LauTzuTu and The Wind

I just ran across this little flash fiction I wrote back in 2015. Maybe it is more appropriate than ever. Even though I made up the monk’s name. :>)

LaoTzuTu set the pails of fresh stream water down and unbent his lean frame to look up at the darkening sky. The grey streaks were rapidly being obliterated in favor of an overall dark grey. He turned to glance back at the yard surrounding his stone hut. The branches of the trees were strongly swaying. They didn’t have the word doozie back in the year 300, but if they had, it would have entered his mind. The hut was sturdy. He had built it himself, stone by stone. It had a cellar. The old monk had laughed at him when he started digging. But LauTsuTu now, fifteen years later, felt vindicated. Yes, he had taken a vow of poverty. But that was related to money. The Taoists had no compulsion to punish the body or deny the senses. LauTzuTu had also planted some peaches and plums. Dried, they’d be safe in the cellar. A treat if bad times came. Something to break the monotony of disaster food, or no food, for that matter.

This wind was proving that his inner knowing had been sound. Fifteen, twenty, twenty five years of meditation practice left him feeling calm in the face of the storm. He was confident he would settle into his upper higher world soul, not his reptile brain, when the debris started hitting the hut. He also knew that his stone mason skills were good. He had learned from an old master. Still, the option of the shelter in the cellar was a comfort. And there were a few dried peaches left along with some sausage he had traded for a few weeks ago.

The wind was picking up now. Time to turn inward. He listened. What exactly is it that makes the sound of the wind, he wondered. Then he chuckled as he walked deliberately toward the hut, the pails of water swinging easily at his sides. He’d have plenty of time to think about it as he waited out the storm.