The wind blew much as it always did in its own peculiar, supernatural sort of way through the alleyway connecting Branson to State. It hit you all at once from every direction like a gang of inbred wild-wild-west bank-robbing brothers. It punched you in the gut, clawed at your cheeks, tripped you up and threw you off your delicate balance, then proceeded to stab through you right to the bone. Then in an instant, after a harsh, abrupt whistle, it was gone.

“F***ing Chicago.”

As quickly as the air bandits had departed, they returned slicing with violent chills as if in reply to the spiteful words. Thus was the cycle: a machine gun burst of wind, stillness, wind, stillness. Regardless of the season, no matter the hour, in this alley it attacked and retreated consistently the same.

To the left was a dumpster. Bright green but chipped from the heavy, long-gone heat of many summers, the paint looked a dark shade of grey in the January twilight.

The illusion was fitting; he too looked improperly bleak, sinister. What appeared to be a dark and sketchy mask of some sort hiding his face and identity was in actuality a red and blue hoodie imprinted with the silhouette of a leaf and the words Watch how I soar covering his bright eyes from the stinging cold of the air.

And just how did he soar? It was a subtle flight, most assuredly, as he appeared to simply stand and to stand resolutely. His stillness was fierce. The ferocity of his statuesque appearance added to the improper thoughts of villainy.

If anything, he was a hero.

----

“Sam. Sam, wake up.”

The voice was cold, frightened. It was an unfamiliar sound from an all too well-known tongue.

“Sam, you bastard. Wake up!”

The room was bleak but not dark—the white walls so perfect, so unblemished as to give the impression of a sepulcher. There were no pictures of family, friends, or girlfriends framed neatly along them, no posters of pop punk groups or scantily clad women. The area was nearly barren, with nothing but a bed made of two futons pressed tightly against each other and the wall in the horizontal center of the neat, dead room.

She wasn’t much different from it herself.

----

It had been six hours since then. The thought disturbed him. It felt both as if it all had happened in the blink of an eye and that it had been years since. His toes no longer ached, his soles were sore no more, but his knees and back screamed loudly.

Not a yard away, a rat rummaged through some old newspapers and other sundry rubbishes. It gave no care to to the world around it, nor to the man behind standing and staring. The rodent searched and sniffed and clawed and advanced to the next and the next piles of garbage in an abrupt, choppy manner akin to that of the morning bumper-to-bumper traffic of any major city. After discovering the invaluable treasure of a molded apple core, it scurried off into the night.

----

“He knows what happened. I have to leave.”

She moved foot by foot, from drawer to drawer, throwing about all manners of clothing—jeans, leggings, t-shirts, blouses, socks, panties, dresses, vests, shoes—as she hurriedly searched for the most pertinent of items and proceeded to toss them on the bed beside him in a sloppy pile.

“What?”

“Are you listening? They’re coming!”

Now she was forcing her fabric riches into a duffel bag she had grabbed from the top right corner of his closet. He had bought it last year in hopes that the purchase would inspire him to begin going to the gym. The thinking was that after acquiring any supplies he might require, he would no longer have any excuses to avoid working out. Naturally, his apathy got the best of him, and the bag sat unseen in his closet for the past ten months.

After a whole minute without response, she threw open the door and stepped forcefully out of the bedroom.

“Wait! I’m coming with you.”

----

She said she had access to a handgun and that the two of them would need it for protection. She had told him to stay put and wait for her to grab it as they were running through an alley along the side of his apartment building. So he stopped where he stood as he watched her disappear around the corner onto Branson.

She told him to stay, and he stayed. She said to wait, and he waited. After six long hours, he stood there still. He stood there still waiting for her, waiting to run away together for good as they had spoken of so many times just as high school lovers speak of fleeing to begin a new life—but not until after fourth period.

But the truth was that they were not lovers. Regardless of his blind love for her, he remained nothing but a tool in her eyes. He was a dollar sign. He was a roof over her head, and now she had the opportunity to move from the apartment into a condominium. She was not coming back, and he may as well had left that alleyway and climbed back into his bed.

The truth was that he was a leaf on the wind. She lifted him up and drew him in with her breath, only to spit him away in an instant. And though he was spiraling further and further away, he credited his flight toward her still. It was her breath that sucked him in and her breath that blew him out. It was all her, and she was in everything. And if ever he reached a landing point, he would only think back with a holy rapture to the days he was content to flutter to and fro, to be sucked in and blown out, if only to be touched by the wind in some way.

And this was why he soared.