He sat up in bed and thought about the wind. He'd been doing that a lot lately. He would open the window wide and sit staring into the dark room wondering why the wind bothered him so much. It was something about the smell of it, that much he knew. When he closed his eyes and breathed deeply he could not only smell, but taste the wind. Grass and exhaust and flowers, of course. But also dust and sweat and the faint and almost pleasant musk of some great and sweating animal. Also the sound. They say the wind whispers, but that's not really true. He decided that the wind spoke quite clearly, but in some language made up almost entirely of the letter S.

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