There aren’t many windy days anymore. Heather and Saieed both knew the time had come and gone, squeezing them right out of the annals of local folklore and magical story-tellings. It was okay for Heather because she never was a thrill-seeker. She wanted to enjoy the rest of her life as she had enjoyed the first half, but Saieed was a different man now. He would quake and tremble in his sleep, quivering through the dreams and shivering through the memories. The knuckles on his dark and shriveled hands would turn bright around the top of his quilt; he would spread his legs out in the middle of the night, kicking Heather and tensing his torso desperately trying to hold onto anything through the terror of his sleep, clenching the memories that she was trying so hard to forget.
They will always come. They will always fly kites on the beach. They will all hold towels down on the sand with stones; the stones that have lost all traces of home. These stones were always on vacation, always waiting for the next perfect day. The windy days have blown through these stones a billion times. The quick slashes of air have torn every memory from the pores and pits of sediment leaving no reminder of boulder, shift, mountain, or cliff; these stones will soon be sand.
Saieed looked at Heather through his coke-bottle monocle, his other eye swirling stupendously under its sewn-shut lid.
“Grey” he said. “The rain is falling straight down and it’s grey.” He turned sharply to the window signaling for her to look, and she did. With no important pressure and no monumental effort, she brought herself to the window, glanced for a moment at the soggy-city scene and blinked slowly while turning away and walking into the next room.
Heather thought this kind of day was perfect for meandering. She stretched out on the soft red couch and focused on the long deep breaths that always brought her solace.
Saieed stood near the window for hours sometimes, especially on days like this; trying to calculate the next catastrophic storm or guessing the likelihood of the pinhole-opportunity that brought his life to a halt while everyone else just went on living; weighing the chance that he could ever be thrust airborne again.
Someday when he finally tired of wondering, he would come and sit on the big soft couch with Heather and she couldn’t wait for that day; to finally be at peace with him, to curl up in his lap and purr while he relaxed and accepted that he was now sand.
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