the secrets of wind
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WHEN THE LIGHTS OF THE world dimmed and voices hushed, when windows cracked just slightly open, the wind would tell secrets. The problem was that the wind was a bit of a gossip. And sometimes, it tended to give the most useless information a very lonely teenage boy had ever heard.
With scraggly hair from sleepless nights and his startling eyes small under swollen, puffy eye-bags, he pressed his ear to his brittle glass windowpane. Nothing moved in the countryside sprawled before him; the surrounding night was overpowering, filling the grass hills and frosting the tips of grass below.
His room was rather high into the sky atop an odd-looking building. Deep inside the large and wildly disorganized home, the perpetually tired boy was the only occupant awake.
His bed was a mess, littered with torn newspaper articles and schoolbooks. An empty birdcage stood lonesomely in the far corner, though it hadn't been occupied in over a year, and so many newspapers lay about the floor that they almost entirely replaced the carpeting. Small, anxious little tears covered every corner of the pages where his hand had clutched at them, eyes scouring for any kind of news, waiting for the moment a rock would plummet into his stomach, waiting for some sort of terrible thing that somehow never came.
The bed where he lay had long adopted a permanent imprint of his tall outline; he scarcely moved from it unless the need was absolutely dire. Despite long legs and arms, the imprint was huddled and small, the mark of a person whose arms rarely left their knees, who couldn't sleep until he shrunk himself into a ball so tight his stomach hurt. The imprint, however often he tried to smooth it out, was a clear indicator of a person who clung to himself like he would another human. But it was only him in that bed. And though there was an abundance of people in that house, to the boy, it was only him in the entire world.
The time couldn't have been earlier than three in the morning. His mind, overloaded with thoughts that would definitely concern anyone who heard, strayed everywhere but his bedroom, which he shared with another. This other teen's hair was vibrantly orange even in the dark, and even when his eyesight was notoriously terrible.
Pressing his puffy face closer into the window, he racked the hills before him, his eyes as green as the rapidly growing, far too long grass. He didn't know what it was that drew him so compellingly to the window. Nothing outside of it was new; he looked out of this window every time he slept in this room.
The misshapen house was not his own, belonging to the family of the redheaded teenager sleeping, who had welcomed him with open arms ever since he was only twelve years old. Their home, a polar opposite to the jail-like house of his last living relatives, had become his sanctuary over the past six years. The family adored him ever since he met them on a train, on their way to the only other place he called home. Despite being so young, he wasn't familiar to love. He had suffered eleven long years of unadulterated hatred from his relatives, yet love surrounded him now. And despite an opposite physical appearance and an absence of shared blood, he had never been more certain of whom he called family.
He knew the land like the back of his hand: the scars of garden rakes and pranks gone wrong. He knew every buried rock in the soil, every twist in the road, the scars of the land similar to the ones on his forehead and back of his long-fingered hand. Still, his eyes searched for something unknown in the fields, aching to be discovered. He elected to ignore the sharp stinging in his ear, as the numbing effects of the whispering, revealing wind frosted the glass where he placed it.
He had dealt with enough secrets for a lifetime. He used to treasure secrets the wind held for him; he used to search for them himself. When he reflected on earlier years, he couldn't figure out why he ever wanted those secrets revealed so desperately, and wondered how much happier he could've been if they remained hidden, as secrets usually do, buried under tied tongues and protected promises. Now, he was more than willing to let the wind blow past, traveling past the sprawling countryside and a crowded house, carrying their secrets far from him.
While his body shivered in the cold, whispers of chillingly cold wind swept the land. It swirled possessively around the house twice, splitting and then separating as it went. Conjoining to blow past the different bedrooms, it claimed the night, shaking the dying and dry leaves off the trees.
