10.

How cruel the universe is to allow the wind to fall in love with a mortal. Not only is it an unrequited love, but the wind goes unseen in its acts of romance. He swirls longingly around her hair and face every time she leaves her house. He waits by her front door daily for her to open it, always assisting her by gently blowing it inwards. He follows her and always makes sure her hair is blowing away from her face so that all can see her beauty.

His breeze capturing her perfume and taking it on his back he carries it around the city. The sweetness of her being on the tip of the nose for all those in the city. Never able to touch her, he settles for creating a barrier around her so that she cannot be touched by anyone else. He gets angry sometimes, I suppose, that he cannot even approach her. He cannot help it. He knows it’s wrong, letting his anger manifest in gales so strong that the trees become victims of his wrath. But he also knows that she loves the storm. The rain battering against her windows with her wind swirling around the streets and trees with a ferocity that demands attention. If she dares venture into the open on those days, he makes sure to send a zephyr into the rains path so that she can be kissed by proxy.

But he always calms down. And when he does he circles and whips around her torso in apology. He swirls under her feet to cushion her steps and helps her along to her destination. Acts of service, that’s all he can offer in this world. Always moving unseen, his acts of love come easily to him and he never has to think twice about it.

As the years passed, his cycle of love never never wavered until the day she lay on her death bed. He knew this day had been coming, he had been watching the cruel joke of life take its toll for millennia. He could tell when her last breath was coming as he always carried them off to live in the sky forever. The air was still the day she was able to take her last breath. And he was slowly swirling around her hair, almost like her was stroking her hair in farewell. As she inhaled his air for one last time on this earth, she whispered two words that couldn’t be heard by anyone else other than who she intended them for.

“Thank you”

Her exhale had barely passed her lips before he swooped down and shouldered the words on the back of his breeze. These words were not to be swept into the sky to join the others. They were to be kept with him for the rest of time.