Friday, March 18, 2011

Her Wind, Her Move ~ Red Writing Hood

A wiley wind whooshes in.  Crinkled, crackled leaves scoop up from the ground, spiraling in its frenzied turbine.  Brilliant fire filled hues chase each other, before crash landing as the wind floats the air current upwards.

She follows.  She found this wiley wind and is moved by it.  It mirrors the chaos she walked away from, but is unable to truly leave behind.  Being pulled in every different direction was almost her undoing.  And now, their voices still clamor in her head, battling each other, daring her to return.

The wiley wind rushes up and into a towering tree’s canopy of leaves, rustling leaf upon leaf upon branch upon leaf creating a symphony.  She listens.  She waits.  She looks to see where it will go next.  It’s pulled from the trees, surfs the open space, blows through a rickety old fence.  She follows.  She wonders where it will take her next.

It gets larger, louder, more frenzied.  Her head, swollen, full of voices competing for center stage, for control, matches this wiley wind’s frantic fevered pace.  She moves.  She checks.  She follows.

Abruptly, the wiley wind drops out of the sky, releasing the leaves, dirt, and dust it had picked up during its dance.  The voices quiet for a moment, looking to see what she will do with no more wiley wind to follow. 

She’s not sure of her next move.  She no longer has a partner to dance with.  She’s alone. 

With a rapid intake of air, she realizes just that, she is alone.  She made the heart wrenching decision to leave, to remove herself physically.  She left her job, her home, her neighborhood.  But she had held on tightly to those voices, the ones begging her to stay, the ones telling her to run, the ones screaming that she would never survive on her own.

She picks her crumpled body up off the ground, where that wiley wind had ended its dance and left her to make her next move.  Plucking a dry, crimson leaf from her wind whipped hair, she decides. 

She closes the door on all those voices, locks it tight, and listens to the silence.

She breathes.

She puts one foot forward, pushing off on her new path.




This piece is fiction for the Red Writing Hood from The Red Dress Club.  We were asked to write a piece, fiction or non-fiction, about a time that our character took a detour.

10 comments:

  1. I like the wily wind. I can see her following.
    Good images, of leaves and the wind. The voices in the wind.

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  2. You have really great imagery and I like the metaphor of the wind. Particularly the line where it surfs the space.

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  3. The wind and the leaves really set a nice tone.

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  4. Ooooow! My heart is kind of racing! I'm THERE, Kare! Magic! {!}

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  5. At first I found the repeated usage of the "wiley wind" to be redundant, but as I kept reading, I realized that the story would not be the same if you took "wiley wind" out and made it something different. I enjoyed the imagery, and your words took me there, like I was watching.

    I really enjoyed this!

    I stopped in from The Red Dress Club.

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  6. This is poetry. I am soooo bad at poetry!
    I think this has a deep, underlying meaning for you. It is also written is such a way that anyone could take their own meaning from it. Good job!

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  7. Such beautiful, poetic language describing such a scary detour! Picking up and starting over- i hope it leads he where she needs to be!!

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  8. Extremely well written. I enjoyed reading your work

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  9. I like the idea of how you are comparing the unpredictability of the wind to where her life will go next.

    I got a little overwhelmed with some of the imagery. I felt like you used a lot of words to say some simple things. Not always bad, but sometimes your meaning gets lost in all the words.

    I really think this piece has TONS of potential! It's just so...beautiful. And sad. It's hard to make beauty and sadness marry, and you did that.

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  10. I loved the personification of the wind. Using "wiley wind" multiple times named it, made it an entity, a partner.

    For a bit, I was wondering if "she" was going to end up being a feather or some sort of inannimate object.

    In the end, I did wonder if the wind was literal or metaphorical and then had to wonder what force was behind it.

    Great writing, lady. Made me think. :)

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