The Wind in His Fists

There once was a hardworking man who, returning home from a journey, found a small package by his door. It was wonderfully wrapped in paper that glittered like the night sky in January, with a ribbon like a belt of silver. The weary man picked up the box and brought it inside his house. He kindled a fire in the fireplace and sat down to open the box by the glow of the fire.

He took care not to tear the strange paper or ribbon, and gently pried open the wooden box. He reached into the box and removed a small metal object, which shone brightly in the firelight. he started as it suddenly lept from his hand and took flight, fluttering around his chair, flashing like a firefly.

Amazed, he tried to follow it long enough to examine it, but it was moving too quickly. He tried to catch it with his hands, but then refrained, afraid that he would break it, whatever it was.

After some time, the thing settled down, alighting on the back of his chair. He leaned over and looked closely at the strange gift. It was shaped like a tiny winged lady, with clothes of feathers and leaves, but it appeared to be made all of silver. It was intricately designed, he could see. It was beautiful to look at, and filled him with a feeling of awe and wonder, and at the same time, a feeling of peace and tranquility, of general wellness and wholeness.

He gently lifted it off of the chair, and set it on his nightstand, for it was late and time for bed. As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered who it was that sent him such a strange and wonderful gift.

The next day, the man carefully set the silver fairy in its box before he left for work. After all, he didn’t want it flying about while he was gone, or worse, flying out the window. All day at work, he could think of nothing else, so strange a spell had this thing cast on him, or so it seemed to him. At home again, he opened the box with anticipation and joyously watched the tiny sprite flutter about, as if it danced about his head like a dream. It seemed to have a mind of its own.

Each day was the same, and he found that the fairy had given a sense of wholeness to his life, a joy and purpose. It was strange, but true. And every day he released it when he returned home, and enjoyed its company more than any man his wife or dear friend.

As time went on, however, he began to wonder more and more about where it came from, and about how it worked, and what it was. One night, as he watched it fly if front of the fire, the thought came into his head that he should see what was inside of the thing. He was repulsed by this thought, and put it out of his mind. But each day, he kept wondering, and the temptation to know gradually became overwhelming.

Finally one night, he gently lifted the fairy out of her box and placed it on the table. He picked up a knife and searched the bright surface of the fairy for some seam into which he might pry. He inserted the tip of the blade right under the joint where the wing met the back, and gently twisted, for he feared breaking the thing.

The the tiny lady yielded, and her back opened to reveal a wondrous array of clockwork, glittering like a tiny dragon’s hoard inside of the silver shell. He grabbed his spectacles and peared inside. The gears and springs were almost too small to see. He gently poked and proded, for now he wanted to know just how it worked. He meticulously traced the network of gears and springs and levers from the wings to the delicate mechanism inside. At last, and now it was late at night, he had succeeded, he thought in discovering the precise mechanism that made the lady fly. He had even drawn a detailed diagram of the mechanism.

Satisified that he had mastered the secret of the gift, he set to work putting it back together. He had all of the parts in order, numbered and meticulously labelled, and he carefully lifted the first small cog from the table to put it in its place in the shiny shell. But as he did, as the lilliputian gear lay on his upturned fingertip, it suddenly turned to dust. The gray powder slid down his calloused skin and onto the table. He watched helplessly as the rest of the parts, one by one, disintegrated, leaving tiny piles of gray dust. Before he could think, the wind blew open the door, and a breeze swept the dust from his table, and out the open window.