kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"TheWindTeachesMe.0"

words

The wind teaches me.

Every wisp of wind quickens my flesh and I understand one iota more about the world.

Somewhere a baby cries, and a mother calms it.

Somewhere a mother cries, and is silenced.

Somewhere a murderer cries, and nothing hears it but the wind which carries it to my open body.

I understand.

I understand what it is to be naked, and human; vulnerable. To feel, in the core of cores.

Brett used his lash on me last night, and he finally broke me. Out in the tall grass with only the wind to hear me moan, to cry out, to plead, he lashed me. He lashed me 'til I was numb, numb from the cold that seeped through my flesh from the crumbly, awkward, rough and pinching ground, and numb from the pain--and then further. He woke something inside me that had been trapped, cracked my shell and let It out.

Every slice was a mouth suckling the air for Its knowledge. Every slice he added was another voice inside my head, screaming untold secrets.

Finally, the voices coalesced, unified, Became. And I ran--not far, I ran and hid close by, to see what Brett would do.

I think I shocked him.

I hoped I did, but that hope has since faded as superfluous. What is it to hope for such mean things as that, when I feel voices praying for rain for their crops, when I taste the last breath of the murderer's victim? What could I rightfully hope for?

So now I lay on the rocks of the shore, an impotent goddess, a Jesus soaking in the sins of the world; the wind teaches me, and washes them Clean. And I will take their sins with me to the ocean, to cherish, to love, to forgive.