Prick of the Spindle: Nonfiction: George: The Wind

The Wind
By Will George

Recently I was awakened by the wind. There was a gale, a force from the dry sea that was pushing against the house. It was impossible to read or think or sit. The wind was calling. It pounded against the house, whistled and howled. It kept prying open the metal vent on the roof and slamming it shut. The vent clanged like an out-of-tune, frozen bell. The wind crawled through the attic, making it sound as if someone was running above my head. Wind crept under the front door, through the porch, under the final entrance where it moved the tassels hanging from a Mexican blanket on a kitchen chair. It was pushing me outdoors for an adventure. I looked out the window at a shredded Wal-Mart bag stuck on a weed in the middle of a field of dry alfalfa. Tumbleweeds chased each other across the road and impaled themselves on barbwire fences.

Before taking some garbage to the dump, I dropped off the rent check with my landlord. He asked a question, but the wind was so loud he was inaudible.

He repeated himself, "How you doing? Everything alright?"

I yelled, "Yeah, I'm fine." Then my ball cap flew off and went sailing across the yard. It got caught on the trunk of a Chinese Elm.

Running back with my hat in hand, I heard him yell, "We got more wind than we do windmills."

Smiling, I pulled the hat on tight. "This is great, I love this."

"I just wish it would quit," he said. "Well, be careful." He pulled the door shut.

On the road to the dump, thick wooden sticks slithered across the road like snakes running for their lives. Weeds ran in circles like animals gone mad. White strips of fifteen-foot plastic hay tarps fluttered on barbwire. Particles of bare fields became airborne; the ground sifted by the wind, picked up then dropped miles away. I turned on my headlights. Near open fields it was bad as a thick fog. Arriving at the landfill, I found the gate was locked: "Closed on Windy Days."

I decided I would try to take photos of the wind, and stopped the old Honda in front of a plowed field. Opening the door just a crack proved impossible—the air current grabbed it like a sail, ripping it wide open. The door made a loud crack as it snapped against the hinges. Holy shit, the wind broke the door! I leapt out of the car, and stood like a sumo wrestler with both feet planted, knees bent, to snap a picture of a black gust coming across the field. It whipped my 140 pound body around 180 degrees, and sent sand under my glasses and into my eyes and hair. However, I had recorded the backside of wind. Driving away, the radio DJ announced the weather; "Winds thirty miles per hour. Gusts up to fifty miles per hour. The temperature in La Junta is 33 degrees."

It was time to find the highest mesa. Into the grasslands and down the gravel roads, nothing but cattle. They were oblivious. Off a gravel road and onto a dirt road, the place to stop beckoned above the noise of the prairie winds. Putting on a ski mask, I entered the wind tunnel, head down. I braced myself, cross-legged like a Buddha statue, near the edge of the drop-off. Human howls, laughter, and my own screams filled the air as the wind pounded. The sounds did not go out but fell flat against the sound of the wind.

There was no sun to speak of, just illuminated gray clouds. The other side of the canyon vanished. It was swallowed up in dust, dirt and wind. The gravel road that traveled across the canyon disappeared into nothingness somewhere in the middle. The lone color of life was the green from yucca plants. My joyous screams rose up with the wind and it screamed back. We were buddies.

My jeans turned into parachutes and filled with air, which billowed out against the wind. The monochromatic canyon and sky, filled with millions of particles, remained unchanged. Eventually, cold took its toll and I had to surrender. I leaned into the wind and walked slowly towards the car. For fun, I tried sprinting, but got nowhere. I smiled, laughed, and lost my breath. The wind took it, like it needed more.

Will George's stories have aired on PRI's Living on Earth and Florida Public Radio. He has written freelance stories on social justice issues for various magazines such as In These Times and Third Force. Will also has shot cannons, traded furs, and written in quill for five different National Park Service units throughout the West. He lived for several years in the Arkansas Valley and co-wrote a seven-hour narrative script about the natural and cultural history of the Southwest. It is now heard every summer aboard Amtrak's Southwest Chief between La Junta, Colorado and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Will George holds a M.F.A. in creative nonfiction writing from Goddard College.