A Gift for Kit: Wrapped in Rain and Tied With Wind
A Gift for Kit: Wrapped in Rain and Tied With Wind
The heavy overcast sky looked gloomy, promising a cold rainy day. But Kit wasn’t worried about that; he was used to such weather in his native city of Ubansk. The sea was usually dark and stormy during the winter months there. Kit liked it, liked the intensity of the skies that begged to be freed of its burden. As a kid, the boy loved to wander about in the rain, even during winter. His mom always scolded him that he would catch a cold in “such terrible weather.” He never did. Rain and Kit were friends; they got along pretty well.
So on the day of his 10th birthday the boy welcomed the rain with a smiling face and arms outstretched to the gray skies. At last, the rain would come, thought Kit. He was glad to welcome his old friend back, especially on his birthday. Rain would be his guest for the celebration. There would be no official birthday party but for Kit his “imagination friends” would do just fine. Little did he know what else this day would bring into his life besides the “going-on-eleven” part.
Childhood for Kit was friendless as people would call it, though he himself never noticed the fact. For this restless little dark-eyed boy life held a lot of wonder and excitement; he was never bored, always finding some project to do or some place to travel exploring the mysterious unknown. Kit never-minded being left alone, in fact he liked it, liked the freedom to roam, to create a world of his own. He even created his own friends for his games, to play with and to talk to. Yes, the little boy did talk to the made up friends that did not exist for the unimaginative adults. Let them chuckle when they see him playing with friends. What do they know anyway?
Kit’s family was considered poor, though he never realized it, and lived on the village side of Ubansk. This part of the little city was supposed to be the worst with the sea raging at full blast when the storms came in. For Kit it was the best place on earth (as far as he was concerned). He loved when the wind would pick up the salty sea water and carry it to shore, twirling it around. The boy loved the wind and the rain; they were almost one and the same for him, with the two usually occurring together acting in unison or the wind playing with the waves and dancing with sea water droplets. They were a part of his life and play, his friendly fellows.
The wind was gentle on this birthday morning for Kit. It seemed to stroke the boy’s dark long tangled locks on his head, brushing the invisible light fingers through them, tugging at his threadbare jacket and worn pants. The rain just started to fall ever so gently on Kit’s bare head. He was enjoying the weather the perfect weather for such a day in his life. It was so like him - the rain and the wind - going wherever they wished, peeking in the uncharted and the unmapped places, just walking through, being invisible.
As Kit walked out of their little cozy home with a full mouth of his birthday apple pie that his mother baked for the occasion, he headed for the sea shore – his favorite place. There was a little growth of trees and shrubs the he especially liked at the shore. He would hide there from the eyes of onlookers and still be able to behold the wild beauty of the rocky slopes where water and earth met.
By the time Kit was reaching his special place in his casual stroll in the gentle rain, he noticed that someone was lingering there right by his growth. Cutting around at a distance he carefully approached a group of kids. With a closer look Kit could tell them to be children about his age – a slightly taller girl and two boys. The girl seemed to be the leader, talking and gesticulating with her arms and the whole body showing something or telling a story. Since the group was faced away from the direction in which Kit came, he approached unnoticed.
“…and then the pirates finally reached the top of this cliff and snatched away the gold pot from the peasants.” Kit heard an animated voice of the tall girl. The boys where standing wide eyed and mouths slightly open, all attention at the story teller, following her every move with their heads, so vivid and captivating was her tale as if it did just happen right there on that very cliff just yesterday. “The peasants they took on their ship down there,” she graciously showed with the movement of her hand. Eyes twinkling and narrowing, the storyteller was going to get into more details of the pirates’ campaign, when with the corner of her eye she detected a movement. At that moment she saw Kit, who had been standing close by listening intently to the fascinating story that the girl was so vividly telling. Finding her gaze on him, Kit came to his senses shivering slightly as if she came there and shook his shoulders. He swallowed hard. The boys have turned to look at him too now, following the storyteller’s gaze.
