The Lonely Wolf, part one

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Bassim

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This is the first part of my story The Lonely Wolf. Please would you proofread it.

When I was a child, my father told me stories about packs of wolves roaming the woods and fields around the villages. They were hungry and exhausted, and they could not find enough food during the long, harsh winters. They were so desperate that they would attack anything and anybody who moved, even horses and their riders. If, by bad luck, a human being came across them, he was lost. He was unable to run in the deep snow, and within seconds, he would find himself surrounded by vicious animals that would tear him to pieces. These were horrific stories, which filled me with fear, even if I knew that all that had happened in the past when wolves still could resist the inevitable progression of our civilisation. What remains engraved in my memory is a lonely wolf, which my father could always recognize by its howling. This wolf would always stay apart from the others, and its howling was distressing to listen. It was not the howling of a hungry animal but of an outsider, who was crying out his existential pain. My father said that its howling could be heard from kilometres away, and sometimes it would mix with the howling of the wind and penetrate every house and every human soul. Now decades later, I understand that I myself have become that lonely wolf: an outsider, a loner, a misfit. What prevents me from howling aloud is the fear of being imprisoned, locked up in some institution where the well-paid doctors would do their best to turn me into an ordinary citizen just as millions of others.

Howling is still not acknowledged as a normal expression of human communication. It is rather a sign of distress, pain and suffering. It is tolerated in some places like cemeteries, churches, morgues, hospitals, prisons and similar institutions, where human beings are officially permitted to pour their hearts out without fear of persecution or ridicule. They are allowed to howl a certain amount of time, and then, they should return to their ordinary lives without uttering any sounds that could have a detrimental effect on society. Unlike joy, which is always welcome, howling is something threatening - an act of rebellion, a sign of illness, disagreement, injustice and dissatisfaction. Society and the government cannot tolerate it because it shows that something is wrong.

Howlers and howling in certain circumstances could be more dangerous than any weapons. Imagine the consequences if their number would become so large that at least one block of flat, one street or a suburb would have a howler howling permanently. Imagine a neighbour hearing howling the first thing in the morning and last thing before going to sleep. He or she would lose all motivation for work. Their lives would become so sad and meaningless that they would be forced to move away, or maybe they would even kill themselves. There are many different sounds that human beings can ignore or pretend not to hear them, but howling is present in all of us, although, some would never admit that. Even when we do not know the reason for howling, or a person who is the source of it, just by hearing it, we become anxious and try to make that terrible sound stop. We know that something is wrong; someone is suffering, begging for help, opening his or her soul for us, and we as human beings simply cannot ignore it. Of course, we could use some kind of ear protection, turn on our mighty stereo or simply run away, to avoid the terrible nuisance. We could even tape the howler’s mouth shut. Nevertheless, we would be unable to control our minds, which are all somehow interconnected and which react as the one when it is about a suffering human being. It should be said that here we are talking about a healthy human beings and not psychopaths for whom howling is just another opportunity to control and abuse the others.

TO BE CONTINUED
 

Gillnetter

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This is the first part of my story The Lonely Wolf. Please would you proofread it.

When I was a child, my father told me stories about packs of wolves roaming the woods and fields around the villages. They were hungry and exhausted, and they could not find enough food during the long, harsh winters. They were so desperate that they would attack anything and (or) anybody who moved, even horses and their riders. If, by bad luck, a human being came across them, he was lost. He was unable to run in the deep snow, and within seconds, he would find himself surrounded by vicious animals that would tear him to pieces. These were horrific stories, which filled me with fear, even if I knew [STRIKE]that [/STRIKE]all that had happened in the past when wolves still could resist the inevitable progression of our civilisation. What remains engraved in my memory is a lonely wolf, which my father could always recognize by its howling. This wolf would always stay apart from the others, and its howling was distressing to listen. It was not the howling of a hungry animal but of an outsider, who was crying out his existential pain. My father said that its howling could be heard from kilometres away, and sometimes it would mix with the howling of the wind and penetrate every house and every human soul. Now decades later, I understand that I myself have become that lonely wolf: an outsider, a loner, a misfit. What prevents me from howling aloud is the fear of being imprisoned, locked up in some institution where the well-paid doctors would do their best to turn me into an ordinary citizen just as millions of others are. ("well-paid" doesn't add anything here)

Howling is still not acknowledged as a normal expression of human communication. It is rather a sign of distress, pain and suffering. It is tolerated in some places like cemeteries, churches, morgues, hospitals, prisons and similar institutions, where human beings are officially permitted to pour their hearts out without fear of persecution or ridicule. They are allowed to howl a certain amount of time, and then, they should return to their ordinary lives without uttering any sounds that could have a detrimental effect on society. Unlike joy, which is always welcome, howling is something threatening - an act of rebellion, a sign of illness, disagreement, injustice and dissatisfaction. Society and the government cannot tolerate it because it shows that something is wrong.

Howlers and howling in certain circumstances could be more dangerous than any [STRIKE]weapons[/STRIKE] weapon. Imagine the consequences if their number would become so large that at least one block of flats, one street or a suburb would have a howler howling permanently. Imagine a neighbour hearing howling the first thing in the morning and last thing before going to sleep. He or she would lose all motivation for work. Their lives would become so sad and meaningless that they would be forced to move away, or maybe they would even kill themselves. There are many different sounds that human beings can ignore or pretend not to hear them, but howling is present in all of us, although, some would never admit that. Even when we do not know the reason for howling, or a person who is the source of it, just by hearing it, we become anxious and try to make that terrible sound stop. We know that something is wrong; someone is suffering, begging for help, opening his or her soul [STRIKE]for [/STRIKE] to us, and we, as human beings, simply cannot ignore it. Of course, we could use some kind of ear protection, turn on our mighty stereos or simply run away, to avoid the terrible nuisance. We could even tape the howler’s mouth shut. Nevertheless, we would be unable to control our minds, which are all somehow interconnected and which react as [STRIKE]the [/STRIKE]one when it is about a suffering human being. It should be said that here we are talking about [STRIKE]a [/STRIKE]healthy human beings and not psychopaths for whom howling is just another opportunity to control and abuse the others.

TO BE CONTINUED
I believe that in the second to last sentence you are saying that people act as one. Is that correct? I changed "...opening his or her soul to us". If you use "for us", you should add something like "for us to see". Very well written piece.
 

Bassim

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Joined
Mar 1, 2008
Member Type
Student or Learner
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Bosnian
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Bosnia Herzegovina
Current Location
Sweden
Dear Gil,

Thank you again for helping me with this text. You have corrected my sentence correctly. I wanted to say that people act as one. As you can see, the use of articles still causes me problems, but I hope that one day I would finally learn how to use them properly.
 
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