As the wind blows

It was a rainy day in a small seaside town. The greyness of the sky seeping into the greyness of the water, the only thing separating them were the frothy white caps a top the cresting waves. Seagulls circled, cawing from above as if to warn the cars driving on the single road through town that if they stopped too long, this place would suck the life out of them. The town was just as grey as the elements surrounding them, a handful of faded whitewashed buildings scattered over some wet grey grass that hinted at the colour green. In the background you could hear the dinging of the towns sea bell, announcing to everyone that the tide was on its way back in.

A girl stood, barefoot in the shore. The fabric of her wet skirt sticking to her knees tears rolled down her pale grey face as she sobbed. She was alone on the shore, her yellow coat making her exceptionally bright in such an exceptionally dull place. She was holding something in her small, pale hands. I couldn’t see what it was but as I edged closer to take a look a voice called out from somewhere behind her, 

“Suzie! Suzie? Where have you gone Suzie?” 

The girl quickly stuffed whatever she had been holding into one of the pockets of her raincoat, she turned to leave the shore taking one last longing look at the ocean and then she ran. She ran along the whole length of the beach and disappeared into what looked like a regular stand of beach grass. As a gust of wind, a pure element of nature the goings on of people didn’t usually intrigue me, though, there was something about this little girl that peaked my curiosity. Since there were no sailboats in the bay, and I had nowhere else to be, I propelled myself in her direction. To my surprise I noticed that there was a little path in that regular looking stand of beach grass. Little braided bits decorated the inside of this waist high bush, braided haphazardly at random intervals, only seen from this path inside. 

The path continued through some more of these oddly braided bushes then ended abruptly at a makeshift driftwood bridge built over a small freshwater stream. There were many little barefoot imprints leading all the way up the back of this sandy hill. The girl had been wearing no shoes, odd as it was cold and the temperature of the water frigid, although it didn’t seem like her first time to that little lonely beach. As I flew over the crest of the hill I spotted the edge of a yellow coat disappearing into the doorway of a small faded, whitewashed cottage. Grey smoke plumed from its grey roof adding to the general greyness of this place. I followed the girl inside. A voice called out from somewhere in the recesses of the house,

“Would you be gentle with that door Suzie? It’s older than me !”

“Grandma I didn’t even touch the door!”

“Then who did? The wind?”

The old woman chuckled at her own joke. If I were able to blush I would have. I felt abashed that poor little Suzie had been blamed for my carelessness. I had brushed past the door a little roughly in an effort to keep up to Suzie on her way in, and unbeknownst to her grandma, I am, actually, a gust of wind. 

Suzie took off her yellow raincoat and hung it on some pegs at the door. She wiped her tear stained face roughly on her knitted grey sleeve and made her way to the kitchen. She shivered slightly as she walked, still barefoot through the hallway. She left little sandy footprints on the worn green rug. I stayed a bit behind as I didn’t want her to feel any colder than she already did. I do have that effect, on people. As she perched herself a top one of the worn driftwood stools, an elderly woman turned around with a tray of freshly baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Her face seemed somehow familiar to me, like I had worn some of the lines into it. Odd. 

“Now. Suzie dear, have you been going to the beach without your shoes again?” 

Suzie crossed her feet under the counter shyly. Slowly she replied,

“Yes, grandma. I’m sorry” 

Her grandmother looked down the bridge of her nose through her slightly fogged up spectacles. 

“You know, one of these days you’re going to catch a cold. Your grandfather would not have been happy.”

At this the girl began to sob quietly. 

“I…I…know grandma. I’m sorry, I just really missed him and so I ran down to the beach were we used to watch the boats come in. I thought maybe he would be on one of them. I forgot and I promise I wont do it again.”

Her grandmothers eyes softened. She took Suzie off the chair and gathered her into her arms. She sat down with her in her lap on the worn green rocking chair and gently stroked her hair. 

“Oh Suzie, I’m so sorry my darling. It’ll be okay. I understand. I miss him too.”

