Tales of the Wind

Mira Yankova

The rain is refreshing. Even the wind gets tired after a while, but rain gives it new strength. The teardrops are heavy and pears the air like knives. For a moment all you can hear is their joyful dance on the pavement. The distant thunders sound almost like sobs from the sky. A second, that’s all it takes, and the wind is back again. It whistles in the trees, it rests in the sand, knocks on your window like a stranger in the night, but carries on before you could answer. The wind is restless; it never stops, running towards an eternity it’s never going to reach. Running away from the end it has seen and endured. The wind is the death stealing life from everything it touches, leaving a piece of immortality in return. It tells stories, it carries, is, has a soul.

I am the wind.

Well, a part of it at least. A single, feeble whiff you might feel on your cheeks as it passes by you, but too weak to move your hair. I ’m not the type, you know. I’m interested in life, I don’t play games. I’m interested in stories. I’ ll twist around your wrist, your pulse pounding in me like drums in a silent night. Your heart - beating the melody of your life and I ’ll listen to its primitive Morse code , remembering, if only for a second, what it felt like to be alive. A moment is all I need and I’m on to the next person. Probably someone sitting next to you. You won’t see it in his eyes, but I can sense his intence heartbeats when you look at him. The blood, burning in his veins when you touch him. He gets chills all over his body as I embrace his chest- a second is all I have, and I let go. A couple in love. Their minds are so young, so inoccent; their feelings- so strong that I whirl around in intoxication. They taste like well aged wine- a bit bitter on the pal a t e and yet soft, addicting. I pass by an oak tree. Its branches welcome me , like the warm arms of an old lady, putting a child to sleep. She hugs me tenderly and in return I share the rythm of the two heart s beating as one, still pounding in me with her. Her lea f s tremble with pleasure and their sound reminds me of the sigh of a woman in love. Her crown has a touch of gold in spring and turns faded yellow in autumn, I imagine so did her hair in time. I kiss her core for a quick goodbye and in it I read her own story, written in an even, clerkly hand. When I leave, a part of her leaves with me. We ride together, she and I, towards the horizon and through the cold night. Finally, when the first rays of light spray the sky in bright orange colours, she gets tired. She stops, I go on. I have no other choice. I’m the wind.

I’m restless, everlasting. I am the future, my past is so far gone that I don’t remember it. Blured images of distant lifes mix up my transperent mind and I can’t tell if they’re my own or somebody else’s. There is something, though. Something that’s been haunting me forever and that I can’t seem to forget or fully remember. A body- eyes, hands and a heart, nothing more. I remember bur n ing. I remember that same body- dead, twisting as the flames roll around it like snakes. They were suffocating even though I couldn’t breathe. They burned me into themselves - the black ashes turning into flames, the flames turning into smoke, the smoke- cast away by the wind. A man gone with the wind, resting in the stars, swimming in the sky. Possible, but not probable. As I said all I could remember was eyes, hands and a heart. Even the wind knows there’s more to a man than that.

It’s nearly midday. The clouds were bright and hurrying to get out of the way of the scorching sun. It was a nice, warm day. The air was still and I glided side by side with the birds, enjoying their songs. I followed them to a tree. A normal, but old beech. Its crown was so big it took me a while to see the house it was keeping from sight. It was a normal beech and yet something in it made me shiver. The birds flew away from the sudden cold chasing after them and I tried to calm myself down. I twisted around the branches trying to catch the smell springing from the leafs. A sweet smell of nostalgia- if I had memories, my head would be filled with them. There was a river nearby and there was a feeble whiff of slime present in the air. Once again I tried to follow the lost tracks of time, but they led me to the same place- a body- eyes, hands and a heart. And a pulse. For a moment I thought it was part of the memory, but it was too strong to be imaginary. There was a girl sitting beneath the tree. Her hair- the colour of the branches above, her eyes- bright like the grass she had lied on. She was young. I poured myself over her with a wave of chills to mark my way on her skin. Her shoulders were tensed, pressured to the ground by an invisible load. Her body was thin, too young to be any stronger than it was. Her heartbeat was normal and her hands- steady as she was holding the old file in her fingers, but her eyes were wet. She wasn’t going to cry, but there was a tear in the corner of her eye, that she was trying to ignore. Her lips- white from being pressed to one another too hard. She was looking at the drawings of a woman her age. A woman with the same face, same curls caressing her cheeks, but it wasn’t her. The drawings were old, made, long before she was even born, under that same tree. The woman could be her grandmother or probably grand- grandmother. I couldn’t know- it’s been so many years, but I remember now. I had eyes to watch her walk near the river in the distance, her perfume promising me she wasn’t going to disappear with the sunset. I had hands to draw her, an image bearing a remarkable resemblance with the girl watching it decades later. I had a heart to beat as one with hers. I had a story pounding in my veins. A rhythm of love, which I was living to share.

The paper was fragile and I didn’t touch it. Instead I pressed myself one last time to the only real thing left from her- the girl under the tree. I kissed her lips and they relaxed, soft and warm, embracing me. She blinked and the tear, tucked in the corner of her eye, fell on her face and I wiped it off. It felt like rain. Like a single drop of life. A second was not enough, but I huddled in her curls for as long as I could. And I went away.

I was burning again. Not in flames, but in the life of that single teardrop. It burned inside me and yet I took it away. I carried it with me until the rain came. The rain is reviving, because it wipes away everything and you can have a fresh start. The rain fell and the tear was gone. It fell on the pavement, dancing to a rhythm I couldn’t hear anymore. A person in my place would stop to mourn the loss. But I am the wind. I carry on.

© Mira Yankova, 2009