Summer was rapidly coming to a close; the wind had decided to speed up Mother Nature's process, simply because it said so. It swarmed together as it passed the first room, where two girls chatted endlessly into the night, then the other, where a husband and wife lay in blissfully undisturbed sleep. The wind somehow grew bored with what the boy felt was the most wonderful, magical house on Earth. It chose to take its secrets elsewhere.
Brick buildings and tall, windowed houses were its destinations. The wind cared not about cars and suburbia that waited patiently for its smothering presence. Instead, it moved along until it found a city of endless mass, where poor and wealthy dwellings both suffered the clutches of insufferable wind. Deep in the city of London, it took control of the night.
The air here was far smoggier than the countryside, where the thought-ridden boy finally succumbed to non-voluntary sleep. Plunging into London, the wind chilled the River Thames. It trailed drowsy men through the doors of rowdy pubs, watched as they downed worries away in clinking glasses filled to the brim in brandy — the wind would keep that secret for its own.
Then one small breeze, curiouser than its brothers, separated from the nosy wind. It clung like a burr to the back of a drunken man, who staggered into the back of an unnoticeable pub. The breeze followed this man as he raised a wobbly hand to the brick wall ahead, watching with the awe of a child as he tapped a specific brick near a trash can. The brick sank into itself, disappearing, and then expanded until there was a hole in the wall large enough for the man to stumble through. Soon, a long cobblestone street was stretched out before the man.
Unsure and clumsy on his feet, the man stepped through the hole and hobbled into the street.
There was no wonder why the curious little breeze was so fascinated. The street was gigantic: shining posters and bright colors filled the windows, where moving pictures could be seen in newspapers. The street was separate from the rest of the world, where the wind had taken a hold of, and it was clear in the flattened stone and fully functional streetlights that it was newly renovated. Some portions were much newer and cleaner. Some were older than a century, while others looked torn in half from fifty years to a few months old.
The man staggered down the street, occasionally stopping to peer into the darkened windows. All the stores were closed. He continued down with no real purpose other than an innate sense to explore, to keep going until he found an end, or a convenient alleyway to collapse into.
And so he did. As the breeze fought to keep itself connected to his drink-stained dinner coat, the man toppled into a nearby alleyway. The second he hit the cold floor, he began to snore.
The breeze, feeling slightly in awe and immensely confused, shook itself free of the man and swirled through the air beseechingly.
Finally, as if they had planned to meet, it saw a girl huddled against a wall, watching the breeze with a glazed, tired expression on her face. She showed no inclination of surprise, though showed an odd bit of humor at the appearance of an intoxicated man.
The girl was curled up into a tight ball, her elbows wrapping around mysteriously bruised knees and holding herself so tightly it appeared she was trying to break herself in half. Books and shreds of paper surrounded her body, every inch marked with loopy, incomprehensible handwriting.
The books were stolen, after she'd succumbed to her childish desires and took advantage of closed shops around. It had been her second month of hiding in that alley; it was enough to drive her to a breaking point.
And so, a natural sense of adventure draining any uncertainty, she'd crawled through open windows and doors left ajar to scoop as many materials as she could find. It was very successful: she found enough books needed to satisfy slowly moving months and enough water to suffice until she'd be forced to scavenge for more. The girl would've been able to thrive on the amount of water she found, but because she cared so deeply for the clever white cat at her side — her only company these days — she snuck out to steal more supplies at least once a week.
Her moral code had dissolved in the first two weeks of hiding out, but her sense of adventure never did. On the days she felt most like herself, the girl would climb to the rooftops of surrounding buildings with the cat on her shoulders, and watch the sunrise. She might pickpocket an occasional passerby, if they'd deserved it. She considered herself a bit of a Robin Hood; she reserved her skills for the worst of people, who kicked stray cats or shouted at cashiers.
Though she was pitifully small and malnourished, there was a clear steeliness in her face. Eyeing the man anxiously, she fingered a necklace on her neck. Compared to the dirty sweater it was layered on, this piece of jewelry was unusually shiny and lustrous. Her pale eyes reflected the moonlight and pink lips murmured questions to the man. Under clothes so dirty they were practically rags, she was alarmingly frail. It was clear she hadn't much to eat recently.
