TITLE: Wind
AUTHOR: Susanne Barringer
EMAIL: sbarringer@usa.net
ARCHIVE: Anywhere okay with these headers attached.
CATEGORY: VA
RATING: G
SPOILERS: None
SUMMARY: Scully seeks direction for her restlessness.
DISCLAIMER: Characters belong to Fox, 1013, and Chris Carter.
No infringement intended.
THANKS to Sue, as always--this time for playing metaphor with
me and lending me one of hers when I ran out.
_______
Wind
by Susanne Barringer
~~~~~~~~~~
Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
- D.H. Lawrence
~~~~~~~~~~
The office is still. Nothing moves. It is unsettling. How can
something that is usually so alive remain so deathly frozen?
Nothing moves. Nor do I. I sit, waiting, watching, my eyes darting
across furniture, files, papers, machines. No sign that this space
belongs to living, breathing people. It is a tomb, the stillness a mere
hollow echo of absence.
The air conditioning thumps on and the change in air movement
flutters the edge of a newspaper clipping on the bulletin board. I
see it out of the corner of my eye and turn to look, but by the time
my gaze catches it, the movement has ceased. Just a momentary
flutter, a mirage of movement amid the noisy placidity that screams
in my ears.
The clatter of solitude weighs heavily, bordering on unbearable.
This large room, filled to the brim with records of dark deaths and
violent acts, swallows me. I am small inside this cavernous space,
alone, lost in my seclusion. The stillness makes it difficult to
breathe, the air tight and dry inside my lungs. My breathing does
nothing to the alleviate the paralysis. I feel trapped in this sepulcher
of solitude, the loss palpable enough to leave the room still,
breathless, dead.
I want to feel the wind in my hair. The way it presses against me.
Not the kind of wind that comes in gusts, but the kind that rolls in
from the ocean, a steady loving pressure against the chest, face,
body. Its caress combs the hair off the face and makes the strands
dance about the back of the neck. Reliable and steady in its touch,
like a familiar lover.
When I lean forward it cradles me, protects me from falling. It
balances with my body, holding me up as I edge into it, weight on
the balls of my feet. It speaks in whispers past my ears, and when I
close my eyes it feels as though my eyelids are pressed flat. I lean
forward more, testing it, trusting it, and it leans back, carries me,
holds me in its arms.
I miss the wind, here in the stillness of the office. The absence
beats against my heart which slows in the silence, as though my
blood itself has deadened its pace to match the dearth of movement.
Then, Mulder enters.
With him comes a flurry of movement. He assumes I am working
so he only smiles at me when I look up at him, doesn't speak. He
drops the files he is carrying onto the desk, and they slide over each
other as the ones on the top plummet off the pile. Mulder steps to
the file cabinet, pushing one half-open drawer closed before
opening the one above it. The clang of the metal drawers fills the
room with life, with breath. He taps his foot on the floor as he flips
through the files, as if he wants to dance, not work.
The room is alive, the squalor of its previous decay falling away
with the graceful movement of the man who has entered. Such a
minor change, such a profound effect. As Mulder backs away from
the file cabinet, the pile of files on the desk suddenly teeters and the
whole thing falls over with a swish. The movement is spurred on
by nothing but inevitable gravity, or, perhaps, a slight change in air
current as Mulder moved. Wind.
Mulder sits, but never stops moving. Always a bouncing leg or a
pen tapping on the desk or his hands combing through his hair or a
pat on the edge of a stack of papers to straighten them. He is the
epitome of activity. Not silent, not still. He smiles, tugs on his tie,
rocks back and forth in his chair, drums his fingers. Movement,
rhythm, exuberance, life.
He gets up again, walks past my desk to retrieve something from
the other side of the room. His swinging arms and legs stir the air
around him, cutting a path through the stifling stillness.
As if he senses my inner disquiet, he lays his hand gently atop my
head as he walks by where I am sitting, an unexpected gesture of
reassurance or affection or possessiveness. My thoughts, my
heartbeat, my life speed up to meet the resurrected pulse of this
breathing room.
The wind in my hair.
I want to touch the wind. I want to feel the embrace for which I
ache, its caress cool against my still heat, my pounding blood.
When he passes by my desk again, I reach out to touch the wind.
My fingers brush against his knuckles, a feather-breeze of a touch.
He takes another half stride before he feels it and stops. His hand
reaches to take mine as he turns back to look at me. He squeezes
gently and I look straight in front of me at my hand in his, at the
way his fingers wrap around mine as if sheltering me, protecting me
from the deadly stillness that I dread.
I look up at him and he is smiling down at me, a fusion of concern
and puzzlement at my sudden need. I don't know which I need
more--that touch or that smile. I see the storm in his eyes, the
raging gusts of emotions blowing there, too strong to lean against
safely, but reassuring in their presence. How much could I take
before I would be blown away like soft dusty particles trapped in a
whirlwind? Flung around and around until I don't know which way
is up, hoping to land softly and safely in the comfort of a warm
breeze, but terrified of the hard surfaces that could leave me
flattened and barren.
For some reason, he raises our joined hands to his lips, plants a light
kiss on my knuckles like some kind of gallant prince. I am kissed
by the wind, left breathless and longing as he smiles again, then lets
go and walks away. The torrent rises and I wonder how the tears
manage to escape from the tangle of my heart, breaking like a
summer storm over the ominous stillness.
I feel like the sailors of old, days spent floating directionless on the
wide expanse of tedious seas, waiting for wind to carry them home.
Day after day of still air, heavy and weighted like honeyed cotton,
holding them back, keeping them from life.
I will not fall into oblivion, sucked in ever-narrowing circles toward
stagnation. Mulder looks at me once again before sitting down, his
brow creased in worry at what he sees. He tilts his head in
sympathy. The weight of his touch lingers on my head, across my
hand. I have been kissed by the wind.
The memory of it flutters in the breeze, brushing against my dying
heart and bouncing it back to life. I lean into the wind and breathe.
______
END
Feedback is the wind beneath my wings. :) sbarringer@usa.net
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geocities.com/area51/dreamworld) (
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