WIND

I

Darkness

Ivan was sitting in the darkness engulfed by emptiness, devastating loneliness, and endless blackness. Why had this happened? Why had he lost his wife only ten months after their wedding? His one true love was gone. The river of love that had filled his heart was dry forever. A preposterous death for a ridiculous reason, she had died of an undiscovered miscarriage. The baby had quietly died and slowly rotted, poisoning her blood. He had noticed her getting weaker and paler, but she had reassured him that it was due to the pregnancy. With great devotion, he lovingly tendered to her every need, yet it was all in vain. When it was finally diagnosed, it was too late to save her.

Now, only twenty-five years old, Ivan was a widower. His face was pale and drawn and his mouth drooped, his whole body screamed sadness, despondency, and misery. He was mentally and physically sullen. His hair, thin and lank, was uncut and shaggy. His heavily sunken eyes were vacuous and desolate. His body, weak and emaciated, was stressed by sadness and heavy with grief. His thin fingers and wrists now looked even bonier as if they would break at any moment. Haggard, the sorrow oozed from every pore of his being. Feeling completely lost, he hardly ate but he didn't get hungry anyway. He couldn't find a reason to eat, to wash, or to leave his home.

His reason for existing had died with her. He had drawn all the curtains and blinds and lived in darkness. His heart was also shrouded in darkness from the great gaping wound, while his mind was possessed by hatred of himself, of God, of life, and of all happy people. Sometimes he even felt hatred toward her for leaving him without warning, for taking their child as if in punishment for him not taking enough care of them and for not protecting them as a good husband should.

These thoughts threw him quickly back into the abyss of self-accusation and self-flagellation. His body was bent and crushed by grief. Sorrow and death lurked in every corner of his house. Ivan was feeling lost, empty, and dead. Even his tears had dried up; he suffered silently and in isolation. He stopped answering the phone and didn't open the door, he did not want anyone to break the silence around him. Dead silence. He did not think of himself or of tomorrow. He only excavated the past with anxiety and anger. Twenty days after the funeral, he was a hopeless void.

Ivan sat in the darkness and the only emotion he felt was empty blackness.

II

Pain

"Why did this happen to me?" "Why did death knock on my door so soon?" Ivan kept asking himself over and over again for the last few months. He needed to make sense of it all.

He started to read. He was searching for answers. He read books that taught him he was born to serve. He read about religion, about how his life was predestined and nothing was up to him. Everything was in the hands of God, whose rules Ivan had to follow and to whom he had to pray for an hour every day. They were God's rules he should pass on to anyone he met and it was to God he had to donate 10 percent of his income. Ivan had been going to visit the chapel for the last three months; it had been six months since his wife's death-months of sorrow and despair. Ivan had poured all his energy into this way of life. He was reading the book now but still could find no peace despite his perseverance. Instead, he was questioning himself, even more, looking for himself yet losing himself even more.

He closed the book and put it aside.

"Who am I?"

"Why am I here?"

"How am I to overcome this pain, loss, death?"

"How do I carry on?"

"Is living worthwhile?"

In his body and mind, Ivan was wandering in the dark. He could not find the right path.

How could he find it when he had no purpose? How was he to follow a path when he didn't know where he was headed? What did he want to experience?

He closed his eyes and let his thoughts wander. They crowded in and refused to leave him alone. They worried, stressed, and weakened him. "Why am I here?" "Do I have the strength to carry on alone? Do I have the right to decide my own fate? Do I have the right to search for myself, to be happy? Can I achieve this without following a religion, philosophy, or the advice of others? Can I simply follow my own desires? Should I follow a set of rules, or is everything allowed? Where are the limits to my powers? Are there any limits? What will fulfil me? What will make me live up to my potential?"

Asya Kovacheva

"Who determines my fate?"

"Is it me or God?"

"Or is it both?"

He lay awake in his bed in the bedroom where he had lived the most beautiful and the terrifying moments of his marriage.

Gradually he started to relax. He closed his eyes and saw her. Yes, she came to him as lovely as she was on their first date. She smiled at him and gently stroked his face. He trembled, his heart raced, and he felt numb. He knew it was a dream, yet it was so real that he felt it in his bones that they were together again. He felt certain that her presence was real.

He woke. Ivan lay still. There were no thoughts or feelings. Nothing.

He felt light, calm, aware and different. He looked around. He saw it all clearly, intensely, and vividly. He smelled the autumn. He felt the wind that stroked his cheek. He heard the sound of footsteps and passing cars. He listened, he watched and he stayed quiet. He was present with his mind, body, and senses. He was awake, seeing, hearing, sensing, feeling, and living. Yes, he was alive! He felt life fully! He was part of life. He existed. He realised he was free. He was freed from his emotions and thoughts. He was freed from the sorrow and suffering. He understood that life was full of multi-coloured, extreme emotions and events.

He realised he had gone through a difficult lesson. Why and what it brought him he did not...