The Wind Doesn't Touch Him

This is a story I crafted after I spent a day doing gravestone rubbings with a friend. We both witnessed a silent, almost gray figure moving among the headstones and even standing in witness to two funerals, although my friend and I were sure he had no af

 

The Wind Doesn’t Touch Him

 

by

 

Wes Guptill

 

            I was met by something new today as I crested the last hill, making for the far reaches of the forever green acres.

            For weeks, as I’ve been gathering material for a vast book project, I have come every day, arriving near dawn as soon as the doors have been opened by unseen custodians, staying until the chorus of the crickets have been overwhelmed by the stuttering squeals of rusting hinges. I walk among stones and walls, looking for the beauty among the tableaus of lost memories and broken hearts. My hands take on a life of their own when my eyes alight upon the perfect subject; before long my arms are aching with frantic exertion, my hands as grimy as a chimney sweep’s. Nothing from my periphery can lift me from my work, the work that will get me noticed by the world, and I cannot cease my hands until my appointed task is complete. This project is vital to me and its completion is paramount. I ignore everything, especially the loneliness that follows me daily, trails after me fervently in this most lonely of places. You could send down the hounds to torment me, and I may,  perhaps, brush them away with disdain.

            But not on this day. Today I was pulled from the reverie and frenzy of my labors by something that came at me unbidden, but persistent. A tap that began somewhere inside my head crowded out my focus. I thought it may be the nip of cold at my fingertips and hands as they scrubbed against the granite relief. I dropped my charcoal, drew my hands close, rubbed and blew upon them. When that tingle of heat pushed to the top of my skin, I thought the disturbance ended. Not so; the nag was still there, now at my back, and not at my hands. It was as if I were being held under the scrutiny of watchful but aloof eyes. I was compelled to stop again and survey my small patch of that world between worlds.

            That was when I saw him.

            The man stood off the cobbled path that runs through the yards like spider webs blown upon the wind. Grass, growing less verdant in the clutch of October, leaned heavy against the wind that gamboled through the Acres. Leaves and loose things floated and rolled past the figure, caught in the random swirls and sweeps of the wind. The air around us both was grey, darkened by a thick, endless mass of clouds that scudded across the lowering skies. No others were visible, save the two of us. Two figures each engaged in a separate existence, our only connection the yards.

            He was standing near a small cluster of chiseled stones, appearing to look upon them with great intensity. I say this because his head never moved. There was no look to the side nor turn of his head. He simply stood there, his head bowed downward, just a bit, and the sharp line of his nose seemed to draw an invisible straight line to the center of those stones. As if he were waiting for someone.

            I sat at my post, the charcoal darkening my fingers as I kneaded it idly. My own curiosity had given pause to my work, and I admit that it was not a mild interest that held my gaze in his direction. No, there was something that drew my stare. I wanted him to see me, and I believe that I stared as long as I did in the hope that he would look my way. He was attractive, in a quiet, subdued way, and that appealed to me. He was here in this place for a purpose, and I wondered after a hundred different reasons that he would have brought him here. Had he lost a loved one? His wife? A secret lover?

The possibilities ran scattering wildly as if they too had been caught in that wind, and my face grew hot with the fire of my imagination. I could feel the chalky silk of the charcoal brush my cheek as my hand rose to conceal the red bloom that had sprouted there.

            I tried again to avert my eyes, and my imagination, even bent back to the work that lay before me. But, I could only hold focus on the work for a few seconds, a half a minute at the most. It was then that the nagging came tapping at me once more.

            I had no doubt that the nagging tap had come from the direction of the stranger that stood up the hill. Had he been watching me before? Had that been what drew me to look in his direction in the first place? I had felt as if I were being watched, as if there were someone studying me as intently as I had my etchings.

            I looked to the figure again for answers.

            My breath sounded as a gasp when my eyes rose and I found myself staring into his. They were so dark that they seemed devoid of light, but there was a beauty that lay hidden within them. It was comforting and unsettling, all at once, that stare, and I felt another flush of heat swim across my face. Was I being rude, or was he inviting me to look?

