By MAGGIE RYAN
The Wind’s Rebellion Let me tell you a story. It’s an ancient story, older than you or me, older than this town, even. It’s a story of life and injustice and the connection between the two. There’s a happy ending, of course. There almost always is, but only after you start questioning the reliability of your life in the midst of the storm.
It begins innocently enough with a late summer breeze that’s a bit too cold and sends a shiver down your spine, causing you to notice the trees. But you forget about it. You move on. Until one night you step outside into the darkness. It always happens just a few steps away from the house when the door is closed, leaving you vulnerable and exposed, surrounded by nature. There’s an unusually loud rustle of aspens behind you. You pause and look around. You can hear the silence of the night. It makes you nervous. After all, it’s our human instinct to want to feel safe, and here, surrounded by nature, you are not in any way safe. And that’s when you realize that you just witnessed the mountains come alive.
The sky is dark. A few stars offer their ancient light, but without the moon their wisdom is forgotten. The branches of the pines reach out to you, whispering of what’s hiding behind the luminous peaks that frame the sky. Dark shadows dash between the rocks with no birds or squirrels to stop them. A storm is brewing in the crevices of the dried up creek beds. You can smell it. And right before you go inside, longing for the warmth of electric lights and cozy beds, you smile.
And in the wind, the history of the world echoes in the canyons. It speaks of a time before paved roads and manicured woods. When the river flowed full and ferocious, swirling, smoothing the stones that formed its banks. It tells tales of animals born hundreds of years ago that fought for their lives so urgently only to die in the very places our houses are built. With every passionate word, it gathers the clouds and vows to never forget. Only the trees are listening. They’ve heard the stories before, passing them down from generation to generation. They begin to sing, swaying to the rhythm of the memories, enveloping their souls until they lose their entire being to the music. And the wind howls against the mountain, screaming the tragic ends of trees that grew from seeds that fell centuries ago, tossing their protest against every nook and cranny. And the mountain, she smiles sadly. She remembers each seed that ever fell by name. She nurtured them, grew them into these strong, beautiful trees, only to feel the strength of the blow as they fell against her, the unbearable heat as
they went up in flames. She doesn’t say a word. She stands strong, taking each angry blow silently, a patient mother waiting for the tears to fall.
Piece by piece, the clouds begin to drop until their insides are crashing to the ground. The stars have disappeared, leaving only coldness behind. The wind throws itself against anything in its way. The trees, possessed in their song, sway as the world floods around them.
Amid the anger, a rain droplet freezes and in a silent protest falls softly to the ground. The idea behind it begins to spread — the idea of change. Slowly at first, but soon the entire world is made up of falling snow. Thick, white, sticky flakes begin to gather, muffling the lamenting wind and calming the hypnotic movements of the trees until slowly the world becomes calm and the wind grows tired.
In the silence of the snow, the mountains are the ones that whisper. In a language that began before the sun, she murmurs goodnight stories of trees that grew to touch the sky and stars whose ancient wisdom spread through the darkness to bless us in its light. Quietly, she speaks of love and how each snowflake came to be so different from anything else that came before it. And with a smile the ancient world sleeps.
