the wind and the sun

     As promised, here's the short story version of my movement project. It's very much so a first draft, so take that into consideration haha, but yeah! Hope you like it.

Before there was the sun, there was the wind. Over the cold, dark expanse of the earth, there was only the wind. In blues and blacks, she traversed the ground, piercing the bones and bark of any animals and trees she encountered. The skies laid bare, their dark opaqueness taunting the wind. She was unable to draw closer to heaven, to those little pin pricks of light shining through the expanse of black that was her world. Her travels were endless, through wood glades and sea, the wind felt all. She felt the animals as they huddled within the caves, desperately trying to hide from her bite. The plants curling into themselves to create any respite from the blanket of cold that covered them. Even humans were unable to keep a match lit, the only heat or light they knew. It was like this for years. The dark, the cold, and the wind.

She tried to see, to feel more. But it was so dark… The wind would look towards the dark sky, wondering what it felt like to be so high. She would jump, leap, even climb the sky to try and reach that heaven she had never known, but there was a heaviness keeping her pinned to the earth. She couldn’t reach higher than the summits she was anchored to. Like a ship drifting along the surface of the sea, her domain remained the tips of the mountains and the valleys deep below. Yet those lights in the sky kept winking at her, enticing her to something more than she had known.

She had always been, and this existence would always be. Nothing more. Nothing less. But then. Seemingly out of nowhere, a light shone onto the darkness. It was electric and hot. But everything could be seen. For the first time, the wind saw the mountains that held her tethered to the world, she saw the robins and the bears, she could see the geese that flew on her shoulder.

She was given sight.

She looked up at this light. It was like the pinpricks of light she had come to know from the blanket of the night, but this was far bigger and brighter. Far better. Everything was in blues and golds now, the richness of the earth seeping into her veins, granting her a warmth she had not felt.

He was beautiful, this light. On the edge of the light, she could see his smile, feel his touch. It invigorated her. She had to see him. She had always wanted to see and feel heaven, and here was a piece of it, soaring just above her. The light she found from the earth below and the sky above seemed to change her, she felt lighter, yet fuller. She rose and rose into the sky, climbing steps of paradise long lost to time before. How high was she now? The dirt and coal below her seemed so insignificant now. Up here, it was crisp and free.

She felt herself dance.

It was slow and careful at first. She was scared that if she tripped, she would fall back down and find herself stuck on the mountains once more. She was higher than she had ever been and didn’t want to come down. This warmth. This life. How had she existed before this?

Her dance began tentatively, slowly. The crests of her shoulder swaying back and forth as her toes shook the waves of the ocean below. She began to pick up speed. She spun, allowing herself to expand further than she ever had before. She took the sky in her stride and leaped, spun, tumbled, anything at all that she could think of. The entirety of the sky was her domain, and she was loving it.

She felt a sudden, sharp heat on her shoulder. She whipped around. It was him. The light.

“May I cut in?” he asked.

She had almost forgotten that she had floated up to meet this being. But here he was, emanating that warmth and light that had brought her and everything on that small patch of dirt below, life.

She nodded. He took her hand.

It was hot. Too hot.

It burned.

She screamed and pulled her hand away. She looked below her and saw the animals and people retreating into the dark of their caves, trees, and shelters, running from the heat. The gold that had swept across the solitary planet was now burning it. She looked at the being, and saw his smile fading. He knew what was happening, and he couldn’t stop it.

There was a loneliness within his soul. She felt it. Like a heartbeat rolling across the waves, she heard his heart creaking out a whisper of a hope, his heart having lost its voice from hoping too long. How many planets had he gone to, hoping to give light? How many had screamed and wept for him to leave?

As he turned away from her, she could feel that blessed warmth leaving her and the creatures below. It was a respite, but she knew that without him, she would once again feel nothing but the cold and return to blindness. She didn’t want to give up this sky she had found, this heaven. He had given this to her, what could she give him?

Without thinking, she threw herself over his broad shoulders, encompassing him in a cloak of rushing air. It was unbearably hot, she felt herself expand and expand until she thought she would burst, and then. It stopped.

She looked at him. A tear rolled down his cheek and he bowed his head in gratitude. Warmth and light still flowed from him like a river, but his excess heat had dissipated into the space beyond their heaven.

Looking below, the creatures of the planet came out from their shelters to feel the earth around them. It was warm, but there was a coolness that stuck in the air to give sanctuary.

The wind and the sun looked at each other for what could have been eons. Neither one speaking, but both thanking the other for the gift that they had given the other.

Moments.

“May I cut in?” He asked again.

He held out his hand.

And she took it.

And they danced.

And they dance.

 

    So that's the story! Just to be explicit: to me, the symbiosis is their continuous gifts to each other. The sun gives the wind the sky and that freedom, while the wind gives the sun the earth by cooling him down. They dance through the sky together, demonstrating their love and continual giving to each other. So yeah. Ta da :)