            I did not blink, but kept my gaze locked upon him. No, that’s not right. It was his eyes that I could not tear myself from. In those dark pools, there was something simple and true at work. There was a deep calm in them. Something like what one might find when peering at the stars on a moonless night. I was adrift in what lay within those eyes. It was if I were floating in a dream that had no end. Floating, drifting, nothing else, although it felt like so much more.

            Then that drifting feeling became something different, and it seemed like I was no longer floating at all: I was caught in a current, moving swiftly on a dark river into a darker emptiness of a sky or a hole or something for which there is no name. I felt my emotions shift from calm and mild elation through sadness on a path to terror and dread. My ribcage felt tight, my breasts frozen and heavy beneath my shirt, and I couldn’t tell if I was breathing.

            But I could not look away. To do so would mean that I would lose that glimpse into something wonderful and frightening. Something that was as close to magic as I had ever come.

            I would have stayed that way, staring and lost, had he not turned away from me. It took a moment before the realization that he had broken off the connection, and when that realization did come I remember feeling as if something precious had been taken from me. A profound sadness moved through me, and my eyelids felt heavy with tears for that loss. Absently, my hand wiped away the tears.

            Snuffling like a wounded teenager, I dropped my charcoal and moved to stand. I didn’t know what had happened there, what had passed between the stranger and myself, but I was not one to simply accept things the way they are. Answers were in order, and I would have them from him. That, and a lot more, I hoped.

            He had turned his back to me, and all that I could see of him was that he had moved closer to the stones, his hands within the pockets of his long coat. As I moved toward him, I wished that I had thought to bring a coat myself instead of the sweater that lay wrapped around my waist; the air had chilled as I climbed the path up the hill where he stood, and I felt a field of chill-bumps beneath my sleeves.

            Before I could cover those last few yards, the wind lifted and ran stiffly between the two of us. I was rocked back on my heels and shivered against the cold that followed. As I squinted against the frigid bite of the rushing air, I kept looking to the man who seemed unaffected by the gale. A moment or two past before the wind abated, and it was during that brief time that I began to notice that something was amiss with my mysterious stranger.

            It wasn’t that obvious to me at first, the hint that there was something not quite right about the scene laying before me. There was nothing overtly wrong, but things were a bit off-kilter, nonetheless. I ran through a quick inventory of the moment: Gray, cloudy skies; the absence of anyone else in the area; leaves, grass, and small pieces of detritus flitting along the ground, caught in the wind; my hair whipping and lashing at my face, it too caught in the wind...

            Then it hit me like a heavy stone, the answer running through my head as quickly as it was born: The wind doesn’t touch him. And it was true, to my utter disbelief. My own hair was flailing about in the wind, my shirt sleeves rippling, the cuffs of my pants flapping noisily, and there was not so much as a hair out of place on his head. His clothes were as still as if he were one of those artfully sculpted bronze sculptures that adorn the sidewalks of Boston and other smallish big towns. His long trench should have been beating at his legs in that wind, but they were as motionless as heavy drapes caught in an old draft. The wind doesn’t touch him, I marveled again.

            I was even more intrigued then before, and now my need to be near him was nearly overpowering. There had to be some power at work within him and that notion just screamed for me to lat my hands upon him. A thrum went through my body, and primitive thoughts and urges sang out, crying for me to move.

            I leaned into the wind, which was buffeting at me now like I was a paper boat on a vast, tempest-ridden sea. I smoothed my frantic hair, half to clear my vision, half in display of my strength and  femininity. No sooner had I done this, then the wind gusted nastily at me, driving sand into my face and unshielded eyes. The effect was immediate, and I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head to the side before another blast could assail me.

            I held that pose for a few seconds, no longer. I was still leaning into the wind so as not to seem weak or lacking in stamina. Like a taunting child who has tired of his game, the wind ran away to torment other things, leaving me to a quick fix of my hair. I felt the moment required a bit of aplomb, so, without daring to look in his direction first, I lowered my head to let my hair spill all around my face. My face was obscured briefly as the hair cascaded and toppled down and away from my neck. I shook my head lightly and gathered the mass of hair into a loose bunch with one hand, while the other fumbled with an elastic. A quick flourish of hand over hand, and I achieved a ponytail that was, at once, both casual and studious.

