A Child Maps Winds That Don't Exist ― Until They Do

A toddler crawls towards the door waiting for a storm. Out of innocence, curiosity stirs wonderment to why the child is drawn to the acts of nature.

Standing up with open arms poised, the child kissed the door. The door cooled. Prior the child was joyful in salivary hope. Falling back to ground the child cried.

The parents heard crying from their bedroom. Rushing towards the cries direction, the cries got stronger then faint. When the parents arrived nothing was there. They then went back upstairs to see if their child was in the crib. Sleeping peacefully the parents wondered where the cries came from.

Later before going to work, they dropped their child off at day care. Happy, the child went straight to the Eazy oven. It's his favorite toy while at day care, he shares his imagination with other children by pretending to be a head chef.

At work both parents received a weather advisory notification on their phones. Storms with winds up to 80 mph advised people to stay indoors.

Leaving work early speeding down the highway on their way to the day care; the radio announcer warned that the weather would be severe and to stay indoors if possible. They changed the station to classical music turning the volume high enough to drain out the rain and traffic.

The father reached over and turned the volume down,

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That cry?"

"No..."

When they arrived at day care their child full laughter with his favorite EZ--Bake oven toy in hand. The mother told him to put back. He put the toy down, looked at his mother with arms out. She picked him up. He kissed her. Her face cooled.

On the way home winds began to pick up like the weather advisory said on the radio. The child began to cry. The father reached back trying to calm him, but the cries got louder. Frustrated the mother yells in her mind. The child stops crying. The wind stops  blowing. "Everything is going to be okay," she said to her child. He smiled. The father leaned back in the passenger seat in relief thinking to himself: "sometimes you have to entreat life with urgency, instead greet life with an open door." 

This article appears in the General Counsel section of REINK Publications and is written by Andrew M. Foster, who leads and manages this section of the platform.