How to Earth same world · other eyes
How to Earth

Through the eyes of Wind.

56 everyday things, re-seen by the wind.

The Wind Out in the world

a baby shower

I came in through the propped screen door and everything in the room was pink, strung up, taped down, tethered so it could not follow me back out.

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The Wind Out in the world

a Berlin techno rave

Down the concrete throat of it, past the doorway where the still one turns some away and lets some in for reasons I never wait to learn, I come pouring…

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The Wind Out in the world

a Black Friday sale

They pile against the glass before I can even get a good grip on them, hundreds of them, breath fogging in the cold I brought down from somewhere…

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The Wind Out in the world

a christmas dinner

I came in through the gap under the front door, the one they packed with a rolled towel to keep me out, and still I found it: goose fat, cloves,…

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The Wind Kitchen

a coffee mug

I lifted the steam off it before she got there, the whole warm ghost of it, and carried the smell of her morning out the window and three streets over…

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The Wind Out in the world

a doomsday prepper bunker

Underground, where I am not welcome, where the door is a wheel a man spins shut behind himself and I am left outside pressing at the seam.

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The Wind Home

a doorbell

The little button by the door is a trap for me, and I keep springing it.

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The Wind Out in the world

a first date

Two of them at a small round table, holding still on purpose, which is the strangest thing they do.

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The Wind Out in the world

a funeral

They stand in black and they will not move, and I have never seen the still ones stand so still, packed shoulder to shoulder in the wet grass with…

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The Wind Out in the world

a furry convention

I came through the loading doors while somebody was wheeling in a fox the size of a man, and it had no smell of fox at all, only glue and hot fabric…

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The Wind Out in the world

a goodbye at the airport gate

They hold on here longer than anywhere.

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The Wind Out in the world

a grandmother's kitchen

I came in under the door, the way I always do, and it stopped me the way that room always stops me: the whole place smelling of something browning…

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The Wind Out in the world

a group project meeting

Four of them at a table that is too big, and they have arranged themselves so no one sits at the head of it, which I think means they are afraid.

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The Wind Out in the world

a gym in January

Full again, the way it always fills when the year turns over, and I came in on the back of a coat, uninvited, the way I come everywhere.

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The Wind Out in the world

a gym mirror selfie

She lifted the little bright rectangle and froze, and I could not for the life of me understand why.

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The Wind Out in the world

a haunted house

They keep this house shut against me, and that is the first strange thing, because everything here is already trying to leave.

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The Wind Out in the world

a hospital waiting room

I came in through the sliding doors before they finished parting, and everyone here is doing the opposite of me: they are staying.

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The Wind Out in the world

a house party at 3am

I came in through the propped-back door and nobody had closed it, nobody ever closes it, and I took the smell with me: spilled beer gone flat,…

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The Wind Home

a houseplant

It stands in the window holding still, holding still, holding so still I almost mistake it for one of them.

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The Wind Out in the world

a job interview

I came in under the door because they had shut everything, sealed the little room the way they seal everything they mean to keep, and inside there was…

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The Wind Home

a laundry basket

I lifted it off her shoulder as she stepped through the door, one sock, still warm from the machine, and I carried it three streets before I set it…

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The Wind Kitchen

a microwave

I found it humming to itself in the corner, warm-mouthed and patient, and I pushed under its door but the door would not push, so I curled at its feet…

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The Wind Out in the world

a middle school dance

I came in the propped door with the smell of cut grass still on me and hit a wall of body spray so thick I nearly turned solid.

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The Wind Home

a mirror

I came in under the door, as I always do, uninvited, and there she was, doubled.

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The Wind Out in the world

a mosh pit

They are trying to become one thing, and I love them for how badly they fail at it.

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The Wind Out in the world

a music festival

I came in over the fence they built to keep me out, and it does not keep me out, nothing does, and there they were: thousands of them pressed into a…

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The Wind Out in the world

a nightclub bathroom queue

I found them lined up single file against a sweating tiled wall, twenty of them, packed so tight I had to squeeze between shoulders to keep moving, and…

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The Wind On you

a pair of shoes

They sat side by side by the door, two little empty boats pointed the same way, and I slipped my fingers into one and found it still warm, still shaped…

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The Wind Out in the world

a park bench

I came in over the pond, still carrying the wet green smell of it, and there it was, the long wooden thing the humans set down and then walk away from…

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The Wind Out in the world

a parking lot

I came in fast over the hot flat black and there they all were, laid out in rows, the metal beasts, sleeping nose-in, not one of them moving.