            The hair was still bouncing against my nape when I realized that I was now alone. He had gone, noiselessly, wordlessly. A sinking pressure fell into the pit of my stomach; it felt like tainted food was churning and wrestling with my body, and I feared that I would vomit . Granola and yogurt has never had such an impact on me. No, that feeling was undoubtedly the manifestation of the sorrow that I felt at having lost my beautiful, enigmatic stranger.

            Mindful of the fact that he could very easily have been playing a trick, teasing me, I moved as casually as my wounded heart would allow me. I sped to the spot where he had been standing less than a minute before. My neck strained, as did my heart, to see around the corners of the stone monolith. All I could see was the blue-flecked grey of the granite and the alabaster of the marble. It was as if the color had run out of my world. Everything colorless now that he had flown.

            I circled the crop of stones at a dizzying pace, my head twitching this way and that like a frantic bird in search of her lost mate. My eyes turned to the glowering skies in supplication, and my heart nearly tricked my brain into believing that I saw the stranger flying overhead. A crying laugh sputtered from my lips when I realized the source of my mirage: A small plane piercing a thick fold of rain-heavy clouds had thrown shadows at me, mocking me, teasing me.

            The laugh faded into a heavy pant for breath, and suddenly every fiber of muscle in my body grew thin and limp. I clutched after the stone, not really seeing it but hoping that it was there, somewhere, before I pitched to the ground. A sharp pain at the heel of my hand let me know that I had found it and I leaned heavily upon the cold surface. The bloodless wound ached and throbbed, and it would later grow into a bruise that was only slightly smaller than the one upon my heart.

            I sank to the ground, head flopping heavy like a dying pendulum. A pinch nipped my scalp and I had to release the hair-band that had wound tight and was threatening to tug a shock of hair from my head. As the liberated hair tumbled down and into my face, I could feel the first cold drops of the afternoon rain spatter at my scalp. It was not long before the first taps of the rain grew into a concert of tiny drums and cymbals. The heavy, frigid drops drenched me and the accompanying cold wind snapped at me once again like a dog harrying a wounded rodent.

            Despite the battering I was taking in the midst of the rain and wind, it would be long minutes before I could bring myself to stand and make for shelter. And even then, I moved with no more haste than the bleak parades that marched through the yards.

            My work had been scattered and soaked beyond salvation by the time I made it down the hill. Absently, I shoved my tools into my satchel and lumbered to the entrance, my clothes leaden with rainwater, my feet numb blocks of cold clay. My eyes kept scanning the edges of the yards for any sign of my stranger, but he was gone, no trace of him anywhere, no hint that he had ever been anything other than the wish of a lonely heart.

            Moving through the rusted, flaking gate, I took one last look over my shoulder to a lawn free of everything but memories and loss. The rain was still falling when I stepped upon the lowest step of the bus that would take me back to my empty studio where I would sit and probably listen to something doleful on my turntable.

            As the bus lurched away from the curb with a squeal and a gasp of air, I could already hear the sorrowful voice of Nina Simone singing the miseries of a broken heart. The grey-toned day gave way to the evening, and the last of the light was spent on the hundred little rivers of rainwater that flowed down the bus windows.

           

***

 

            Three days have passed since I first lost my heart to the elusive stranger. And upon the morning of each of these days, I find myself awake before the light has broken above the horizon. I do not have to travel to the mirror to know that my eyes are circled with heavy furrows and a pale purple cast to the skin. Sleeplessness has painted my face in this manner. Don’t mistake my admission of insomnia for my not having drifted into slumber; I did fade into a fitful sleep each night, but only with the aid of several healthy portions of wine and the breathy lullabies of Nina. And each time, barely had I fallen asleep before I was beset by dreams of my stranger.

