hat full of wind

2021-09-02

I’m traveling through steep, dangerous mountains in a far away foreign land. I’m traveling in some kind of a car or carriage and am scared, so I just mostly close my eyes and go along for the ride. I can see other cars over there on the ridge on a trail too narrow, only three wheels touching the ground, one dangling dangerously out over thin air, pebbles and rocks crumbling, tumbling away into the chasm below.

We make it through the mountain pass into a tiny village full of tall, thin buildings like red and orange colored pencils all crowded together hugging the mountain side as though afraid to ever venture out of its shadow.

The buildings are ancient and built solidly, in really good shape. So are the people. They stare with neutral faces, revealing nothing.

It’s a small nation-city that thanks to its extreme remoteness and isolation has maintained its independence and identity through the years despite technically being ruled by a rotating door of occupying conquerors. The name of the town has changed on paper every time a new ruler has taken over, resulting in updated maps and official documents and stuff, but they themselves have never referred to themselves as anything other than what they’ve always been. They are changeless and ageless while the world ages and changes around them.

I’m walking around the town like a tourist, taking in the sights, looking at the buildings and the bright colors, enjoying the feeling of the city close around me in a hug. How can it feel so dense and urban yet pastoral and archaic?

Late in the afternoon, we’re sitting inside a small kitchen drinking dark, malty beers out of large bowl-like glass mugs when a terrible wind whips through the town. The wind is so strong it has color and texture, weaving thin spun cotton down the streets and between the buildings as it races all throughout the town and up the side of the mountain.

I walk outside. The town’s features are blurry through the silky wind. The wind blows my hat off, a felt bowler. I reach up and grab it out of the air before it can blow away, and the wind catches it and fills it like a balloon, lifting me up off the ground as I clutch the hat to my chest. I lift gently off the ground and I delight at the sensation, floating along on the wind. I rise higher and higher, as high as the trees, and then as high as the tall, thin buildings, and I become afraid. Still I climb, above the rooftops and now all I can see are the terrible cliff sides of the impossible mountain, and I know that if the wind should stop, a fall from this height would mean instant death.

I twist the hat in my hands and discover that the wind seems in a strange way to be coming from inside my hat, as though my hat has swallowed the wind. If I angle the opening upward, it nudges be back down as gently as it lifted me up. I can point it behind me to move forward. It takes a little getting used to, but soon I can navigate around with my hat full of wind.

I settle back down toward the ground, and my travel companion runs up to me, outraged and concerned at my flying off. I turn the hat around in all directions, trying to remain more or less in one place while he talks. He scolds me for being unable to be still, and I tell him I can’t help it, my hat is full of wind.