To Dance the Wind

The sun shone down, hot and dull on our backs and on the fields and on the long stalks of a golden plant whose name I have forgotten. It beat down on the countless rows of people in wide brimmed yellow hats tilling at the soil, mechanical, one giant machine. I was one of them, bent double, the rough handle of the hoe scraping against my calloused hands, uncovering the fresh earth. Making deep indentations in the soil so the planters could come by later, sprinkling their life giving seeds. The sun beat down on my back and sweat burst from every pore, running in rivulets down my spine and dripping off the tip of my nose. I do not remember noticing, I just remember the scent of new earth, of greenery and growing things. Then it came and I was changed.

It was the wind. It came dancing out of the clear sky and took my hat. I watched it, wide brimmed and yellow, bounce across the field of gold. I watched and did nothing, I did not want to leave my tilling and so I turned and gripped the handle of my hoe.

…dance with me…

The voice came into my mind. A voice of wilderness and cold, but at the same time of quick streams and wild places I had never heard of or imagined. I ignored it but at the same time fear gripped my insides and thoroughly shook them. The wind had spoken to me. I was marked, chosen. The wind was a dangerous thing in the lore of my people, an incredibly dangerous thing. For what reason had never been explained to us, we only knew that was the case, and feared. So I ignored the wind.

…dance with me…

The voice came again and with that voice a brush against my cheek and a forceful pressure on my back. “No, no, no!” I shouted aloud. Around the field, hats rose and sun tanned faces looked at me through slanted eyes. I looked at them, panting. They stared back at me, judging, all the while the wind danced around me, laughing. Laughing.

Looking back, I believe they saw it. Saw the silvery lines dancing around me, molding themselves to every curve and crevasse of my body. They saw a silver light in my eyes and knew I had been marked. They stood and stared and understood. I understood as well, but I did not accept. I put down my hoe and ran from the field. Whether in shame or fear, I do not know.

…dance with me, dance with me, dance with me…

The wind puffed out the curtains in my little stone hut and blew out the candles I had lit to keep out the dark. I hurriedly relit them and sat biting my nails and trying to ignore the persistent voice in my head.

…dance with me…

The wind blew out the candles but I did not relight them. I was being shown places in my head. Wild places with tall trees trailing beards of moss, of tall spires where rich kings lived and prospered, where there were no golden fields and wide brimmed yellow hats. The wind was there in all pictures, promising me..things. Adventures, sights I had never seen before…if only I would…

…dance with me…

I plugged my ears and crawled into a cold bed. I remember wrapping the sheets tightly around me and screwing my eyes shut in a futile hope of keeping the wind out. Instead silver light flowed through my glassless windows and blew over my trembling frame whispering promises in my ear. The later the night the gentler the voice and the visions became more real more tangible.

I don’t remember when it was I made my fatal mistake only that I made it. Something persuaded me and I stood and left my hut. I traveled deep into the wood where the trees grew tall and vines as thick as a grown man’s wrists draped lazily over the branches. There I stood in the clearing and danced with the wind.

I moved in unknown patterns, muscles and tendons working in perfect harmony. My feet moved with an unfamiliar grace on the grass and I felt at perfect peace. All the while the wind blew over my skin, over my muscles, moving with me in a silvery sheen and a silvery light. Sometimes it would detach itself from me and flow along beside me, a silent ghostly partner. We danced all night under the blinking, swirling stars.

I got what the wind promised although in a way that I did not expect. The wind had claimed me, made me its own and has kept me because it needs me. It has let me stay in that same grey stone hut and I watched as slowly, ever so slowly, the golden fields and the people with the yellow hats disappeared. I watched as the field turned into a great stone building, a castle it was called, and armies were dashed upon its walls like water. I watched as the castle died and other great grey buildings sprung up. Swaths of forests were cut down and giant paths were constructed where metal beasts traveled. Beasts that spouted smoke from metal tubes on their back ends and roared when they moved. But none of this ever touched my little stone hut, or me.

I have lost count of the years now. I watch as the world changes around me, as nothing stays the same. Nothing but my dances with the wind under the blinking swirling stars. I look back in sadness and wish for my people. The people of the wide yellow hats and knowledge of the earth. But they are long gone and I am here, forever dancing the wind.