            In all of these dreadful oneiric assaults, I imagined myself moving feverishly through the yards, threading through the stones and monuments. The skies above were streaming with streaks and bands of light and darkness, day and night passing by at a sickening pace. On the ground, I was lost in a gray swath of fog. When the fog grew thin, at times, I could see his face, those eyes. My hands flew after the stranger, and I imagined that I could feel his warmth through the cold of the haze. But as close as I came, as quick as my feet were taking me, he was quicker and just beyond my desperate grasp. Exhaustion took me each time, and I slumped to the ground, sobbing.

            It was this sobbing that would wake me every night, and I would awaken to find myself huddled and drenched upon the floor, my gown sticking to me like an uncomfortable layer of skin. I would slink out of the wet garment and pad to the kitchen to warm myself with another long pull at the wine bottle. Then I would sit on the sill of the bathroom window that faced the east, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for the sun in the hope that its warmth would chase away those chills that wormed their way into my marrow and my shrinking heart.

            Some time after the sun had climbed into the morning sky, I managed to pull on clothes, loose and unobtrusive ones that would not restrict my running should the need arise. I hid my puffy eyes behind a pair of wide, garish sunglasses, and boarded the bus with my supplies and bag. Back to the yards I went, not for the purpose of continuing my work. That was pretense; I was on a more pressing mission, one that I hoped would bring a settling to my restive heart.

            Each of the excursions to the yards would garner the same results: I would wander through the expanse of the place, seemingly casual, building my lie that I was there to work. Often I would stand and look in the direction of some monument that would have otherwise appealed to my work, but I was really scanning the area to see if I could espy the stranger, should he re-emerge.

            He never did.

            Hours would skulk by, dragging me through the day, and as the light began to fail, I would trundle off with my burden to the gates that were always waiting to spit me back into the land of the living. I imagined that the hinges that had once squealed with the arthritis of rust were now laughing at me with an unbearable screeching. The noise lingered in my ears as the bus moved away from the curb, growing louder, somehow, as those doors shut behind me.

***

           

            Now that three days have come and gone, and I have come no closer to finding my stranger, with my body and spirit are flagging beneath the weight of the anguish for my loss, I have decided to abandon my earlier pretenses and comb through the cemetery to find out how I might track down the stranger. Yes, I can now accept that the yards are simply the lawns of a graveyard, and not the place of grace and beauty that I once imagined. I know this to be true as  I have registered my own loss within those lonely acres. The prospects of finding art within those walls and fencing have faded for me, and I no longer care. My project is trivial when held against the importance of ending my sadness. I know that I will not be able to rest until I have my answers.

            Suspicions have arisen within me that the stranger is a sporadic visitor to the cemetery, and that he is drawn there by his own loss or losses. He may not have a loved one resting in that place, but he goes there to fill an empty space within him. Maybe it is that he hopes to find the headstone that will mark the final destination for a love long lost to him. Maybe it is simple closure that he searches for.

            Conjecture is all that I have beyond blind hope; my efforts to track him through the death records of those buried in the graveyard have proven fruitless. Nearly all of the remaining family members of those interred are nearing the time of their own end, and all are well beyond his age and appearance. The internet is a splendidly wicked tool, and my hours of lost sleep have been filled with an almost obsessive search of available information. The road has closed on this route.

            So I must return to the yards if I am to find the answers I must have.

 

***

 

 

            On my final trip to the yard, I was surprised to find that a small crowd had gathered near the back of the graveyard. That they were clustered tightly, in small groups, some murmuring, others weeping, only let me know that this was a funeral party gathered for the heavy moment of bidding farewell to a departing soul. Sadness was hanging over the party like a pall, and I crossed myself as I neared them, even though I had barely ventured over the threshold of a church since I wore a little girl’s white dress at confirmation.

            I took a harder look up the hill where the party stood. I watched the priest mouthing his prayers, his hands gesticulating, his garb drab and painted with the colors of an austere, solemn pallette. Likewise, the party was dressed in black and seemed to be muttering and repeating the words uttered by the priest. They leaned and hunched with the heaving sobs that rang through them. The air was cold then, I noticed, and cones of steam hissed out of the collective mouths assembled on the hills. All at once, the line of mourners bent forward against a stiff wind that sprang from nowhere, and my own chest locked in iciness at what I saw.

