The Wind that Moves the Trees

We are never alone.

At times as these, I long for solitude.  To forget the various misfortunes in my life (especially those I contrive all on my own), I seclude myself.  If I am alone, then no one has to deal with it except for me.  Part of me wants to reach out, begs for some contact.  Someone to tell.  Someone to talk to.  But most of me just wants to be alone.  Separated from everything.  Everyone.
I'll bury myself in work.  It's productive until my mind wanders to the dark events that led me to seek such seclusion.  And then, my self-made prison causes the depression to worsen.  Now, that I've pushed so many away, there is no one around.  I become immediately convinced that their absence is not of my own making, but rather because their lack of caring and concern.  This cycle continues until everything simply spirals out of control.
This has begun again.  The dark cloud pushing its way into my soul, the whispers of friends fading into nothingness as I yell for them to leave, the piles of work I set into but never finish.  It's started again.
I found myself alone in the back of the library, I'd run into a couple friends on the way there.  But I used studying as my excuse to escape them, to move across campus to a little piece of quiet isolation, where a raised book and a pair of headphones would keep anyone from disturbing my fitful thoughts.  At first the words, from the assigned short story leapt from the pages into my memory, replacing that which I cared not to remember.  Each line passed in front of my eyes separate, united.  The authors experience moving in joyous opposition to my own.  But then my concentration was broken.
At a table nearby, a buzz from quieted cell phone jarred me.  The girl lifted it to whisper into the small black speaker.  No one else could hear her tender words, but they screamed inside my mind.  She spoke love to a boyfriend, love so far from my grasp.  Each word stabbed into my skull.  The blade of a knife slicing every part of me from the opening of each ear, straight down to my chest, where my heart beat arrythmically.  She hung up the phone, and resumed her work, never realizing my silent surveying of the call.
I attempted to turn my attention back to the pages of the book.  This empty tale of joy and youth that has been assigned.  The words now rang as blasphemy, and while my eyes continued to read, my thoughts were elsewhere.  I realized as I turned the page that I remembered almost naught of what had been on the page before.  A hand through my hair, and I leaned back in the seat.  Staring at a piece of glass on the wall.
It was dark, tinted.  It's purpose, I cannot be sure, but it reflected the image from the window high above me, to which my back was turned.  I did not even notice for quite some time, my blank gaze simply fixed at the piece of dark glass, not registering any of its attributes.  But as this attempt at self-inflicted loneliness grew less attractive in my mind, and I began to long for the friends I had left behind, I noticed the trees reflected in the glass.  Rather, they were not trees, but the winter skeletons of them.  Devoid of leaves.  Alone for their part, naked.  I stared at them, entranced by their graceful swaying in the wind.  As if the wind had become music to them, and they were dancing the slowest and most calming of dances.
I, sitting there, still looking up at them moving, felt as though I could almost hear the wind.  That quiet whispering voice that made the barren trees want to move.  To live.  To dance.  Against the cold, somber sky.  The wind whispered to me in my corner of the silent library.  It breathed my name, and I couldn't even try to push it away.  I could do nothing.  It's silent utterance translated by the waving branches.  I was deaf, reading their hands.  Still I could hear it in my head.  I was not alone.  Not even here.  Never.
No matter how much I ran from everyone else, it was still there.  Especially then.  As I run, the wind yells.  Racing through the air, it runs with you, blotting out the voices and sounds of everything else.  Even as I run over bridges trailing gasoline and stricken matches behind me.  It stays neither as friend nor foe.  It is simply a companion, that grows softly quieter as you slow down.  Moving in pace with me.  With each sprint, it renews it's yelling, and whispers as I tire, until friends restore the charred planks on our bridges and make their way towards me.
I leaned further back in my chair, it tipping slightly on to its hind pair of legs, my eyes still transfixed on the wavering wooden branches.  A calm nestled its way quietly into my heart, slowly pouring into my ears from the silent words of the wind and healing the wound that was scratched down to my chest.
I gently turned and closed the book on the desk before me, an almost imperceptible breeze breathing from the hastily turning pages of the book.  Not only could I hear its voice, but I felt it.  I swayed slightly, the aft legs of my chair wobbling as I did.  I exhaled sharply and then packed up the rest of my belongings, leaving the small table behind.  As I stood, I could just barely see through the high window in the wall.  The trees still swayed within the winds quiet cadence.  They had grown so high above everything else, yet they overlooked a slab of concrete that teemed with life.  The zooming cars and chatting people.  All eddying about beneath this tree in well-placed solitude.  But while separated, it was in no way alone.  Surrounded by life, spoken to by the wind.
I moved away from the window, and passed the table where the girl's cell phone was still resting.  A glance down at her, met with an awkward smile of guarded greeting.  My feet continued to carry me forward, until I'd left the library, making my way slowly back across the campus.  The wind moving slowly past my ears as I walked.  It wasn't long until I ran into the friends I'd left what seemed like forever ago.  There were a few other of our companions there too.  We all sat down around a table, stealing chairs from the ones that weren't occupied, forming an awkward circle that allowed few of us actual contact with the table.
Their voices hummed around me, my mind not latching onto one line.  Their words weren't united, but somehow comforting.  A key to a door to my prison.  I didn't speak though.  I still was separate, but not alone.  Their whispers echoing caring and maybe even concern.  A wind to my ears that let me know I was not alone.  Not here.  Never.

Author's Note

They say that writing is a great form of therapy. Thank, God.
Once again, I was less worried about aesthetics with this one, and more worried about just getting my thoughts out on paper.
Tell me what ya think.

Reviews

[WriterMe]

This was very VERY good. I admit, some of the thoughts that went into this piece were a little too out there for be to be able to comprehend it. But I really like what you had to say. Seclusion does do wonders. And sometimes, not such a very good things to do often. But in any case, brilliant work =]

[Emily B]

We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone really find us out.

'Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play
At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.
--Robert Frost

Robert Fulghum wrote about the same thing in an essay . . . his answer was "Get found, kid." It's always good advice. We all have to speak out sometimes. We all do.

[JoyCJF]

"To forget the various misfortunes in my life (especially those I contrive all on my own), I seclude myself."

Indeed, this is exactly how I locked myself into a prison I built from scratch. Beautiful vocabulary and sentences! I agree writing is a great form of therapy! Continue writing, don't let the therapy stop.

[x]

Magnificent...well done, jolly well done. I am very very impressed.
For me, this came across as a symphony. It felt just like music. You took the reader on a wonderful journey which was brilliantly pened, utterly capturing everything of the writers emotions. This write is complete with no detail left unfinished. The cell phone call was a clever device for allowing heartach to enter the story and then the recruitment of the tree (ouu la la) to give lift to the spirit.
A stunning write and is everthing I always believed was dwelling within you. 100%

[The Wave]

I think just worrying about getting your thoughts out, was the best thing for you to do.

you used words in such a precise and beautiful way. .You described things so that I could see this happening as I read along and you allowed me to see inside your head , if that makes sense.
overall, I'm really loving this, it's written well, emotions are strong and you kept my attention despite length.
GREAT job