Dopecentury XLI --- Black Wind
This short fiction is part of Dopecentury, an experimental project where I attempt to channel the aural aesthetics of Dopesmoker into written text. (Dopesmoker is the legendary stoner-doom metal masterpiece by the band Sleep, of which it is said: "the monotony rarely becomes tedious.") My plan is to listen to the single hour-long track of Dopesmoker while writing each of these "Dopecentury" entries. And repeat that 100 times. See the Dopecentury project page for more details.
The porch of the old house is oriented to the west, made of unfinished planking, wide boards that splintered underfoot and maybe were painted on some fair-weather day long in the past; maybe the planking had even been painted some bright color, color that was long ago lost to the sun and the wind, like the colors of a Greek temple. Regardless, the boards of the porch were now a uniform gray color and the uprights that held up the low slanting roof that shaded the porch through the majority of the day — until the last beams of red light from the sun setting behind the mountains sneaked up under the roof and the people who sat there put withered hands with old thick fingers up before their eyes — were also of the same faded and unremarkable gray color. On the porch they sat or stood or leaned or rocked, each according to what position was least painful for their long-abused bodies to adopt; and each smoked or packed a clay pipe or rolled thin papers between their fingers or licked those same thin papers with what little moisture they could conjure up between their dry lips.
In such manner they waited out the hot part of each day, for the lack of anything more engaging, they looked out over the parched and cracked flatlands towards the gray mountains in the west, between glances down at the boards of the porch, to be kicked at gently with the toe of a boot, or up at the chipped rafters supporting the roof above, wondering if the flaking gray paper of the wasp's nest still housed any wasps, and whether anything should be done about that.
The man with the clay pipe was not interested in the boards or the wasps, the mountains off at the horizon held his attention. He squinted and shifted his head, as though trying to get better perch on what he may or may not be seeing. Finally: —I'll be an hinny offspring of a well-fucked jenny if that ain't a Black Wind out there.
The others on the porch stirred from their reverie, their attention waking toward the mountains in the distance. Certainly a shadow, a cloud, a smoke was rising into the clear air between the twin black fangs of the peaks that rose highest in the midst of the range that lined the edge of the flatlands. —If it is Black Wind, must be comin' this way.
Another porch-dweller tossed a smoked-up butt out in the dirt. —Black Wind ain't been this way in decades. You sure?
The bit of the pipe stuck out at the end of the sinewy arm that held it, pointed out at the mountains. —I been around long enough to remember the last dozen Black Winds. And that there is what they looked like when they was comin' this way. Anyway, what's the good that could come of just waitin' on it? Maybe I'm wrong, but ain't no harm in settin' up for it if it is a Black Wind.
—True. I'll get the young'uns and get the shutters up on the house.
—An' send someone into two, tell 'em it's comin.
Two miles into town, on foot; the thin porch dweller who had been smoking cigarettes pulled open the dusty glass door of the only restaurant. Inside, slightly more urban folks without pressing tasks like their porch dwelling acquaintances were pissing away the hot part of the day, burning up various smokables and sipping at tepid gray coffee. Loud enough for the portion of the restaurant dwellers who looked up when he came in: —Outta town, we seen the Black Wind coming this way.
—Says you. Ain't been a Black Wind in an age.
—And that mean it don't ever come again?
—Do as you like, but outta town, we figure it don't hurt to ready for its comin'.
—Aw shit.
—There's boards enough around, it won't take much.
—Fuckin' hot now though.
—Fuckin' hot again tomorrow too, you can rest then.
Most of the restaurant dwellers soon came around to moving, and they filed outside while trying to not seem panicked or even urgent, but with purpose and intention that was impossible to hide completely. Most stood in the street looking westward, but this was inconclusive in any way. The street clumps soon broke up for lack of use, and spread out across the town. In a matter of hours the glassy eyes of all the buildings were blanked out with gray wood. Loose items outside were gathered and brought inside. Children were recalled home, but skeptics remained out on the street smoking and jabbering with those who remained uncertain.
And then the wind blew.
At first gusts, sneaking around the corners of buildings and pulling at hats and vests so hand had to make quick grabs to keep from losing unsecured items.
And then a slow steady gale, seemingly streaking straight up Main street. The older buildings at the edge of town leaned against the gale; they knew what was coming, having stood through it many times before; but that was when they were young of beam and shingle. Now they were old, and it was no sure thing they could stand against the Black Wind again.
Now the skeptics were cured of their skepticism, and the streets deserted.
The speed of the wind increased, and now the blackness of its name joined in: first a long thin wisp of black: grit grime and grease that slipped along twisting and feeling until it made contact with a building and took a grip on it and laid down a coating of foulness in a streak all right along the front.
And if that was just a first feeling, probing finger of the Black Wind, soon it was followed by the whole hand: a fist of blackness, pounding the porch and the house two miles closer before dragging all along the flatland and smashing into the old buildings on the edge of the town that leaned against it.
The fist of the Black Wind rained down blows on the buildings and the town, leaving great spattered splotches of grime and grit. Then the hammering fist turned into pellets, bullets of grime and grease machine-gunned at the porch and the house and the town. The grime gathered and grew until it began to collect in banks and drip in stalactites from the edges of roofs and gutters and window sills.
The Black Wind blew with rage and ferocity, as if taking vengeance on the porch the house the town the people for some wrong done to it by their ancestors. The Black Wind would wipe them from the flatlands for daring to pop up their meager structures there, for making a point of distinction on the perfect flat emptiness. The Black Wind would erase the house the porch the town the people from existence, if it had any potency to do so. If it had any ability to press past the gray boards, to smash in the glass eyes of the town, to crush and strip the soft flesh off the weak beings that defied it.