            The stranger had returned.  He stood at the far end of the line, straight as a board and with the same stance I had witnessed that first day. No cold breath escaped his lips, and still the wind did not touch him, though it nipped and tugged the clothing of the others. I made another observation, then: While the mourners exchanged painful glances to one another, their heads moving left, down, right, and up, none seemed to look in his direction. He was standing scant inches from them, but they did or would not acknowledge his presence.

            I stood transfixed, my eyes never leaving his face. I would not lose him again. Twice, a few of the grieving people stole a look in my direction, but quickly averted their eyes. Subtle jabs of thin and wrinkled fingers pushed in my direction; they had noticed that I was staring up the hill at them. The way in which I was staring, eyes still tucked behind sunglasses on this bleakest of mornings must have caused a stir of suspicion within the throng. I must have seemed a madwoman to them, one of those street-people who bring discomfort and unease with them everywhere they go. A twinge of embarrassment flickered within me, but still I held my gaze, looking past and through them to the form of my stranger.

            He never looked my way, but somehow I knew that he was aware of my presence, if for no other reason than the mourners’ reactions to my presence. Or, maybe he was aware for other reasons.

            After a time, the priest finished his liturgy and the proceedings were concluded. A sigh seemed to roll off of the party and the people that had formed that group began to splinter off with scarcely a glance back at the casket. A few minutes later, they began filing down the hill like shuffling wind-up toys. Their heads bobbed up and down with their uneven, aged gaits, and I had to stretch to keep the stranger within my sights.

            As the procession moved past me, I caught the barbs and grunts of distaste that leaked from the mouths of those passing me. One woman turned toward me fully, her face heavily lined and caked with cheap foundation to conceal the brown spots that dappled her skin; the makeup could not conceal her contempt for me, and I knew at once that she loathed me though I had never harmed or slighted her. Still, I felt ashamed and my head drooped reflexively.

            A bolt of panic sent my head thrusting upward once more, and for a moment, I thought I had lost him again. He was nowhere to be seen. My heart tripped and raced, and I began to push through the last of the crowd, ignoring their stares and protests this time.

            Breaking through the close shoulders and clutching arms, I had a clear view of the gravesite.  My pulse raced even faster then, for there he was, just returning to a standing position. I moved closer, my eyes averting from his face and wandering to his hand. The skin there was smooth, white, and clean, except for the moist dirt that sprinkled from between his fingers.

            I moved up the hill calmly, slowly, steadying my shaking limbs. They shook from excitement and the anticipation that I would be upon him in the course of seconds. I stepped up my pace, glad that I had chosen the loose clothing. The distance between us narrowed. My hands plucked the sunglasses from my face and I think that I may have dropped them to the ground.

            I was less than ten yards from him when I pulled up short. He was moving from the fringe of the path, onto the surface of the freshly turned soil, toward the draped coffin as it rested upon the brass-railed stand. The terrifying thought that I was encroaching on a private interlude halted me. What justification could I give him for the interruption? None came to mind, so I paused, feeling exposed and out of place.

            I watched him move to the casket and place both of his hands upon its glossy, dewy lid. An expression of quiet resolve fell over his features then, and I felt more awkward than ever.

            That awkward feeling was short-lived, replaced by something that even now defies definition. Awe is as close as I can come.

            The stranger’s hands began to lift from the lid, palms down, arms fairly rigid. It seemed like he was performing a magician’s illusion. But there was nothing illusive about what I saw next.

            A vaporous shape began to seep through the wood of the casket lid, moving like wavering licks of heat atop a stretch of tarmac in an Arizona summer. The vapor shimmered and shivered as it rose, and once it made its way past the wood of the casket it began to coalesce into something akin to a body. It contracted into a smaller shape and floated for a brief time above the coffin. Then, to my further disbelief and confusion, the shape began to move in an almost human manner. Translucent, diaphanous legs swung down from their floating position, and then, as if waking from a long sleep, the figure of a man settled to the ground. I could see completely through him, the stones, the funeral tent, the stranger, everything. My heart slowed to a crawling pace.

