"The Wind Howled"

"The Wind Howled"

A Short Story

By  

S.W. Martin

The firelight created dancing shadows along the walls of the cabin as the old man stoked the embers, sparks jumping forth like the lightning bugs once did on a summer night. 

The boy sat cross legged on the floor, watching the old man.  In his lap was a old open book,  pages with words written in a world now gone, meant for readers who were gone as well. 

The boy ran his fingers over the book feeling the stiff, water stained pages and the yellow faded images painted  wonderous tales in his imagination. 

It was a cold evening, flurries of snow were whipping around the cabin, a whistle of the wind as it slid around the outer walls of the log structure. 

The boy looked up from the book.

"Its going to be cold tonight."

The old man did not look away from the fire.

"Yes boy. It surely will. More cold nights to come too." 

The boy looked back down at the book. 

"I wish it would be warm. I hate the cold. 

I dont know much about warm."

The old man laid two more pieces of wood on the fire. 

"I know you don't. I wish you could have. 

I wish you could have known a lot of things.  I'm sorry."

"It isn't your fault. You didnt do it."

The old man paused, but then spoke.

"Maybe not. I just wish..." His voice trailed off. 

The boy knew the old man was sad.  He was sad because it was never warm. He was sad because there was little to eat. He was sad because the water wasnt always clean. 

And the boy thought the old man was sad because everything had gone away. 

The boy looked down at the book. 

He studied intently on the image of a jet plane.  His fingers traced along the edges of the wings,  along the fuselage ,  his mind wondering back into a world he never knew, of a blue sky he had never seen. Of soft white clouds instead of the one gray blanket that covered the world now.

The boy spoke again.

"Did you ever go into the sky? "

"No."

"Why not?"

"I never had a reason to."

"Did you have to have a reason?"

The old man paused and thought for a moment. 

"No, i don't suppose we did. I just never had anywhere i needed to go that required flying." 

The boy looked back down at the book, imagining himself in a seat of that jet plane. 

" I would have flown everywhere. To all the places. "

The old man spoke quietly .

"It wasn't as exciting as you think it was. It was just a part of life then."

"I wish it was a part of mine," the boy said sadly. 

"I know you do. I wish it could have been. But this is how things are now.'

The boy closed the book and sat it beside him. He stared into the fireplace, like the old man.

"Do you think we will ever fly again?"

"No. No, i don't suppose we will."

The boy did not reply. He said no more that night.  

The boy crawled into his bed and turned his back to the fireplace.  He wondered what he might dream of that night. 

He rather hoped it was not something particularly happy, because he would only wake up sad.  The boy was starting to prefer nightmares. So that his waking moments were not so terrible.  

He closed his eyes and was soon asleep. 

The old man sat by the fire, stoking it and adding wood when it was needed. 

He didnt sleep much anymore. 

He listened to the  wind and the snow outside the cabin on a cold July night. 

He watched the boy sleep.

He stood watch over the only thing that still mattered to him. The only good left in the world. He thought of the boy, and snow and shadows, and the things that were in those shadows. And he thought of how he would protect the boy from those things. 

He thought of what he would do to anyone or anything that might try to hurt the boy.  

Most of all, he thought about what he would do to the ones who caused all this if he could ever meet them, though they might be long dead.  

He looked at the boy, and then he looked back at the fire. 

And the wind howled.