"Take me with you."

The man stopped, amazingly, as though the wind had carried her words. He turned to look at her with a smile on his face, his eyes seeing a child on cracked earth, and her parents, unseen, running fearfully out to get her.

"Someday you too will run with the winds, but it is not this day. Just wait. The wind is coming, child of the stars.�

Just then Julie's parents caught up to her and, taking her hand, pulled her back towards the trees. The traveler turned and continued on into the night, and Julie's eyes followed him until he fell from sight. When finally she entered the tunnel through the foliage she felt as though she were stepping back into a stiflingly hot house.

"Mom?" She asked later, on their way back to the house. "When can we leave too?"

But her mother just looked down at her with eyes like a secret she didn't want to give away, and said, "Come on inside sweetheart, its time for your bath."

Years passed, and again Julie only thought of the outside world when the wind blew, which wasn't often. It seemed the world wanted to give the girl time to grow up, and grow up she did. Soon Julie was no longer running around the oasis with mud in her hair, chasing after one of her brothers. Now she could be seen walking casually with her friends, the conversation topics ranging from clothes to boys, and sometimes ideas, but only then in Julie's case. For a time Julie's parents began to fear that she had passed almost to the other side of the spectrum, but as life would have it, another sign came Julie's way.

One late and, as always, sunny afternoon Julie and a few of her friends were walking through the oasis, discussing some topic of an unimportant nature, when a loud screech reached their ears. Birds were a common commodity on the oasis, so Julie's friends barely took notice, but Julie's ears noticed the difference between the caw she had just heard compared to those of the tropical birds of her green home. She stopped, and looked up to the sky, or rather, the leaves blocking it from sight. Her friend's conversation stopped immediately, and an irritated silence fell among them.

Suddenly, in a burst of feathers and foliage, a large whitish bird crashed through the canopy of the oasis and plummeted straight into the lake. Julie's friends all shrieked out their high-pitched surprise, but Julie was faster in her reaction. In two long strides she crossed the distance between herself and the lake and dove in headfirst, causing all of her friends to shriek again. She tore through the water as fast as she could towards the half-floundering bird. She reached it quickly and, reaching out, pulled it towards her body with one arm, while reaching out to stroke back to shore with the other. The bird's sharp claws and beak cut into her skin once or twice before it seemed to realize it wasn't being attacked, and then it relaxed.

Julie pulled herself up onto shore with the bird gently cradled in her arms. By this time a crowd had gathered, and they all watched as she straightened up soggily with the strange bird. Her friends recoiled from her water-logged appearance, but Julie didn't even care. The crowd all peered inquisitively down at the young woman with the bird, seeing her with the same eyes they had used when she was a little girl, anxious to leave their islandic paradise.

Julie fell down to her knees in the sand by the shore, and laid the bird down on the ground. Her right arm was bleeding, and her long hair fell stringily into her face. Irritated, she pulled it back. Her eyes were full of wonder as she gazed down at the bird, one hand stroking it, checking for signs that if was still alive. The poor animal was so thin it seemed as though it had not eaten for days, possibly weeks. Even though it seemed like nothing more than a ball of dirty gray and white feathers, there was no mistaking what it was.

"Its a seagull." She whispered, and then looking up wide-eyed at the crowd gathered around her, she announced it louder. "It's a seagull!" A smile of wonder spread itself across her face, it mattered little that none of her people were sharing in her excitement. "There's an ocean out there." She said, her eyes clouding over as she envisioned it, a huge body of water stretching out as far as the eye could see. She couldn't stop her smile now. She stood up abruptly. "It came from that way," she said, pointing. "We heard it caw from there, and then it fell through the trees there. So that means...." She fell off, her eyes following her pointing finger and seeing the now overgrown spot where the traveler had left.

"Its to the west." She whispered, and looking out into the crowd she saw her mother. Her voice came out stronger than she had ever heard it, like a tidal wave crashing. "There's an ocean mom! An ocean! It's out there." She pointed, "To the west."

One evening she walked out to see the stars come out, with the seagull looping in out of the trees above her. When she got to the desert, however, she noticed something very peculiar about the sky. There were no stars, even though it was well past time for them to emerge into the dark sky.

"In fact," she said to the seagull, "It almost seems as if the sky is lower than normal. How strange."

Just then, a fork of light streaked across the sky and a deafening roar filled her ears. She screamed and let go of her hair that she had been subconsciously braiding together. A gust of wind blew sand like needles into her face, and picked up the loose braid and unbraided it in one swirling burst. Her jaw dropped open at the power of what the wind was doing. It was becoming solid and spinning in a tight, tube-like circle. The tube had started in the blackness of the low sky, but soon proceeded to descend to the ground very near to where she was standing.

In a flash, she swooped the seagull off of her shoulder and into her arms, turned, and positively sprinted back into the trees. She tore across the oasis, feeling droplets of hard rain stinging her body and hearing nothing but the roaring wind. Her mother came running out of her house as she neared it.

"Mom!" Julie cried, sprinting up to her. "The wind's made a cyclone! It's covered the entire sky!" She saw fear in her mother's eyes, and saw her whole family, now outside, staring up at the sky. "He was right mom! Its my time to leave. The wind's calling me! Remember?"

Her mother wasn't listening to her though, but rather to the more pressing matter of the storm.

"Julie get down!" She screamed, and the whole family clustered together into a terrified ball on the ground, the seagull squawking feebly, still cradled in Julie's arms.