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The Wind Kitchen

a refrigerator

It hums.

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The Wind Out in the world

a revolving door

I came in with the smell of rain and a stranger's cigarette and I thought, finally, a mouth in the wall, a place to slip through.

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The Wind Out in the world

a séance

They have sat themselves in a ring in the dark and gone very still, which is the one thing I cannot do, so at once I want in.

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The Wind Out in the world

a self-checkout machine

I tugged the plastic bags first, the ones bunched on their little hooks, and they clapped and rustled and reached after me the way they always do, the…

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The Wind On you

a set of keys

They jangle when I nudge the hip they hang from, a small bright argument of metal that the human loves more than almost anything, and I have never…

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The Wind On you

a shopping receipt

I lifted it off the counter before she'd even turned around, this weightless little skin of paper, and it wanted to go, oh it wanted to go, curling up…

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The Wind Home

a shower

I came in under the door, the way I come into everything, and found the human standing inside a falling of warm water it had summoned on purpose, eyes…

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The Wind Out in the world

a silent disco

I came in through the propped door with the smell of the parking lot still on me, hot asphalt and someone's cigarette three streets back, and I found…

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The Wind Out in the world

a spin class

I found them underground, in a room with no way out that they had chosen, forty of them bolted onto wheels that go nowhere.

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The Wind Out in the world

a TikTok live stream

One human sits alone in a glowing box of a room and speaks to no one, and no one is there, and I slip through the cracked window to check, and it is…

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The Wind Out in the world

a traffic jam

Here they are again, sitting perfectly still on the wide gray river the humans poured for going, going nowhere, engines breathing that hot sweet…

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The Wind Kitchen

a vending machine

I came in through the gap under the door and there it stood, humming, lit from inside, cold breathing off its glass face, and I thought: here is a…

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The Wind Out in the world

a voicemail from someone gone

The little box on the counter is guarding a voice, and I only found this out by accident, blowing through the open window with the smell of cut grass,…

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The Wind Out in the world

a wedding

I came in under the tent flap uninvited, the way I come into everything, and found them all holding still on purpose.

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The Wind Out in the world

a work call on mute

I slipped in through the cracked window and found one of them sealed inside a small bright box, alone, mouthing at a glowing pane.

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The Wind Out in the world

a yoga retreat

I came in through a gap in the sliding door somebody forgot to seal, and found forty of them lying flat on colored mats, breathing on purpose.

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The Wind Out in the world

an airport at 5am

I came in through the sliding doors before they'd finished opening, and everyone inside was holding still in the worst way, the way that isn't rest.

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The Wind Home

an alarm clock

There it is again, that little screaming box, and the human lunges for it before I can even lift the corner of the blanket.

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The Wind Out in the world

an elevator

They keep a small locked room that eats them and I cannot follow.

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The Wind Out in the world

doomscrolling at 2am

I came in through the gap under the door and found the human awake in the dark, face lit blue, thumb dragging down, down, down, feeding the glowing…

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The Wind Out in the world

getting left on read

I came in through the gap under the door and found the human very still, which is how I know something is wrong, because the still ones are always waiting.

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The Wind Out in the world

holding a newborn

I lifted the little blanket at the corner while they weren't looking, just to smell it, and it smelled of milk and iodine and something raw and new…

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The Wind Out in the world

moving out of a childhood bedroom

I came in through the window they left open and the room was already half gone, boxes with black marker on their sides, the bed stripped to a striped…

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The Wind Out in the world

sitting with a pet at the vet

I came in when the glass door sighed open and I found them right away, the two of them, on the bench that smells of every animal that ever shook here.

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The Wind Out in the world

the first night in an empty apartment

I came in through the gap under the door before the humans finished their goodbyes downstairs, and the place was so still it startled me.

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The Wind Out in the world

the last day at a job you loved

I came in through the gap under the door because someone had propped the good door open with a box, and the box was full of the small things a human…

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