a short story.

A man without sight, was wandering across a flat and empty plain, when a wind that felt like hands or perhaps hands that felt like wind began to blow from behind. It blew him until he found himself, through the aquaintance of his hands, between the hands and wind and a wall. To what could he compare it? He could not walk forward or backwards on it. His hands could not scale the height in front of him.

"Here," spoke the wind, and when the words hit his ears, the were a memory not yet spent.

"Here?" asked the man.

The man reached his fingertips up the wall, standing on the balls of his feet until he no longer could. His arms ached and his feet could not bear his own weight.

He fell back on his heels, "What am I to make of this?"

He walked from right to left until he grew weary. He walked from left to right twice that distance, all the while dragging his fingers along,one at a time,for measure. When a finger grew raw and burned from the length of the wall, he would move on to the next finger, until all ten lay at his sides less useful and less telling than before. (Unless,of course, they were more telling and useful than before.) All the while, the wind spoke, "Here."

He leaned his back against the wall, but the wind blew. It blew no more or less than before, and no more hot or cold than before. It showed no signs of increasing or retiring. He thought it unbearable.

He turned again to the wall, unable to perceive it and unable to dismiss it.

"I cannot," said the man.

All the while, the wind spoke, "Here."

"How?" said the man. The wind spoke, "Here."


The man, begging the wind to cease, lay his face against the wall. It was grand and immovable. It horrified him.

"Oh, if only you could open for me!" cried the man,

"I could," came a reply, and the wind quieted as it blew.

"If only you would open for me!"

"I would," he was answered.

"If you will, open for me," asked the man.

"I will," was the response.

He heard stones begin to shift. It sounded as if the very wall itself was crumbling. The wind pressed him closer still. Stone after stone fell upon the man, as that very wall covered every part of him, until he could no longer move.

Then, stone after stone lifted and formed a footpath before him.

And the wind whispered, "Here," while the footpath whispered, "I have."

The man stood. He walked on the wall he loved, into the wall he loved, and the wind pressed him in, and he loved the wind for it.

As he walked, the wall was lit with every true brightness that cannot be toucheed with hands. It was so bright and high that it made him very faint and dizzy.


The wind began to blow him back over the path. It blew him onto the plain, so that his hands might be put to good use. And the wind that blew into the wall would not leave the man. I feel certain that this same wind will blow that man back to the wall, to the footpath, and its bright rest.