I Don’t Know What Wind Is by Chris Scott

Approximately thirty seconds before dismissal, one of my first graders asks me what wind is. I freeze up, sixteen first grade faces watching me, they all suddenly want to know what wind is, right now, right this moment. I’m 41 years old, and I honestly have no idea. I’ve never really thought about this. I deflect. “Well, what do you think wind is?” The student actually says back, “I asked you.” Another kid chimes in, “It’s when Earth moves too fast.” But that can’t be right. “Our planet moves at exactly the speed it’s supposed to,” I say, which is a ridiculous thing to say. “So what is wind then?” a third kid says, and before this can get even further out of hand, the bell rings.

I google it after they’re gone, alone in my classroom. But my phone isn’t working. My phone isn’t working because moments ago another country hacked our country’s grid and shut the whole thing down forever. Unbeknownst to me (because there will be no more internet, ever again) my country is presently retaliating against the wrong country, and there’s now a horrible and violent domino effect unfolding across the globe, not just with grid destruction, but also bombs and guns and planes and soldiers and everything, all happening extremely quickly, but I don’t know this obviously. And I don’t know what wind is.

In the exactly one hour and twenty-eight minutes and six seconds before I and most of the other people in my city are consumed by a tidal wave of fire and heat, I ask three other teachers, two students, two parents, one guidance counselor, one police officer, and one national guard member what wind is. The answers I get back:

            -Atmospheric pressure or something

            -The planet spinning maybe?

            -Fluctuations in temperature

            -Different kinds of motion, I guess

            -Different cold and warm fronts

            -Air just moving around

            -I don’t know

            -I don’t know

            -I don’t know

            -Move move move move move move move

Near the end of a very long walk home, three blocks away from my apartment building, watching six low-flying jets carving tight, thin lines of exhaust across the blue, otherwise undisturbed sky, here’s where I ultimately end up landing on this: One last exhalation.

Chris Scott’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Observer, Maudlin House, Flash Fiction Magazine, Weird Lit Magazine, The Fantastic Other, Flash Frog, Tiny Frights, and elsewhere. Scott is a regular contributor for ClickHole, and an elementary school teacher in Washington, DC. You can read Scott’s work at https://www.chrisscottwrites.com.