Marylin Duncan. The sweetest girl around in the neighborhood. Long, curly, brown hair and emerald eyes. Very clever for her age too. Only eight. Loved to write poems and short stories.
Some very short, but with a lot of meaning. I do not know how many times I have shed a tear to one of her writings, just too look at her and see her satisfied smile; she knew I loved reading them.
We spent a lot of time together, especially during the summer. I kept her company a lot, to her parents, Jonas and Madelyn, joy. They had their hands full with work and the younger brother of Marylin, Oscar. He were only three.

As autumn came, I started working at a publisher company. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot, but I missed Marylin. I knew she was alright at her home, but still. She was really something, so clever and kindhearted.

As I left work that Saturday, I had a weird feeling in my gut. When I arrived on our street, I saw an ambulance. I walked towards it, slowly. The feeling got more real. Something had happened.
I saw the ambulancemen rolling a stretcher. On it laid Marylin. Her pretty face, grimacing in pain. Her family followed; the father was crying while Madelyn and Oscar looked depressed, holding hands.
I noticed that Marylin looked at me. She reached for me. I was about to take her hand, when I saw her legs, or where there would have been legs. Sure, she was under a blanket, but I did not see the shapes of feet or anything below the knee. Shivers rolled down my spine. I swallowed, looking at her family. They nodded at me, so I took her hand. Marylin's face brightened up for a second, just to be grimacing in pain again the next. She grasped my hand harder. I joined her on her ride to the hospital, her family followed in a car behind.

She had been hit by a car, the driver didn't see her as she crossed the street. She had fallen down from the impact, just to have the lower part of her legs crushed as the car drove away very fast. It was Madelyn that had found her daughter. She was going to tell Marylin that dinner was ready, when she saw her laying on the street. She rushed out to here, but did not want to move her, so she shouted to Jonas to call an ambulance. Marylin was a victim in a hit and run accident.

She was hospitalized for two whole years. I visited her as often as I could. Her family were often there as well, which made me both happy and a little bit jealous.
During these two years, she grew. Her body grew. Some days the pain was so intense that she had to be sedated.
But she never stopped writing. She wrote about everything, things she saw, dreamed, anything.

When back home, a room had been prepared for her on the first floor of the Duncan family's house. It had a hospital bed and a lift, so she could get up from the bed with help. She moved around the house with the help of a wheelchair.
She didn't spend much time in the bed, however. During days when the weather was warm, she sat outside, enjoying the breeze. She was always seen with a book and a pen, writing. She told me she would write down her dreams, but they would just be dreams, because she knew she would never be able to fulfill them, seeing as she could not move freely.
She often said she wanted to be like the wind, free, blowing everywhere, moving freely. She started signing her works with "Wind". It became her alias.

In the autumn of the last summer we spent together, which was four years after she had been released from the hospital, she told me that she no longer had any dreams left to write. It saddened me to hear it, but the most peculiar thing was the way she said it; calm and satisfied. She also told me that it was a dream of hers to get her works published. I did not know then that she was on the edge.

About three months after this, she passed away peacefully in her sleep, with a smile on her lips. She held a note in her hand which read; "I know I would never have a normal life again, but I am satisfied with what I have done. I love you all, please do not mourn me so it hurts your souls and hearts. I wish for you all to be well and to live life at its fullest."

I fulfilled her dream; her works were published in a collection called "The Wind Will Be Free". It was published under Marylin "Wind" Duncan. However, I stood as editor; J. Brown. Nothing I was too proud of, but the company required it.
The book sold worldwide, in many copies. I wanted all the profit to go to her family, but they said that I had helped Marylin make her dream come true, so we agreed on a fifty-fifty split. The profit I got were used to raise a fund in Marylin's memory. "The Marylin Fund - For Aspiring Dreams That Will Come True." It was Oscar, her brother, that come up with the slogan.

It has now been forty years since Marylin passed away, and the fund is still alive. It provides scholarships to people with dreams. I have retired from the publishing business.

As a last thing, I will read you the poem which the collection's name, "The Wind Will Be Free" is based on;
The wind, the wind
How I wish to be like it
So free, so beautiful
Not a worry in the world
I want to become the wind
Because
The wind will be free

J. Brown