Howl in the Distance

Marvin wanted to be a howling success but got headed the wrong way.

Contest Prompt

"The Writer's Cramp" Title: "Howl in the Distance" select "Ghost" as one of your genres!.'

The wind whistled through the ancient adobe indian ruins like a live thing. The storm that had brought me here to get out of the drenching rain howled angrily in the distance. “Ya-te-hay, ancestors,” I called out to the ghosts inhabiting these ancient dwellings.

The first time here, I’d found two thousand year old storage corn, planted it, and watched it grow. Tonight I was here again, needing to find myself. “Ąą' ha'íí baa naniná?” I asked the wind, wondering how it was feeling.

The Whites think they can control everything. They’ll never learn to control the weather. I think of it as a living thing. “You are restless, tonight.”

A dust devil danced in the open pit of an ancient sweat lodge. It turned the shadows into shivering reflections alive with its energy. “Hello Spirits.”

The Whites are afraid of death. They build walls, making the veil strong between this world and the next. We, the people sharing the meager resources of the desert feel more alive, and closer to death because of it. The veil is thin for us. “I see you.”

I closed my eyes to see better with my inner eye. We all have one, but only a few have learned to use it. The wind hummed with renewed force. It whipped the air around me into a cooling coat brushing against my skin. “Thank you.”

I sat cross legged, feeling the weight of the lost times when we were strong. The lesson the spirits beckoned towards me became clear. The Whites had come like a storm, their diseases decimating us into the few shadows of who we once were.

I bowed, praying to the shadows in the hollow of the sweat lodge, “Speak to me in the wind.”

It howled, closer now. The storm would soon be upon me in its full strength. “I understand. The storm is coming for the Whites. Covid is only the beginning. Other diseases lurk in the wind. Soon they will become shadows like us.”

I bowed, thanking the ghosts haunting this place for their knowledge. Vengeance began weeping as rain, dancing off me and the ruins I sought shelter in. “Yah-te-hay. It is good,” I vowed, wrapping my blanket about me, and dancing in the wind.

Happiness is a fleeting thing, but you can count on sorrow to be a steady companion when you feel lonely.


Wc 392