StoryWinds: Compassion

A story from before people could write, about an incredible woman who was attached to no one. This is a story about how she had to reinvent herself in order to find honest compassion. The third of the StoryWinds stories, this is intended as a bedtime or relaxation story for adults.

Transcript

Long ago,

Before we knew how to write,

Our stories swirled in the winds.

Every blue moon and,

Sometimes sooner,

The winds would collide.

Stories long forgotten slid to the earth and slipped into the dreams of the sleepers below.

And,

For a moment,

They remembered once more.

The story of how the people came to see fire fly was not a pleasant one,

Yet it remains one the people most like to recall,

And the story that enchants every child who hears it for the first time.

Before the people owned much for possessions,

And when they were at the mercy of the nature spirits and the land itself,

There lived a woman named Afika.

The villagers guessed that she had been alive for at least 300 years by the time they grew of age,

Yet she still appeared to be no older than a very young age.

She lived freely in the grasslands,

Away from the village,

Where she said Abora,

The spirit of the winds,

Loved to brush the reeds and grasses on her way to the clouds.

No one can remember if Afika was the woman's name or the word for what she was.

A seer,

An oracle,

And the closest they could get to talking to the spirits themselves.

Any villager could simply walk into the grasslands,

And Afika would already know the answer to what they sought.

She always gave her replies readily,

And she never asked for any advice.

She always gave her replies readily,

And she never asked for anything except what they could give,

If they wished to give at all.

She lived in the wind itself when she wasn't talking to the villagers on the ground.

Her hair in the breezes and tempests coiled and braided itself into elaborate patterns,

Which Afika replicated by weaving astonishing items with the reeds and the grass.

She delighted in the amazement other villagers gave when they saw her creations,

But did not understand that her baskets and rugs had value and worth to others.

For an oracle of such power,

Afika had no connection to the people who sought her answers,

And she never wanted such a kinship.

One beautifully sunny day,

Afika took some baskets to the village to give away freely to those who could not make such intricate items themselves.

She handed them over to the shocked villagers and turned her back on them to return to the grasslands.

From only a clear sky full of transparency and sunbeams came an ugly fist turning slowly.

Then it sent tendrils,

Not unlike Afika's hair,

Dangling toward the ground.

When the first one grabbed the ground,

The whole coil turned brown and then black,

Getting wider by the moment.

What was first a tendril became a grabbing hand and then an insatiable mouth that pulled and gnawed at Afika's grassland until all the grasses and reeds were gone and only chopped up earth remained.

The twist swallowed everything,

And when it crawled back up into the clear sky,

Not a blade of grass remained.

Afika didn't fall to her knees,

Didn't cry,

And didn't run into the now earthland.

She was too astonished to do anything except remain perfectly still.

A borough only visible to her floated in front of Afika's body,

And in a quiet voice she pleaded,

Abora,

Why?

Abora answered,

You were living in the wrong direction,

Afika.

You forgot that the spirits were here for the people,

And it was never about you.

You were living in the wrong direction,

Afika.

You were living in the wrong direction,

Afika.

You forgot that the spirits were here for the people,

And it was never about you and the messages.

You never even learned what the people are.

This is your downfall,

And it is a favor from the spirits.

Afika was irate and defensive.

Her hands formed fists at her side,

And she replied with outright anger,

I am a remarkable oracle.

I have helped hundreds on this island with your messages.

How dare you strip me of everything?

You must start over,

Afika,

Said the spirit.

You must rebuild yourself into something better,

And until you have,

You will no longer see or hear the spirits.

And at the last syllable,

Abora faded from Afika's view,

Completely.

Afika resolutely refused her downfall.

She whirled through the village and the surrounding wildness calling out to every nature spirit she knew.

She asked why this had happened,

What she could do,

What she should do.

She spoke and shouted and cried to spirits she could no longer see,

Determined that her gift and her voice would puncture the silence,

And her answers would come forth.

For days she persisted until her whirling became plodding,

And then finally a mere crawl.

She took herself back to what used to be her home.

She sat in the center of the now gone grassland and wailed,

Not out of self-pity,

But in exhaustion and frustration.

She finally,

Slowly,

Tipped over onto the soil and slept.

The story winds came after sunset and left with her the memory of every message she had delivered.

Three hundred years worth of talking to the villagers,

But never talking with the villagers,

Of talking to their faces but never seeing their faces,

Of having pride in being the oracle,

But never seeing what the messages meant to those receiving them.

When Afika woke,

Her soul had been gutted,

Pitted,

And scraped to its thinnest form.

It ached from what it did not have,

An understanding of the value of humanity,

How a simple talk with another being can touch the soul.

She stood on the soil,

Her soul decimated,

And watched as the sun came over the horizon.

She lifted up her hands and arms and said to the everything,

I do not want this.

I do not want this.

When the first thin,

Weak ray of sunlight touched her toe,

She exploded into flame,

Burned without pain,

And fell quietly into ash.

The villagers watched in horror as the woman they thought had existed forever had just quietly let the sun turn her to flame.

The baker,

A strong woman who fed the village,

Dared to walk into the once grassland.

When she reached the pile of ash,

She found that it was moving.

Backing away quickly,

She almost stumbled on the soil,

But kept her eye on the ground.

After only a few minutes,

Sparks started to form,

And with a shot,

A flaming bird blazed straight up into the sky.

Everyone froze with dozens of questions about how Afika had turned into a flame bird.

She landed near the baker,

Still sparking from her fat hand.

She looked up at the sky,

And she saw the baker,

Still sparking from her feathers and her feet,

And she met the baker's gaze.

For days afterwards,

The baker would tell anyone who would listen that the flame bird's eyes were happy and at peace.

The flame bird lived among the people,

This time really living among them,

And the villagers soon knew that if something needed to be changed,

They could call on the flame bird,

Look her in the eye,

And know what needed to be done.

Every so often,

Sometimes only a matter of months,

And sometimes many years,

The flame bird would,

Without warning,

Explode into fire,

Turn to ash,

And return again.

The people learned that change,

Though devastating,

Could bring about the remarkable,

And that if you happened to burst into a flame bird,

The village would collect around the ashes and welcome you back once more.

Reviews

Excellent story with a lesson I wanted today.

So compelling and inspiring, thank you!! 🙏🏻😊

That is a beautiful and powerful story, thank you 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

That’s a wonderful story