A Path for the Wind

In the evening, I came home and opened the window.

The room felt a little heavy. It was not exactly hot, but the air from the day seemed to have stayed where it was.

The curtain barely moved.

Maybe it wasn’t that the wind couldn’t come in. Maybe it simply had nowhere to go.

Thinking that, I went to the kitchen.

I unlocked the small window and opened it a little.

In the back of the room, a single sheet of paper turned over.

Then the curtain slowly swelled.

It felt less as if wind had come in than as if something in the room had gone out first.

That was when I remembered swimming lessons from when I was a child.

I could never get the breathing right, and every time I lifted my face, I felt short of breath. The teacher told me I did not have to try to inhale.

“Breathe out first, underwater.”

At first, I did not understand.

Why breathe out when I was already struggling?

But when I let bubbles out little by little before lifting my face, the air came in on its own. It felt less like inhaling than like something returning to an open space.

The curtain swelled again.

A sheet of paper fell from the desk to the floor. The edge of the jacket over the chair moved slightly.

The room did not suddenly become cool.

But something that had been lingering in the same place seemed to move a little.

That night, before going to bed, I looked at the curtain again.

It was dark outside, and the wind had almost stopped.

I started to take a deep breath, then let a little air out first.

Then the air came in quietly.