The Music of the Wind

Wind is quiet in some places, but in others it is something special. Like a whistle. But I don’t think I could describe it. Sometimes, when Lyng closed her eyes, she could almost hear the wind singing to her. As the daughter of the Village Head she was expected to train, not to play music. She loved sitting on Heiwa rock though, on the corner of Yangin River, by Yokoto, a village right next to the bamboo forest.

The rock was next to water, and the water was where the cormorants sat in the morning. Lyng realized that the cormorants’ call almost blended with the wind. When the wind sang, Lyng felt at ease. She did love her village, but she hated when the wind didn’t whistle on certain nights. Lyng didn’t know why the wind didn’t sing on those nights.

She had read about princesses with long hair who could sing beautifully. But she didn’t need to be those princesses, she had the wind.

Her father wanted her to be a. part of the village court and be their next Village Head. But Lyng just wanted to listen to the wind. Maybe if I show them the whistling of the wind blending with the cormorants’ call, she thought. Lyng knew her father and the village: they liked tradition, and that was not going to change. Maybe she could run away from home? She couldn’t decide. What if she left the village? She might find the music she was looking for. A place where the wind always whistles.

Lyng did love her village and didn’t want to leave. Maybe she could just stand up to her father. Lyng thought that was the best idea. She stayed up all night thinking of what to say. Finally she had an idea. It took action the next day.

In the morning, Lyng woke up, put on her most colorful clothes, not waiting for her assistant to dress her. She was always wearing dark blues and dark colors, but today she dressed herself up in a yellow shirt and green skirt. Carefully, she put her hair up in a braid, which was bizarre because she would usually only wear her hair up in a bun.

She had left a note for her father to go to the bamboo forest. She was sitting on Heiwa rock when her father found her.

Lyng’s father’s mouth dropped, seeing what Lyng was wearing. “Lyng!”

She stopped her father midsentence. Then Lyng made her father sit on the rock. She told him to listen.

He said, “To what?”

Lyng said, “To the wind blending with the cormorants’ song.”

Her father sat for about ten minutes. He asked Lyng, “What do you hear?”

She said, “The wind.”

Her father said, “This is something that puts me at ease, but why are you showing me this?”

She said, “I don’t want to be a lady of the village court. I want to stay here, this also puts me at ease. I want to pull the village to the wind.”

Every day after that, villagers would go to Heiwa rock, and they would listen to the wind. By the end of the following year, Lyng’s father finally understood her and the village, too. But the best thing was, after that year, the wind would whistle every night.