The two of them rocked gently and held each other as the tears rolled down both of their faces. The scene had become too much for me to handle, i had seen more than i had wanted to and it stirred feelings deep inside me that I didn’t want to feel. I needed to leave. I flew out of one of the half open kitchen windows, the shutter banging behind me. I saw the old woman turn and look my way, she stared for a long time. It was as though she could see me, as though she knew I had been there. Her face grew smaller and smaller as I flew further and higher, I didn’t know where I was going but I knew I didn’t want to be there anymore. The image of her face haunted me, I didn’t understand why she had looked so familiar until now. A flash of memory shot through me, a little girl just learning to walk running towards me in the sand, that woman standing behind her holding a basket of seashells. I dont know where it came from but I struggled to understand. How could that be my memory? I had always been a gust of wind hadn’t I? I dug deep inside myself, I tried to conjure my earliest memory but I couldn’t find anything. All I remembered was playing with the birds in the sky, rolling over the waves in the ocean, blowing the sails of the boats in the bay. I remembered the festival of air when all the other breezes gathered and we all spun around dancing over the middle of the ocean. Though, no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t remember when it began. I felt as though I had always been this way. Time was a hard concept as a gust of wind. It never really mattered. I saw some seagulls and the thoughts left my mind. They wanted to play, so I lifted them up and together we flew towards the peaks on the other side. 

It was another day, grey as usual and I had been lazily blowing into the sails of a boat in the bay. Watching the fog roll around the buildings in town. My attention shifted when I noticed a woman in a yellow coat take off her shoes and wade into the ocean with her clothes still on. She stood, staring off into the distance, a sad longing expression on her face. It looked like she was looking right at me, her grey, tear filled eyes pierced right though me, I almost wondered if she could see me but I knew that was impossible. Her hair was a mixture of auburn and streaks of grey. Something about her reminded me of a little girl I once saw doing the same thing, maybe it was the yellow raincoat against the stark greyness surrounding her, maybe it was the bare feet and tear stained face. Her presence drew me in, I was curious, that was something about me I know I have always been. So I flew toward her. As I got closer I saw that she was holding something in her hand. I wanted to see what it was so I flew around her to look over her shoulders. It was a tarnished silver locket, it had two pictures inside, a black and white one of a salty looking bearded old man, he was smiling but it didnt reach his eyes. The other side held a small coloured one of the familiar old woman I had seen baking cookies. 

“ I miss you Grandma, I hope you’re with Grandpa now.”

She whimpered through her tears. Grandma? This must be Suzie holding the locket! She looked so old! I wondered how much time might have passed since the day I had followed her home from the beach. As I recalled the memory, a strange ache began to form inside me. I didn’t exactly have a body to ache but I felt it nonetheless in my being. Why did I feel this way? As I pondered these things Suzie began to sing. 

She was singing an old Gaelic song, her soft sweet voice mixing with the melody of the sea. She sang about seahorses and their families.

  As she sang I became overwhelmed with memories. I was flooded with images of Suzie, of her mother and her father being lost at sea. They had been testing out the sailboat they had been building when a freak gust of wind had blown them out of the bay. It had ripped a hole in the sail and tangled the ropes. The boat smashed into the reef and they had been thrown over board and pinned under it. No one had found them until the next day. It happened just a few months after Suzie had been born, she wasn’t even a year. Over night she’d become an orphan. Gwendolyn, my sweet wife, Suzie’s grandmother. We had become her legal guardians that day. I remembered the pain of losing my only son Herbert, right in my own back yard, I had blamed myself for not helping them with the boat that day. It was the first day it had been put in the water. The memories swirled in a storm inside me. They flowed into each other, one into the next. I remembered the days after, Gwendolyn had taken to carrying Suzie around the house with her, strapped to her body in a yellow harness, like a lifeline. She would walk her down to the beach. I remembered Suzie taking her first steps on that worn green carpet. I remembered once she’d learned to walk I had showed her that path down to the beach behind the house, we’d braided those brushes together and I had built that driftwood bridge for her. I remembered buying her her first raincoat, she’d picked yellow, it was her favourite color. I remembered teaching her this song. I remembered it all. I remembered that before I had become a gust of wind I had been her grandfather. I had been Elroy Johnson, that woman who had looked so familiar, that was my wife, Gwendolyn. I began to sob, my tears covering the bay, my tears drenched Suzie. I tried to hug her and found that I could not, I had no body. I had no body and it was all my fault. I screamed internally, I had left, left her all alone. I had left her and my wife alone because I had deemed that I had lived enough, I had reached my threshold of what I was willing to endure. I had succumbed to the song of the sea. It had been a selfish decision. I remembered being wracked with grief at the loss of my only son and his dear wife. I had blamed myself for their deaths. I remembered drinking every night, I remembered that one night I drank a little too much. I remembered stumbling barefoot to the beach and wading into the cold waters of the bay. I had left them on purpose because I had not been strong enough to hold on. I’m sorry Suzie, I am so so sorry, I thought. I wanted to comfort her, I wanted to hold her but the most I could do was to gently blow on her face to dry the tears away. You’re all alone now. You’re alone and it’s all my fault.