Yet, even when the man's pockets were filled to the brim with stolen biscuits, she ignored the rumbling in her stomach. He was clearly of a higher class, dressed in a stiff suit with a smart-looking watch, yet she told herself he needed the food more than her. He'd need it to sober up in the morning.
Daring to inch closer, she asked if he was okay. In response, he drooled on the cold cobblestone, his tongue lolling out of his mouth like a dog.
Above a crystallized neck, her eye-bags matched the tired boy's. He was so far from where the girl and the breeze were, yet so fresh in its young memory. The sharp, pale color of the girl's eyes far outweighed the heaviness of her eyelids.
The breeze was drawn to her. It curled in her hair, making strands dance in front of her eyes, which had slowly adjusted to the sun climbing the far horizon. Somewhere in the distance, the people of London were beginning to wake, and the girl focused only on the breeze, which pulled strands of her knotted hair into a braid. As the girl laughed, the hopeful, happy sound echoed in the narrow, shabby alleyway.
The drunken man grunted. Smile dropping from her face, the girl pulled a ragged blanket closer. Her eyes carefully watching him, she shrank into her previous spot. In front of her was an odd fire: green instead of natural red. It appeared to burn endlessly and never wavered. It was almost like magic. Fascinated, the breeze watched with amazed curiosity.
The girl was shabby and lost, fingers calloused and stomach empty. Unlike the boy, she was without a home, anyone around, anyone to talk to. Her voice was hoarse from lack of use. She didn't ask questions nor challenge the breeze. Rather, she let it ruffle her hair, and cupped it in her hands when it grew tired of filling holes in her clothes. Most would panic after an invisible force made their hair dance. She never did.
Glancing one last time at the man, reminding herself to wake him in the morning, she curled up into the brick wall as the small breeze settled sleepily in her red sweater.
The breeze adored the girl. She'd treated it with such kindness when she had nothing to give. It wouldn't plague her with secrets. It worried she might not be able to bear them. So instead, it absorbed hers. And though she couldn't see the curious little breeze stealing her heaviest secrets away, she felt her body become infinitely lighter in their absence.
After letting one last strand of her hair flick up into the night air, the breeze wrapped up the last of her secrets and swirled into the air. It took the worst of her secrets far, far away, purely out of love for her. Maybe, if it could find her again, that curious little breeze could come back to play once her secrets were safely hidden.
Even if the girl was healthy enough to protest, she wouldn't have, and welcomed the satisfaction and freedom of a clean slate. Slowly yet surely, her pale face began to regain color, and her eyes won back their innate mischievous spark. Without plaguing secrets, she was free, and life flooded back into her, filling her with bright colors she could feel blooming in her fingertips.
The girl glanced at the man on the floor. He looked old and tired — Despite his drunkenness and gross drooling, she felt a sharp stab of sympathy. Without a second thought, she took the blanket off her cold knees and laid it over him. Instantly, the cold air hit her, making her shoulders shake and teeth chatter, but the man's health came before her own.
The girl lifted a hand towards the fire; the green sparks roared higher. Satisfied, she rummaged in her bag and pulled out a book. The pages were odd and looked foreign, filled with drawings of magical creatures and listing fantastical attributes. Her eyes adjusted to the dark, absentmindedly scratching the ears of the white cat that appeared at her side. His fur shone like a beacon in the dark alley, illuminated by green fire.
Her eyes found the moon: her reading light. Looking up into the star-studded night, she wondered if there was anyone out there who was truly, somehow, just like her.
And the green-eyed boy, awoken by the sound of roaring wind at his window, watched the moon just as peacefully as the girl. Looking across the rolling green hills, he wondered if there was anyone out there truly, somehow, who could see his true self, and every imperfection that came with it.