The Wind and the Sun

High above the world, the Wind and the Sun got to arguing — as neighbours will — about which of them was stronger.

“I flatten forests,” boomed the Wind. “I push whole ships across the sea. I once blew a king’s hat off in front of everybody. Strength is force, and force is mine.”

The Sun didn’t argue back, which the Wind found extremely annoying. The Sun just looked down at the world, thinking.

“There,” said the Sun at last. A traveller was walking the long road between two towns, wearing a good thick coat. “A contest, then. Whoever can part that traveller from his coat is the stronger. You may go first.”

The Wind laughed a gale of a laugh. “This will take one minute.”

And he blew.

He blew a gust that bent the roadside trees. The traveller’s coat flapped like a flag — and the traveller grabbed it shut.

The Wind blew harder. Leaves tore past. Birds gave up flying and walked. The traveller staggered, leaned into it — and buttoned his coat to the top.

The Wind summoned everything he had, the ship-pushing, forest-flattening, king’s-hat blast, and hurled it down the road — and the traveller sat down with his back against a tree, pulled his collar over his ears, wrapped his arms around himself, and held that coat on with his whole entire body.

The harder the Wind pushed, the harder the man held on. Force, it turns out, teaches everyone it touches to resist.

At last the Wind ran out of breath — even winds do — and hung in the sky, panting and empty.

“My turn,” said the Sun.

The Sun did not blast anything. The Sun simply came out from behind the clouds and shone — warm, steady, unhurried, the way the Sun has shone on lazy afternoons since the world began. Nothing appeared to be happening. The Wind began composing a victory speech.

The traveller stood up and unbuttoned his collar.

The Sun went on shining. No harder — that’s the part everyone misses when they tell this story. Just on. Patient as morning. The road grew warm and golden. Somewhere a bird tried singing again.

The traveller undid the rest of his buttons.

The Sun shone on, gentle and certain. And the traveller stopped, wiped his forehead, smiled up at the fine warm day — and took his coat right off, folded it over his shoulder, and went whistling down the road to find a stream to dip his feet in.

The Wind stared. “But you didn’t do anything!”

“I did one thing,” said the Sun, “and I kept doing it, gently, and I didn’t stop too soon. You wanted the coat off now, and every gust you spent told him to hold on tighter. I let him want it off. That’s the difference, old friend. You force things shut.”

The Sun settled back for the afternoon.

“Warmth opens them.”

They say the Wind never quite gave up arguing — winds don’t. But they also say that ever after, on days when the Wind caught himself blowing harder and harder at something that only gripped tighter and tighter, he would remember the road, and the coat, and the whistling traveller…

…and pause, and wonder, just for a moment, what the shining kind of strength would do instead.