He stood composed, the wind pushed him. The trees waved and leaned above and around. Clouds considered rain, though retained a deep grey. Birds, breeze and his own breathing a convalescence of harmony. He was alone. Standing as if on a horse, the ancient position tested his legs. If his eyes were closed, he could see. When open, he saw nothing. With each breath, he wandered free of thoughts. No mind, no past, no future on the presence of the present. With each, breath, breathe, breath, breathing, breath. Only a Now.
Anger, rage, it boiled and simmered. Concealed beneath the skin of formality and politeness. The lava of violence bubbled, as a limp witness to anguish and as a child tormented by restraints while innocence was plunged away. The stench of barking breath, puffs of laughter and the humiliation of helplessness in self and while watching the tears of others with inability to save. Breathe, push away the darkness, the hate, the viscous fumes. Breathe.
Sadness, sorrow, frozen in miserable rivers of turmoil. Those lost and moments of poor timing and ill placed sincerity or, worse, insincerity. Actions and inactions. Tears and blood, washed into the soils of the past billowing into weeds of resentment or distance. Or, like fallen leaves of the tree and plucked pedals from the flower, never to return. Lifeless and discarded, soon to decay or blown into the winds of memory and soon, forgotten. Breathe with those winds. Remember, whispered within them.
Regret and resentment washed away with each breath. They lingered and toiled at his mind and heart but struggled to retain any foothold. Want, what was there to want? Need? Here he was, not in need but in control. The master of his breathing, his mind. He had done no wrong, harmed no one, he lived to be at peace and not wrong others.
He moved, not quite a Kata or any martial form. It was not combative, though it resisted the wind and darkness which now consumed him. Soon, there was no wind or trees. Only the darkness. His mind returned to the crashing of waves, the oceans relentless blast, a sea breeze and the song of gulls above. The wet spray across his face, and foam curling his toes. His mind took him deeper into the water, he now swam. Beneath those crashing waves and into the depths of a sea which transcended here and now, spanning time and space.
Pulling and drawing himself from the wet fluids of beneath to the searing heat of a still desert under a constant sun. Blue sky. Yellow sand, far, beyond the horizon. A snake coiling near to where he stood. He watched it, the sand it’s tapestry to sing out shapes. Long and round, skipping at points until he could read the music left for him by the sands reptile. It was free. As was he.
Breathe. Breath. No mind. No thoughts.
A heavy rapping rattled from the darkness. Slowly his eyes opened. The small room, a bucket, dim light, no window, only the glass and bars through a port in the door. The rapping turned into a knock, followed by a pair of armed men who entered. He remained standing, still, in the middle of the room. The men pushed and pulled at him. The storm trying to topple him, he breathed and yielded like an ancient willow. He did not resist. They lifted him, threw him to the floor. Kicked and stomped him. Thump, punch, kick. Their violent actions ratified by his peaceful inaction, it was embedded into their uniform. Jeering and laughing. They left. He could taste the spit and blood, they understood force, violence. It was their doctrine, their ideology and their income depended on it.
He crawled to his feet. The door shut over. Breathe. His ribs heaved from the pain. It hurt. His lips bled tears of salty red, drooling from his mouth and across his shirt. Scars slowly tried healing elsewhere on his body. Barely fuelled by the morsels of gruel he was fed inside his solitary den. Like the snake crossing the desert sand, they left their mark. But with each breathe and the wandering spirit of his mind, the wind washed their snake tracks far from his sand. Breathe, the dignity returned. He knew they had none. They knew it to. They expressed it.
He was imprisoned but freer than them. He had nowhere else to be. A man who had done no wrong, but was a prisoner for saying the wrong thing. He spoke, while others coward their whispers. He saw and yelled the truth, while others closed their eyes and spoke what was allowed. From the trees of his forest hang no lynched corpses, no mobs of the self-righteous held down any wailing victim to plunge away innocence in his wilderness, no strangers earnings lined his pockets, no bread stolen from a neighbours plate, no distant lands burning beneath the paperwork of policy. That was for his captors to be purveyors of such misery and claim it law, rights or destiny. He had no victims. They built cities upon their bones.
Breathe. The unjust roars with insecure recklessness. Peace finds away, especially after the storm. His mind returned to the smiling innocent, soon their tears would be no more. Breathe the waves of peace, they will only sink in them.
