The Quiet Wind

They stayed. Because leaving with a voice meant being labeled difficult. So they stayed. And went quiet.

There was, and there was not, a corridor in the Kingdom where no wind ever stirred.

It was not shielded from weather. The skies above were clear. But the wind there had learned to hush itself, to slow and bow and disappear. It was the kind of stillness that didn’t invite calm, but caution.

The Raven had worked there once.

It was a space filled with bright minds and broken rules, where mistakes were seen as tests, and questions were treated like fractures.

She remembered the time before the quiet.
When the Hummingbird warned that the numbers didn’t match.
When the Sparrow mentioned something off in the system’s design.
When the Raven herself once said: “This could hurt someone. We should pause.”

Each time, they were told the same:

“You’re imagining it.”
“It’s been reviewed.”
“It’s not your call.”
“Be a team player.”
“The report is closed.”

The wind quieted. One gust at a time.

They all stayed. The Raven, the Hummingbird, the Sparrow. They stayed because they believed in the work, because they’d invested too much, because leaving felt like erasure.

And because leaving with a voice meant being labeled as difficult, disruptive, not a fit.

So they adjusted.
They revised their concerns into clarifying questions.
They reframed harm as risk.
They smiled through the meetings and breathed in the silence.

Until the silence became normal.
Until it echoed louder than anything they might have said.

Years later, the Raven returned to that corridor.

The tower was taller. The work had scaled.
A plaque now hung on the wall: High Performing Team. Delivered Results.

The wind still did not move.

The Raven placed a feather on the stone. Not to honor it. Not to mourn it.

But to mark what was lost there: the truth no one was allowed to name.

And the cost of mistaking quiet for peace.

© 2025 Sarah Dooley. Story and images by the author. All rights reserved.