Lethargic
Written by Alice Xie ‘28
Illustration by Ana Vissicchio ‘26
We used to fall asleep to the wind at night. The soft wind of evening
would spread the paints of the sky across the horizon, showering the
cosmos with pockets of light. What started out as blobs soon smudged
into an ombre of purple, blue, and indigo. The nighttime wind would
rustle the leaves of the old elk tree that we used to sit under, talking
about anything and everything. The wind was like a lullaby, drifting
softly to our ears and pushing us one step closer to oblivion. I’d slump
against your shoulder, unable to hide the droop of my eyes. And you’d
only laugh, acknowledging the wistful sigh of the wind with a good natured
smile. The summer breeze broke up the stuffiness of a warm evening,
wrapping us both in the seamless cocoon of its embrace. The wind danced
alongside our dreams, lilting and swaying to the haunting rhythms of
unconsciousness. The easy draft was enough to tear me from the grip of
reality and insert me into a fantasy, one where we danced together through
darkness. The songs of the wind, reminiscent of chimes after a storm, would
float through the air and close its warm fist around your mind, pulling you
slowly into sleep, long after I had relented to its clutches. The wind was,
perhaps, a maternal figure. It cared for us, sheltered us from the fear of
growing up, and sang us into a trance with the most heavenly choir of notes.
Every night, the wind possessed the ability to bring sleep upon us, and I
doubted if the wind would ever not be enough. The wind is always enough;
you and I are enough.