Part Two....more snipet

The Wolf. That's what the children called the wind because that's what their parents called it. When asked by anyone why it was called The Wolf (only outsiders would dare to ask such a foolish question) they would tilt their heads a bit and ask what other name could there possibly be for such a hunger?

The people here knew hunger, if nothing else. They were experts on that. There weren't many professional, college educated people here, but there were experts on hunger in every single pew in the small white Methodist church at the corner of Main and Orchard Streets. Their eyes held it and their hands were calloused by it on a daily basis. Their children were raised on it. Most everyone carried around with them a silent, heavy burden, as if the ghost of what could have been was haunting their every waking hour. They went about their lives, as shop owners and teachers and gas station attendants, but they were weighed down by the expectation that the wind would return and jolt them from their sleepwalking state. They seemed to like sleepwalking. It rather dulled the pain of the hunger, kept them in a state of semi-awareness that was less difficult to deal with. But, when the wind came, there was no hiding from it. It woke you up and forced you to feel, pushed you hard against the wall and brought you back. The wind forced you to deal with the hunger, because the wind was hunger itself, and only the strongest in the sleepy town of Willow Falls would even try to resist.

The people of Willow Falls were forced to wake up that day the wind came, and for one resident in particular, it meant that change was coming to call once more.