to the ground and thrust its face towards hers. Its tongue ran hungrily over her lips and her cheeks, licked away the salt from her eyes, wormed its way into her ear, wormed its way deeper and deeper inside.
And it pushed itself through what it found there and into her mind and pushed out things she knew and swirled the rest around until all was confusion and all was noise and nothing quite made sense no matter how much she thought it should.
In the morning she looked around but the wolf was gone. She wanted to weep, and did not know why.
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Notes:
1. Written on May 25th, 2016
2. This story was exhibited at Nunn’s Yard Gallery, Norwich, in December 2018.
3. Alongside The Wolf In The Woods