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A Breath of Wind
By Olga Redko
The streets were being pelted with rain, slick with the water that ran down drains and across gutters, trickling into the sewers below. Dim streetlights illuminated little in the murky fog of the rain-blasted landscape. Dreary buildings rose like faceless stone monoliths into the darkened sky, where clouds obscured the faintest hint of anything that might resemble the glimmer of moonlight, or the delicate winking of a star.
He stood under an awning, a damp unlit cigarette in his mouth sagging downwards. He was waiting but for what, was unknown to any passerby who deemed it feasible to be out and about in such sickly weather. He leaned against the door of a locked and darkened shop and stood as though asleep on his feet; but his eyes were alert, and scanned his surroundings intently.
At last they lit up, dull gray sparking with something excitable and interested. You re late, he called, but his voice held a smile.
In this city it's hard not to be. The speaker was a short, stumpy being whose gender was quite indeterminable; it was swathed in bulky scarves and a mismatched array of colorful coats faded by the weather. Its voice was gruff, expectant.
Did you get it? the man in the doorway asked.
Of course, the other grunted. Hard enough job it was, though. You wouldn't believe what I had to go through to find it I had to fight off the street kid gang on Delaney Avenue! Venture into the depths of that caved-in mosque on Barricade Way! Spend a night riddling away with the guardian of some old library! All of this while trying to get directions to it. And all of it in the rain. It sniffed accusingly.
But you have it.
I said I did, didn't I? Reaching into its bulk of clothing, the figure pulled out a package wrapped in black cloth and handed this package to the man in the doorway.
Ahh. The cigarette fell unheeded out of the man s mouth onto the sparkling wet pavement, where raindrops fell and disappeared into their collected puddles. The city seemed to be holding its breath. All of its industrial waste, its jungle of suburbia where steel and stone and architecture were one, were waiting in expectant feeling. The man in the doorway carefully, slowly, reverently unwrapped the package. Inside it was a small hinged box.
Here we go, said the man, and opened the box.
It came slowly at first, so slow as to be almost imperceptible. But the wind made its mark. As a breeze, it drew the rain to fall sideways. As a brisk gust, it shivered the pedestrians in the cold city. And then, as a gale rising to the heavens where the clouds blocked the sky, it tore those clouds apart and sent them into all four directions of the compass rose, driving the rain away all across the earth and clearing the city.
It was over in a matter of seconds.
Ah, said the man in the doorway, looking up at a clear and breathtaking night sky. Look at the stars. Aren't they lovely?
Copyright © 2006 Olga Redko. All rights reserved.
Honorable mention in this short story creative writing contest went to Katy Cloer for the story titled:
The Mind's Ride.
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