There once existed a lovely wisp of wind who came roving, romping, tripping over pebbles. She was singular; strong and gushing one moment with youthful bravery, shy and timid the next; twirling, swirling around the legs of passersby, kissing their faces, lifting their spirits, blowing an autumn brown leaf. Giddy she was, her laugh tickled their ears with a wisp. She danced around the passersby, and with them. She was alive; they breathed her in, stretched their arms out to her and loved her. She tickled their faces and they remembered. She was alive, giddy, and free.
On day, as she seethed back and forth among the tendrils of a weeping willow tree, she saw a man tall and thin, lumbering, slumbering down the road toward her. She rushed at him and playfully lifted his red scarf up around his face until it gently lapped his smooth jaw. The hardened lips pursed downward in weary subjection curved upward; his dull eyes began to twinkle and he laughed out loud; a deep, hearty laugh. He began to chase her and as he chased her, laughing, he felt a boy again.
But oh, how he wanted to catch her and hold her tight, bottle her energy and possess her youth. The moon-flower joy faded; and he began to hate her for her youth, for the fleeting joy which she ignited in his calloused soul. He hardened and crusted over again, and envy possessed him. He thought if he could just hold on to her, he could feel young and free.
But she knew nothing of being confined, and continued to carelessly entice him with her softness, her hide-and-seek girlish movements.
So he slashed, thrashed at her with flailing arms in hate. He berated her vivacity and tried to suffocate her with his weight; tried to entangle her in his arms. He yelled fierce words, which she carried away with her. He wanted to destroy her.
And she, stricken by the hateful words and enviously passionate violence, began to howl. Her howl heightened into an eerie screech and she in turn whipped wildly about in pain; writhing and wringing, stamping her foot as is natural for a girl in pain. Those around her had to cover their ears for her first scream of anguished frustration pierced the world. Then she fell back and ceased her wild abhorrent motions. She was silent and still, and scarred.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she dragged herself down the barren beaten path she had never noticed to be so barren and beaten. She was hollow, moving about vaguely in a vacuum, with echoes taunting her, and she realized she was old.