Looking directly at Kit, the tall girl continued with the tale, saying, “They took only the adult males with them to make them slaves on the ships. The little boys,” she moved closer to Kit, bending her long neck, staring intently, squinting at him, making emphasis on each word, she almost whispered, “they were left to carry the burdens of the adult males, working ‘till they dropped their sleepy heads on their hard board beds late at night.”
The girl straightened to her full height, shook a lock of blonde hair from her eyes with one graceful swipe of her head, sighed, sharply exhaling and proceeded in a calm friendly tone, “Who are you boy?” Kit was bewildered and captivated by this…this fairy girl, so he just stood there staring at her. She let out a quiet laugh, “Did you like my pirate story? When did you sneak upon us? Have you been here for a long time standing like this?”
“No.” was all that Kit could breathe out. But then remembering himself hurried on to add, “Yes, yes, I did like the story and no, I haven’t been here long, just for the end part.”
“Oh, is that so?” laughed the fairy, tossing her head up sending the wet tresses flying back and the rain kissing her face.
Kit shook his head up and down and looked over at the two boys at his left. They were grinning, covering their mouths to suppress oncoming mirth of chuckles.
“And, so what’s your name boy? Wouldn’t you tell us?” demanded merrily the girl.
“I’m Kit,” replied the boy. He was glad that she was not taller that he. In fact, they were almost the same height with the fairy girl, Kit being just a bit taller.
“I am Anutiny-glazki (Pansy) and one with reddish hair is my little brother Oduvashka (Daffodil). The other boy is his big friend Nezabudik (Forget-me-not),” the laughing fairy introduced the group.
“You do have nice names. I like them,” was Kit’s reply to the introduction. “But what do the adults call you?”
The boy named Dil spoke up, a smile stretching his small face apart, “Do you really like our names? Annie is so smart, she makes them up herself just like those stories about fairies and pirates and different talking animals too.”
“They are called tales, Olezhka,” she smiled lovingly at here little brother. He was younger than Kit, he noticed, about seven or eight. “And I did make up our names, though we usually use them only for play. My real name is Annie. My bother is Oleg and Nezabudik is named Nazarik.”
“Yes, and you know, I gave the idea for her flower name. You can figure out why, of course – because of her blue eyes and her name*,” jumped in Olezhka^, his own blue-green eyes twinkling as the light chilly wind colored his cheeks. His sister smiled at him and ruffled his hair.
“Where do you live? I have not seen you guys in these places before and I play here all the time,” Kit tried to figure out the mystery of his new friends’ sudden appearance here, in his secret forest.
This time the other boy, Nazarik spoke, “Our families just move to the city and we came out to see what the sea holds for us as far as exploration goes.” This little kid sounded more grown up than little Olezhka. Kit thought Nazarik to be his age, though he was shorter than himself, the height of Annie’s brother. He sounded older.
Our Kit was right about the ages of the kids. The fairy was just 9, her brother 7 and their friend 11. Kit just turned 10 on that misty morning. This bunch of new kids fast became Kit’s first friends. They were the first children Kit’s age to appear near his rocky sea shore.
Those cliffs became their favorite meeting place throughout the rest of their childhood since that cold wintry birthday morning, when Kit became 10, and found his friends come to life. Play, sharing and storytelling also became alive on those rocky shores of the Sea of Azov at the outskirts of the little city of Ubansk. Childhood bloomed into youth with the foursome always staying together and standing up for each other in spite of their differences in age, appearances and status in life. Things such as these play no role in friendships; true friendships, those that last a lifetime. Little Kit found his while meeting his tenth November the eighth. His first friends, Rain and Wind, gently brought along the others to the party. Kit didn’t know then that the party would last a lifetime.
Footnotes
_____________
*The flower pansy in Russian is “Anutiny-glazki” translating into English directly “Annie’s little eyes” because of their shape like little eyes.
^Olezhka is one of the diminuative forms of Oleg.