All I have is the wind

The wind’s susurration in the abandoned streets, the distant hiss and drag of the shingle beach are my world. The long dry fountain in the square hosts no bird, no lizard. Through the drowse days, the sun chases limping shadows through my laneways, beneath my arches.

Still sleeping, a shiver rouses me partway from the doze; recognition trembles at the edge of consciousness, but sensation sinks to emptiness.

The breeze fades and the moon pursues softer shadows. Lulled by the steady breathing sea, the fleeting itch fades, a phantasm of loneliness. The drowse draws memories of … filled houses … busy streets … children skylarking on the beach, watching boats return … screeching gulls plunging on fallen fish.

And Carnival day. Floats stream ribbons and parade through thronging streets. Children dare, dart beneath, to dodge the rolling wheels, their mother’s warnings noise in their ignoring ears. But the mothers screeched in their youth, scrambling under those same carts, and mothers’ mothers before them. Fathers, smiles fixed at the bravado, mask their fear in shouted encouragement. All are here – fisherfolk, baker, blacksmith, young and old, the committed … the rebellious. All paint their faces with the joy celebration demands. Floats gather in the square at sunset, reeling all the townsfolk in. I hold their hopes in a net. Old folks watch, slack faces shield their fear of yet another year, their hope of change. In the darkness, cafes disgorge whirling patrons, light and wine splash on stone, washing shadows from the gutters. The various musics jar together in a cacophony, spurring on the swirling, captured dancers until each drops senseless to the cobbles. Bloodied feet twitch to stillness as the tainted rapture fades.

Waves extinguish the moon. In the deep, dark silence, the square empties their compliant shame into my byways, head down, unseeing and unseen. In the drains, memories mingle with the bloodied wine.

So many filled years, so many empty ones since. The hills birth the sun to warm brick, dry stained stone, leaving a miasma of other days and this day and the next and next. Winter rains wash the square, flush the sewers to the roiling surge and suck of a gale-driven sea.

Moon chases sun, chases moon, chases cloud.

The itch returns, stronger: no dreamt illusion. It has a murky flavour filled with tension.

I essay a tentative call: a simple tendril, searching.

Nothing.

I reach again, a firmer stalk and … contact.

Ahhh … I know it, but with a different flavour from times past. It refuses to hear … or understand my call.

Torpor falls away. For the first time in years, I wake and extend a careful, veiled command.

This time it hears; I sense the garbled response, tinged with fear and anger. But within is curiosity: it wants to know. That is my hook.

I open long unused senses. The road from the hills reveals a speck amongst the rippling heat. Then it fades.

Memories of that last mad Carnival immobilise me. A too-young child escaped a neglectful mother to be crushed beneath a float, following an older sibling in the game. The father carried the body in his arms to the square, gathering a wake of silent fury as he walked, wailing through the stunned streets. In the square, the child’s blood dripped from his cradling arms to the stones. Then the crowd roared and growled. Years of control gone, blown apart as gale-driven smoke by my people’s fury. Cobbles torn from the street smashed my windows and blazing brands followed. I smothered them and turned the hoses towards the mob; the glittering lances of water lashing them from the square – they could destroy their homes if they wished. But one bedraggled figure remained beside the fountain, crouched, defending a broken body.

The water stopped. He walked to my building, the corpse lolling in his arms.

“We are not your playthings,” His voice a shout of anguish. He stared at my building with its gap-toothed windows and turned away.

The child’s mother bore responsibility for the death, not I. How could he – they – think otherwise? Yet their actions told the story. It required a lesson.

All services ceased across the city – nothing worked. After a while, figures scurried from house to house, avoiding my square. Groups met, whispering – empty threats and braggadocio. Memories told me they would settle when the services returned in the morning. I waited.

In the night, my people streamed away, carrying all they could. I watched them, helpless, as they wound up the road into the hills. Fires twinkled from the heights for a few days as they gathered in the crops. They ignored my entreaties to return, spurned the welcoming lights in their homes, the high splashing fountain and faded beyond my reach. For long years I watched the hills and the sea, searching for them. My people need my shelter and care, but they never returned.

These hard memories blaze inside me, but I smash them down. I can win back my people, rekindle my purpose.

I send a gentle invitation: an image of the fountain’s sparkling water, cool shade and rest for weary feet.

Nothing.

For days and nights I remain awake, searching, listening, calling, but finding only wind, sea and enveloping hills of lonely rock. Days stretch out and return me to the drowse of memories. The taste becomes another phantasm amongst the thousand, thousand from the past. I sink into the memories, less than half aware, but avoid that day.

Sea, sky, wind and water are the only change.

But it returns – after some uncounted time, sitting atop the ridge. I feel its gaze searching the streets and square, seeking understanding but avoiding engagement.

Does it ignore me, not comprehend my sweet entreaties?

Through the night it sits and we watch from the heights, from the city. I send images of the good life waiting in my houses and streets, the joy of community, of shared purpose. It returns nothing.

In the dawn it stands, stares one last time across my empty streets and walks away. The taste is contempt, abhorrence, denial.

The only sound in my streets is the wind.