It's the middle of April, 2:49 A.M. Behind the gates of a quaint suburbia, a cold wind picks up. Both children and adults try to shake off their sleep long enough to unfold their blankets and burrow deep within them. Outside, the fallen leaves scuttle across the pavement, carried by the wind's wandering fingers. Stray dogs and lost souls alike shiver in their sleep, their aching bones feeling the wind's chilly caress. They dream of warmth. And high above the dreamers, dead stars try in vain to shine through the city lights.

Boys who don't know better would've told their friends that tonight's breeze could be equated to a woman. In their eyes, her cool kisses are a soothing balm to the heated skin of the working man. Within her walls, there should be only comfort. But these boys are yet to realize that a woman is more than what a man makes her to be.

So for this story, let us make the wind into a woman.

She is a dancer, the best there is. She has danced through the emerald canopies and across the lapis lazuli of the waters of Eden. She's grown thickened skin on her feet. Her hair has long grown past her ankles. Her gown has carried her over the hills and far away, past the walls of Jerusalem and up the hills of Calvary. She weaves her train anew every time she waltzes into a new stage.

She sheds her skin the same way she sheds her train. She has been cold and unforgiving like the Russian winter. Dark and comely, like sun-warmed soil in the vineyards of En Gedi. Pale and furious, like faceless concrete of the Chicago cityscape. Rosy and brilliant, like the dawn spilling over the Namibian plains.

Right now, her skin is dark like midnight. The train of her gown is littered with dead leaves. She carries with her the smell of the city--of sewage, smoke, and burning rubber. But in this new stage, she breathes in the smell of trampled grass, wet fur, and laundry detergent. All of these things the wind weaves into her train. By the end of this story, she should have carried the suburbia-smell with her far away from here and into a new place, where she will breathe in the aromas of her new stage.

Time has borne witness to the wind bedecking herself with the breaths of everyone that she has ever danced with. She has adorned herself with laughter and lamentation. She has kissed away their tears, and the salt on their cheeks has become crystals upon her raiment. For in the same way a woman should be more than what a man makes her to be, the wind has built herself into something more than what she was Created for, and she has become a queen.

Now deep within the suburbia, resting atop a low knoll, stands a proud stone house. Tall and imposing, it towers above the low houses neighboring it. A wrought iron fence wraps around a trimmed garden; artfully decorated with foreign blossoms. Despite the lightless windows, the wind can feel an impossible heat pouring from the stone. It falls upon her eyes like a veil.

And just like that, the house ceases to be just a house. It becomes a castle descended from heaven, built upon Indian black earth. Its radiance is like a most rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. But although the walls are made of stone, the beams are cedar. The rafters are pine. The house stands like a husband that has long been awaiting for his bride. His hooded eyes are the windows. They beckon the wind to him, and she is powerless to resist them.

The wind takes her dance over to the sharp, iron rods, where she wraps skilled fingers around each and every one. The iron sings to her, and she breathes in the smell of their paint. The garden is now a forest. Its trees grow thick and tall, bearing exotic fruits sweet to her eyes.

At the heart of the forest, a tall apple tree stands. Its fruits glow in the radiance of the house behind it. Under the shade of its emerald canopy is a tall, dark man.

And, oh! He is the loveliest of men: his pale skin is like moonlight glimmering over the waters, his dark hair like the raven's wing. His muscles ripple like horses galloping across the fields. His blue eyes are sapphires, and they beckon her to him. He is a midnight vision, and she is powerless to resist him.

She is a queen, but he has become her god.

He bids her to follow him into the house that is her castle. The topmost windows are open, but iron bars are welded into the frame to protect the house's inhabitants from looters and thieves. He slips through the bars. The wind drags her train through the carpet of grass once more before flying up to the open window.

Where is he? Her beloved is gone. Instead, she finds a little girl sleeping. Her short, black hair has become ruffled in her slumber, and her mouth is slightly open. There's a desk pushed up against the wall at the foot of her bed. A lamp is plugged into a socket in the wall, but the bulb is not lit. The wind drags into herself the smell of something burning.

The wind's beloved is missing. Moonlight filters in through the window. The wind ruffles the curtains, sends sheets of paper astrew and the girl's blanket flying. The girl shivers. The wind calls for her god, but he has disappeared.

Disappointed, the wind takes everything in. Without her lover, the house no longer feels like home. She makes to depart, bidding the sleeping girl goodbye with one last fleeting kiss that ruffles her hair. Breathe in. Breathe out. The woman that is the wind drags into herself the smell of something dark.

Rot. Decay. Blood. Fire. The old darkness smells of death.

The veil that fell over her eyes as soon as she saw the house is torn away.

The house was never a castle. It was a trap.

No man can touch the wind. But now there are hands dragging her down, pulling at her hair and unraveling her train. Everything that our queen, that is the wind, has built for herself the dark hands unravel.

She struggles against the darkness binding her. It smells of something older than the wind herself. The wind has borne witness to the dawn of the ages. She herself helped sweep away the primordial waters to form a vault in the heavens. She is old, and she is powerful--

But this is something older than her. The old darkness whispers to her the story of stories: its own story.

The old darkness describes itself as a beast, a leviathan that created itself to slumber underneath the formless waters of the deep. It is upon these waters that the Spirit of God hovered, waiting for the beginning to begin. But when Adam was created out of the dust of the earth, it took the shape of the tree that housed the serpent from whence sin sprang.

It thinks of itself as a man now, an usher waiting for his cue.

The wind can see him, standing in the shadows behind the burnt out lamp. He used to be her lover. But it is his hands that are dragging from the wind's body her ageless cloak, wrapping her arms in shadowy chains.

She can only see the skin of his neck, pale like bone licked clean. He wears a coat that writhes against his stovepipe of a torso and a large hat that covers his eyes. They used to be sapphires. But now, she doesn't think she'd like to see his eyes.

Shadowy hands break her legs, and they force her to kneel in front of the sleeping girl. Her sleeping face remains angelic, but now the naked wind can see the evil slumbering within the girl, enshrouded within the depths of her purity. Upon the little girl's forehead is a name shrouded in mystery.

Before the shivering girl, the wind trembles. The man with the coat that writhes laughs at her fear.

The girl houses an evil familiar to the wind. It is not the man with the writhing coat, not the old darkness. It speaks to her with the voices of a legion. The angel asleep beneath the sheets is oblivious to the devil speaking from within her. She's deaf to the voices, but the wind is not. With its broken legs, it is forced to submit to the dominion of the voices within the child.

The devil coils around the wind's heaving throat. Shadowy hands take the wind's breath and fashion out of it a shadowy noose. He lassoes the wind, who is no longer free, and impose upon it the role it is to play in the second coming. The old darkness was their usher, but she will be their herald. Evil will ride the wind, calling out in a loud voice:

"Come and see: the mother of darkness reborn."

The child sleeps on. The man with the coat that writhes steps out of the shadows and into the, now windless, night. The work of the old darkness is done. Under the dead stars, his coat of crows cry havoc.