Two hawks circled the air, the sky, the heavens above the city; had been circling these same heavens, this same city’s higher-ups, almost since they had first met. It was years prior when they had encountered one another.
The encounter happened way to the northwest of the city, between two woods, between trees, between their homes. Each had its territory to watch, to guard. Dividing those two territories, the two woods, was the in-between: an un-visited region. One day, when the heavens were blue and clear and free from cloud cover, each heard a call to that region. To investigate. To look. Each approached the edge of its woods, perched on a branch, on a tree just one line in, one line away from the edge. From there, they stood guard, investigating, curious about the call. They observed the clearing between them, and waited.
A tiny swirl of wind, barely a foot wide, was turning around the middle of that clearing, picking up bits of soil, uprooting short and dry and shallow grass, trapping what insects it found. Slowly, gradually, within a bit of time, the swirl grabbed more air and grew its strength and size. It widened its diameter and began to howl and utter a spell. It inched off the ground and began to build a tower.
The two hawks watched the swirl and heard its spell. They saw what it would all be with more passed time, after moments and hours ticked away—bigger insects falling prey, and then trees on the edges bending from side to side until they too were uprooted and swallowed.
The swirl would soon grow as wide as both woods, if permitted and left to its devices. It would overtake the realms they guarded, their homes and possibly most things living in it.
The hawk on the east, among conifers, pines and sequoias, bent slightly and pushed off the branch, going north then turning into an arc. The one on the west, among sycamores and chestnuts, saw the movement and almost immediately did the same, except that it pointed south. The two flew high into blue space, higher than the swirl’s tower reached in that instant. They faced opposite directions and flew in a circle counter to that of the swirl. They circled the clearing and created a vortex of their own, one that went opposite that of the lower swirl. In sync and keeping their rhythm, their vortex grew and grew until it was as wide as the swirl below.
The two hawks exited their vortex and flew upwards to observe. As the two vortexes met, going in opposite directions, they joined and became one gentle breezy current that left the earth and went skywards, like a ribbon flowing in the sky. It reached the height of the two hawks, brushed their wings, and turned southeast. The hawks glided along with it, in moving circles, until they were circling high above the city, their new home.
And just as with any new home, sometime was necessary before they understood and adjusted. About a year’s time thereafter, while circling and gliding, they came to see the city in a plight, caught and trapped by two belts they had not noticed before. Two belts, one called happiness, the other sadness. Two belts that did not relent, that circled and swayed the city’s inhabitants, one day leading them to smile, another day leading them to frown and sulk.
Immune to both, the hawks dove into work. One took on happiness, the other sadness, inches above each, creating a current of its own that slowed and calmed both, day after day until the belts disappeared for half a moon’s cycle, until that is, an inhabitant breathed in pure air but had a thought and exhaled happiness; another inhabitant had a different thought and sighed and exhaled sadness. In turn, each breathed the opposite of what they had breathed out.
The air thus became small circles of smoke with lives of their own, circling and growing, until they reappeared and returned and trapped the inhabitants once again.
The two guardians, perched on two opposite corners of a yellow-brick building, gazed at the returned belts, moving, again evoking similar smiles and sulks as before.
It seemed inescapable. Belts with roots in thoughts; belts that reappeared and regrew. The entirety of the city seemed to be cursed and trapped. Its inhabitants victims to thoughts, victims to what they felt but could not see or affect.
The guardians wondered if they could stop thought altogether. But how? It would be no different from attempting to stop gravity. Certainly they, the guardians, were free, but they were only guardians and it was not for them to bestow liberty and freedom, liberty from thought, freedom from gravity.
The guardians wondered again, if they could teach the inhabitants to see thought as the guardians did, as simply something to see, but not to attach, not to comply. But guardians were to guard, not teach or sway.
Unrelenting, the guardians still wondered, if they could remind the inhabitants, remind them to exhale purity, remind them not to exhale happiness or sadness. But reminding was no different from teaching or swaying or bestowing. They were guardians, not reminders.
They stood guard. Protected the city. Gazed. Observed.