Why do we wrap others with blankets of comfort just to rip them off when most convenient for us. Why do we clean our own hands just to dirty them with unclean words meant to destroy a soul.
Our hands are wrapped with cloth af pure white, just so we can hyperfixate on the dust that still lingers, Why are angles that fall, cry and weep still worship the feet of the one who pushed them?Why Why Why. The man next to me pleads to his own reflection. I ask and ponder the same questions as he, yet I am not as brave to reveal them. I am still in this race, while he has already lost. Oh the freedom that comes with no longer being bonded to the NDA of life.
His hair is black, like beatles, I can almost see them crawling around, trying to escape from his grasp. He’s oily and dirty, yet he is the cleanest of everyone on this train, bound to hurtle its way off the edge of the world. Only one shoe remains on his foot, but I don’t dare to look down and examine it. A man’s life choices are his, and should not be questioned by another. So I don’t. His eyes are large and brown, ordinary. But I can see his thoughts through the groves of his iris. I have learned how to read thoughts and desires by only looking through a man’s eyes for I have lived a long time. I am like the devil, you know.
Everyone thinks they know me until they actually try. His eyes dance across our surroundings, almost looking for the answers to his pondering thoughts by searching the passerbyes. His hands shake, they are veiny, like rivers splitting off from a lake. I can see his bones, yet his flesh still hides his identity. I wonder and think of who this man is. To be on a train destined for nowhere, so packed with people yet so empty with thoughts.
“What’s your name?” I say if matter of factly, like I have been asking repeatedly yet this is the only he heard me. He didn’t look up, but he does stop moving. His eyes land on one thing behind me, and his hands grab his knees almost for balance even though he is sat.
“My name is the whisper of wind, the question of thoughts, and the children of trees, I am not confined to a name, that is not who I am. You will call me how you see me, whether that is a whisper or a shout, I will respond.” He said this quietly, almost to himself yet he knows I heard. The ones who shout are less to be heard than the ones that whisper, and he knows that.
“Do you, though, have a name I should call you if we ever are to meet again?” The man continues. His eyes move to meet mine. At that moment, I understood. He is in fact like the moving wind, his eyes dance and swing and twirl even when still. The colours of eyes, even when brown, have light like honey that move in his eyes, it seems like his iris is like a cauldron of colors and life. While others eyes are simply eyes, his are the window to his soul. Oh I could read to you his life story just by looking him in the eye.
But I couldn’t understand the language. I had not been taught how to just yet.
“I am going to see you again, child of the wind. I am going to learn of you for you are the first person I have ever seen who is really alive. But, for now I will bid my farewells knowing that I will dance with the color of your eyes, and swim with the sound of your voice.” After preaching the love of this man’s soul I had not yet learned, I walked off the train, happy and content. My feet hitting the ground parallel to the pulse of my heart. The wind swayed by me, saying a silent hello on its way to nowhere, yet everywhere simultaneously, and I knew it was sent by the man, the child of the wind.
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