On Stormy Nights, the Waltz

The next great adventure awaited, and so Wind sat sulkingly atop the cliff. Across the land, darkness spread. There was a light blazing vivid yellow and happy orange deep in the bush. Curious and hopeful, Wind flew down to take a closer look.

A man was searching in a pack for his supper when he placed a lantern on the edge of a boulder. A furious wind whistled across. This man had built a small cell wherein fire was imprisoned. Fire wanted to be free, to dance and flail wildly. The light fell to the earth as the wind danced around and yelled down in an ecstasy of anger. Suddenly, flames licked out in a crazy dance across the leaf-covered ground. The man lost his footing and yelled, trying to stamp out the fire, but the wind was too quick. With one more burst of fire, tendrils of flame are picked up by wind and carried far beyond the man's grasp. With glee, Fire darts and weaves through bushes and trees, stroking each tenderly before continuing.

The gentleman ran furiously around with a bucket of water, beating down as many flames as he could. Then, a great roar came from the wind, which sliced through the flames, sending sparks everywhere in the woods. The man watched, blank-faced, as twenty more flames sprouted in the woods, their happy crackles teasing his incompetence.

Unlike those stormy dances with storms, unlike the furious clashes with rain and waves, wind and fire now whirled together in a finely choreographed waltz-considerably more elegant. The two together whirled over the woods, enveloping trees in dazzling scarves of light, shining brightly around them; in their rear, a burning carpet of embers, sweeping shrubs into sparkling globes. It was flung lightly over a creek and up a short hill by wind, which also twisted it to the left and right as flames danced mesmerizingly. Small dazzling sparks flew over the dark green canopy of the forest as wind rumbled around the fire high in the sky. As it soared from tree to tree, Fire uttered a joyous little giggle. And the wind whistled a grand tune as the fire kept whirling amidst the trees.

The darkness still clung to the fringe of the woods, yet it glittered magnificently, as if the sun had come back to play. Soon, the fire began to burn out, wearied by the long dance that had played most of the night. The wind blew around, trying to regenerate the fire, and while the flames crackled back into brightness for a moment, they soon died away as the fire itself settled down to sleep late in the night. It winged back through the trees, settled with an exhausted sigh on the cliff's edge, and wind blew out the last of the embers. Without fire, there was nothing to do at all, and worse, there was no motivation to do anything.

The place was wrapped in serenity and a night sky filled with bright stars. No sun shone in the sky, no rain clouds were gathering above, no waves were breaking up on the surface of the ocean, no storm anywhere far away, and no fire cried for release. No friends were waiting for wind to join in the joy. It sailed indolently through a rent in the hill, whimpering with despair on its downward flight as it swirled over in a somersault from the rim of the precipice. The gale grumbled with anguish and slumbered in the rear of a cave that was black as ink. It was excessively vain, and more's the pity there was no occasion for doing it. The wind slept the long, long sleep like the rest.