Just the Wind [open]

Itzal Usoa

I’ve been having the dreams again. Not always the same, but not quite so different. They start with me out in the forest, traipsing along with my satchel over my back. It’s late afternoon, and the sky’s all crimson and orange. Thick flecks of snow fall and catch on my eyelashes. The wind picks up and howls, but I keep walking out into the forest, off the path and through a patch of firs. There’s a snap of a branch and I start to jog, running toward the sound. I can feel my heart beat, racing, my eyes watch for—him. I know that he’s here, somewhere, if only I can find him. And the sun starts to fade and the sky grows dark. The pitch black and blaring snow makes it difficult to go much further, until I come to a clearing through the trees, and he’s standing there, back turned to me. I clear my throat but he doesn’t turn, he just stands, waiting for something. 

And so I wake up, cold sweat over my body. I can smell the coffee roasting in the other room. My brother snores lazily in the cot next to mine. Marisol knocks on the door and whispers that it’s time to wake, and I wipe away the sleep from my eyes. Iker complains that I was talking in my sleep again, that now it’s getting worse than when I used to snore. He pauses for a minute as the two of us move to put on our long johns. Is everything all right, Itzal? But I just smile and shake my head, because there’s nothing different than there has ever been before. And so, we head to the kitchen, set the table, and munch down the hardtack and swallow up the hot coffee. 

There’s no work for me today, though the long plumes of smoke still gush upward in the distance—there’s always work to be done. Folks are still in mourning over Samira and Sacha, but it hasn’t stopped the refineries from belching out tar and flame. I didn’t know either of them, though I was proud enough that they could survive for so long. I don’t think much of the games; I’ve been fortunate enough to have only lost one person in my life, and they might still return. Pain and grief have come for others, and so I keep putting one foot in front of the other all the same. Funny that some people stumble and fall without so much as realizing they always had the strength to keep moving onward. Of course, it’s a lot harder to see the way when you’ve never been before. 

I had every intention of making it to the market when I set out from home. I was supposed to get milk, flour, eggs, all the essentials. Couldn’t bother to have sent Iker, but then—Marisol herself didn’t want to budge from underneath her blankets and stitching she was doing. So I was the one that tread through the snow and along the dirt bundled up tight. It wasn’t so terrible to get out into the snow—winter was my favorite season, after all. By midnight the whole of this place would be covered with a little blanket of white, ready to start over. The truth would lurk underneath, but even still, we’d be free to do what we wanted for a while. 

The only reason that I stopped was the sound coming from the brush. A sort of low, howling sound that was more man than beast. The snow had started to come down in thick, fat globs, and I stood, watching the branches of the trees shift in the wind. No sooner had I spied branches moving did I start to make way off and into the forest. Which, looking back now was entirely foolish for a boy such as myself to do. Yet there was something out there—in the same spot (was it?) so long ago I’d spotted that strange girl ready to fall into a pool of ice. I pushed through the branches and smelled the sticky sap that struck back at me. Of course, for all my bumbling, there was no more sound – no other call, just a howl of the wind. 

I turned back when I heard the branch snap—and narrowed my eyes. “Who’s that?” Is all I manage, because, who else was wandering through the middle of nowhere? And I want it to be him but even I know how foolish this is to think.