The Wind

The wind. Blowing across my face, across my body. A feeling that I had hoped for, longed for, begged for. Just a little breeze. And then, a ripple could be seen in the trees. The breeze was not just a slight one across my lips but one that was evident in the leaves on the branches.

For six long years, the lack of wind on this planet had brought devastation. I would never have guessed how important the movement of air was to life, growth, and to the present, let alone the future. Now, this tiny fluctuation, this breath of air across my forehead, and slight movement in the branches brought such refreshing and faint, just the faintest, hope that this seventh year could be, would be different.

Different. After all of the sameness of these half a dozen years, different seemed extraordinary. Different seemed like magic.

Magic. Almost forgotten these last years. The everydayness, the regular, the ordinariness had dried me out, had dried everyone out. Had dried the planet out.

When the magic was gone, when the potions that bring new life had disappeared there could be nothing that really mattered. Or almost nothing. Nothing except holding on to what was. To the dryness that accentuated the barrenness. Barren. Almost lifeless. Almost.

The wind. I felt it again across my cheek. It was almost as if, as if mind you, I could sense someone, a touch from someone, a gentle finger brushing against my cheek and then ever so softly across my lips.

I looked and now there were no moving leaves in the tree. No branches swaying. Just the faintest, oh so faint, wind against my eyelids. Breath really. Blowing across my eyes.

Six years I had waited for this returning. I had demanded the wind to go. I rejected it. The hurricanes had damaged us too much. The wildfires had spread too far and too fast because of it. The blizzards whipped the snow around to freeze and cover us. The blowing rains drowned us.

So I told the wind to leave. I yelled for it to just go away and never come back. Screaming into the wind that was even then ready to pick me up in a spinning tunnel and heave me at a distance that would end me. How could it even be that I could ask that? But somehow I did with what seemed like my last breath. I told the wind to go and unexpectedly it listened. It left. In a moment.

Now in this new beginning, this start of the seventh year, the wind returned with a kind kiss upon my lips. This promise of what was to come upon me and the planet.

And then...I was flying.