Today was a day for the wind. It leapt and danced along the ground, through the trees, and around those false rocks the silly humans built to keep the sky out. Breezes waltzed over the hills, to a place not very well known. It was not a beautiful place, not a comfortable place, and not a peaceful place but here, at night, one could stand and close his eyes and pretend that he was the only person in the world. Here, at night, one so disposed could look up, and watch the stars burn.
He was here.
He was always here.
He had stumbled into here a long time ago yesterday, when he was still small. He was bigger now, much bigger, and the wind expressed regret. Poor, poor humans, destined to grow large and ugly. The little ones were always so much happier – maybe that was the difference. Every now and then, the wind would blow by a human who hadn't grown big and ugly inside, and it smiled.
The wind wondered why it was so … intrigued by this human then – he had been big and ugly inside even when he had been little.
Maybe … the wind thought, maybe it was because this human wasn't really ugly inside. This one was … the wind didn't know what this one was, but whenever it touched him, the wind felt strange. It wanted, for some unknown reason, to die down, and leak around the edges like the silly humans sometimes.
A tree was blocking him from the worst of the wind's bite, but it left the little zephyrs free to gnaw and nibble around the edges to their heart's content, and they did. They touched him, caressing, threading their small fingers through the funny grass that grew out of the top of most humans. They played with the funny grass like a kitten would with a ball of yarn, leaving it terribly tangled but making it very hard to become angry with them for doing it.
That was another thing that was different about this human. Most of the silly humans, they pulled their strange furs tighter to them, and tried to push the wind away. He smiled, and held up a hand for the little zephyrs to play with. They attacked it with playful abandon, and the larger wind whistled around him, smiling because he was.
The poor lucky wind cannot tell the difference between smiles, and carried away the little water he leaked around the edges without a care. Someone really should redesign the silly humans, the wind often thought. They were always so leaky and fragile, and likely to fall apart at only a little push.
It was a pity, the wind thought, but not for long. The wind is not by nature sad, and today it danced among all the silly, leaky humans, laughing.
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Wow. I am amazed. Not only did I have no idea what was going to come out when I sat down and wrote this, but then this comes along and pops out …
Just … just wow.
I really, really like this. You probably don't know how rare that is for me, so I'm going to tell you. I like my writing (not just am satisfied with, which happens most of the time, but genuinely like) about 2% of the time. And I love this.
Hehehehehe.
Isn't it wonderful the way these things turn out?
Oh, and a cookie to whoever guesses who "he" is.