For Days and For Nights.

The wind raged for four days. 

 

Though it may have been five. 

 

It drove everything inside: the cats, the people, the cold. Trees smashed against the windows of the house, sending everything inside deeper into the darkest corners. The cold settled around everything else.

Some, tried to sleep. But it was impossible. Others sort escape in meditation but the wind was too strong. Dreams became troubled, desire and hope could not be found.

“This is the wind that drives sane people mad and the insane ones to suicide.” It was Jenny that voiced the thoughts that everyone was having, thoughts that swirled wildly like the wind inside their heads.

“They say that if you kill your lover on days like this, then no court will convict you.” Jack replied. 

Jenny tensed, was Jack thinking of killing her? Should she strike first? She looked around at the others, sitting at the table and lost in their own imagination. No one spoke. 

         

The only sound was that of the winds outside, searching for a way to enter and pull apart the stones behind which they were sheltering. Branches crashed to the floor, trees were felled in the forest, a truck overturned on the highway.

 

On the fourth day, though it may have been the fifth, Jenny could take it no more. She suffered from claustrophobia even on a sunny day but this was worse. 

She ventured out. Wrapped in thick layers she took her bike and weaved through the forest, climbing over the shattered limbs of the trees until she reached the road. 

She cycled with an energy that freedom gave her but even that was not enough to sustain her. On the hill towards the village her pedalling came to a standstill and then she started to roll backwards. 

She could feel the wind lifting the bike from the road and in fear of being carried beyond the cliffs that surrounded two sides of the village she threw herself to the ground and crawled into the ditch that ran alongside the road. 

She lay there, safe for the moment and in the lee of the gale, a sudden stillness calming her. 

Then the bike, borne skyward by the tempest, crashed on top of her, breaking her arm. The pain was almost unbearable and she lost consciousness for a few seconds. In her mind’s eye she was lying on a beach surrounded by a blue haze, perhaps the ocean, perhaps the sea. She couldn’t tell. What was the difference anyway? And why does my arm hurt so much?

   

She came to and with her unbroken arm pushed the bike to one side. 

She would prefer to crawl home now rather than risk another limb. Or life, if a tree should choose to crush her. 

She reached for her phone, surely someone from the house would come if she explained the emergency? 

But, there was no signal. The storm had probably downed the relays.

In the end she crawled part of the way and let the wind push her the rest, the pain in her arm became just another part of her and when she finally reached the house she was even able to use it to pound on the door.

“Let me in;” She cried. 

“I don’t care if you want to kill me.” She added.

Jack opened the door.

“You’re crazy.” He said, and then they both realised that the wind had ceased.

“No longer.” Jenny replied. “Not now.”

The rain started the moment the door was closed.

 

The wind had raged for four days. 

It may have been five.

 

The rain, however, lasted a month.

 

 

The Recklessness of Youth.

I am writing this now at the tail end of February, as Spring waits in the wings eager to step onto the stage but unable to until Winter finally gives her the cue. 

I am unwaveringly certain that the season, my favourite, is female as I am also uncertain whether the winter really harbours any desire to leave, despite the daffodils that are open by my door and the birds that sing each morning and indeed now in the late afternoon. 

I have just woken from a post lunch sleep and I feel like my own death is as close as winter’s breath as much as I also feel hope that my time is only just beginning.

Am I a fool or simply an optimist? 

Seventy years was considered the standard when I was a youngster in the nineteen fifties, the Bible – yes people still read it then – spoke of an allotted three score and ten. 

It took me a long time to understand what that meant and if you asked me to explain how or why a score is twenty I will surely struggle. 

But it is, and I am there, and I feel that even if I remain healthy and relatively strong, my days are no longer mine to waste. 

Each one is precious – as they always have been. 

Only the recklessness of youth allows one to consider otherwise.