The Wind and The Boy

In a land full of freshly cut grass and not a care, lived a young boy. He heard all around him, the trees, the babbling brooks, the birds and the other animals, but the only one the boy ever even half way listened to was the wind. The way the wind spoke to him made the boy close his eyes to fully take in the sound. The older the boy got, the more he listened to the wind. He knew of it’s anger in a raging storm. He knew of it’s love with a gentle breeze on a summer’s day. He knew of all it’s moods, from the confusion of a twisted story turned to rage, to the sweetest of kisses by the sea. Wherever the wind traveled, so did the boy. Sometimes the wind aided the boy while he voyaged, whispering sweet nothings as he sailed across the sea. Others, the boy and the wind argued, leaving him alone in an unknown land. Always, the wind would return, apologizing with a sweet kiss and enveloping the boy in it’s self. The boy continued to age and slowed, despite his efforts to catch the wind. Everyday he asked the wind to stop so they could talk together as he did with the owl or the fox. Whenever he asked, the wind vanished, it’s voice unheard in the stillness. The wind slowed one day, as if catching its breath, as the boy sat on a rock resting his weary soul. So much time had passed, that the boy was now an old man. So old, in fact, that his hair matched the color of clouds on a sunny day and his face wrinkled as he smiled in the presence of the wind. The wind circled and swayed around the boy, but his age would not allow him to dance as he spoke with the wind. His breaths slowed and became shallow, and the wind became still, only moving when the boy’s breath met the air. With a smile, the boy let out one last breath to be carried out on the wind. The wind tried to rouse the boy, desperate to put the breath back into him, even sharing some of it’s own. It was no use. The boy’s essence had moved on to the next place it would dwell, leaving his empty shell to return to the earth. The wind stood still for a long while as the empty vessel slowly disappeared into the earth. Once everything was as it was, in the land of freshly cut grass and not a care, the wind began to move once more. It spoke of a boy that chased it around the world and back home. Somewhere in that land, a little boy’s eyes were closed, listening to an the epic tale.

• In the beginning existed a void. This void took whatever it could from life. It took happiness that others discarded. It took sadness away from those desperate to be rid of it. Most importantly, the void took grievances and affirmations. Every word given to the void, it took as payment for it’s silence. One day a sound awakened the void with a stir. Yelling, whaling, moaning, every ounce of the void shook with violent vibration. Like every offering before, the void took these sounds as payment for it’s silence. The strange sounds continued to increase as the void faced the power behind them. Everything the void took in, every sadness, every defeat, was felt in these sounds. The void wanted nothing more than to provide comfort, but as per the void’s agreement with existence, silence was all it could offer. Silence can bring a type of comfort the void had never considered before. So, instead of taking the powerful sounds in payment, the void offered silence freely. Sound by sound, silence began to replace the vibrating noise within the void. The void began to realize that it was given a way to comfort the weary like I had always wanted to. Giving silence was a more powerful than taking words as payment for the same act.