            The stranger showed the only sign of emotion that I had as yet witnessed- he smiled. This he did as he extended one of those smooth hands toward the apparition. The specter willingly took the offered hand, returning the smile as well. Hand in hand, the odd pair of figures drifted away from the grave, and began to walk up the hill. Their passage was fairly fluid, and they had nearly crested the hill before I could force my legs to react.

            I ran after them, but they were then nearly lost from sight. I knew that there was no catching up with them, and I ceased my pursuit after only ten feet or so. My throat tightened as I watch them descend from view, heading toward whatever ethereal road lay on the other side of that hill. I could not stifle the cry that coughed its way from my heart.

            As the figures’ heads, one solid, the other ephemeral, began to drop from sight, I saw the stranger pause, his lips moving as if he were saying something to his spectral companion. The ghostly head appeared to nod, and stood with his head turned away from me. The stranger spun slowly to face me, fully, and he strode up the hill perhaps a step or two.

            Time ended upon the moment his eyes caught my own gaze. And in that moment all of my questions, doubts, and longings slipped away. The smile that he gave me sent ease into my soul.

            Still forming that turned down slip of a smile, the stranger backed down the hill, quietly turning back to take the specter’s hand once more.

            I stood there for some time after the pair vanished, with tears running in fine lines down my face. They warmed my skin as they flowed, and I was impervious to the cold that lay all about me.

            I was still crying when I found my familiar seat upon the bus, and the driver and a few passengers glanced briefly at the grieving woman fresh from the cemetery. I could not find the words to correct their assumptions, even had I wanted to. I sat in silent repose as the bus rumbled away, my thoughts and my heart still anchored to the hill at the back of the yards.

 

***

 

            This morning I awoke again before the sunrise. With a cool glass of water in my hand, I drifted to the bathroom again. As I passed the mirror on the way to my ledge, I paused to take a long look. Gone were those circles and discolorations. Gone, too, was the pinched look that I had worn for most of my adult life. Serenity had slipped into its place, and my face was aglow. I could feel a tingling as my fingertips brushed my cheek.

            Nude, I settled upon the ledge, sipping at my water, heedless of anyone who might be looking in my direction. Clothing seemed incongruous to the calm that I was feeling, and the first fingers of warmth that heralded the sunrise felt wonderful against my bare flesh.

            I was looking on in admiration at my legs and the way that the light from the rising sun gave a sheen to my skin. A slight movement brought me from my daydream, and I looked in the direction of the motion.

            My heart swelled with a mixture of emotions as I looked down into the garden. I stood from my seat and lingered in the window for another minute or two before retreating to my bedroom.

            I lay down upon the bed and felt the soft cotton slide against my warm skin. I had never felt this level of awareness, this freedom from the weight of the world. My problems, the loneliness, the need for recognition that had spawned my many failed projects, all seemed to wad into a ball that grew smaller and fainter as my eyes closed. The sounds of the rest of the world rising to its routine of grit and toil drifted away from me. They were displaced by the sound of nothing, silence so deep that I wondered if I had ever known sound. The notion that sound could exist was nearly unfathomable to me at that moment.

            Two sounds came to me out of that void, though, and I knew that they belonged in the silence. The first was a whispering crackle, as a sheet of vellum passing through a thin panel of wood; the second was the slowing thud of my heart, my blood growing still in my veins.

            I smiled at both of the sounds. The crackle had told me that he was with me now, and the slowing of my heart promised that he would never leave me. The smile broadened further when I felt those smooth fingers and an unlined palm slide comfortingly into my own hand.

 

The End

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Please add your comments and suggestions as to how I might improve this work. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Reviews

[Wes Guptill]

I appreciate the positive remarks. I try not to succumb to my own ego, but after days like the one I had today, the nice reviews were uplifting. To say the least. Thank you very much.

[deeps]

Sad, and touching all in one. I like it the way it is.
Toward the end I felt there was some hope left when everything else looks dark.
I like this I thought it was very well written.

[The_Dreamer]

Awesome! That is all I could say. :)