Gods Prefer the Off-Season

The wind along the Makarska Riviera in February wasn’t like the summer maestral, that gentle, predictable painter of turquoise stripes on the Adriatic. This was the bura, a katabatic fury that roared down from the Velebit mountains with the singular purpose of scouring the coast clean of pretense, pine needles, and poorly secured patio furniture. It was a wind that made bones ache and nerves fray, a wind that whispered of ancient, raw things. But this winter, the bura had developed a sense of humor. A specific, juvenile, and profoundly inconvenient one.

Officer Dario Babić was having a very bad week. The note on his desk, printed on the official letterhead of the Makarska Police Department, said it all: “File #447-2: Public Indecency/Unnatural Meteorological Phenomena. Lead: Babić.” It was a thin file, physically. Metaphysically, it was a quagmire.

The first report had been easy to dismiss. A German hiker, crimson-faced, sputtering in fragmented English at the front desk, clutching his hiking trousers. “The wind… it was not normal! It took my… meine Hose! Like a… a ghost with fingers!” Dario had written it off as a combination of strong gusts, faulty belt buckle, and perhaps one too many shots of travarica at lunch.

The second was harder to ignore. A British couple, retirees enjoying the off-season prices, photographed on the St. Peter’s promenade in their matching thermal underwear. The wind, visible in the image as a terrifying blur, had left them standing perfectly upright, holding their walking poles, trousers a crumpled heap around their ankles three feet away. The woman’s expression was one of profound shock; the man’s, a strange, philosophical resignation. The photo, of course, was now viral. #MakarskaMysteryBreeze was trending.

By the third incident—a group of Italian cyclists near Brela, literally blown out of their Lycra shorts, which were later found delicately draped over a statue of Bishop Stjepan—the Mayor was involved. The tone of the memos shifted from bemused to furious. Tourism was the lifeblood, even in winter. This was not the kind of attention the “Pearl of the Adriatic” sought.

Dario’s theory of a lone, perverted paraglider with a giant fan was crumbling. There were no footprints, no motor sounds, no logical wind patterns. The wind targeted only trousers, shorts, and skirts (the case of the Finnish botanist’s woolen wrap-skirt was particularly artistic, leaving her looking like a startled, bespectacled Venus). It never stole jackets, hats, or scarves. It was selective, intelligent, and, according to every victim, playful.

“It felt… cheeky,” the Finnish botanist had said, through an interpreter, her cheeks flushed not with cold but with a strange, baffled indignation.

Dario’s breaking point came on a crisp, bright Tuesday. He was staking out the coastal path, the site of four of the seven incidents. He was huddled behind a stone wall, nursing a tepid coffee, when he saw the target: a French travel blogger, clad in outrageously expensive, skin-tight cream-colored trousers, posing for a selfie with the Biokovo mountain range in the background.

The air was still. Suddenly, a single, powerful, and perfectly cylindrical gust, sounding like a low, gleeful chuckle, shot down from the hills. It didn’t touch the blogger’s artfully tousled hair or his puffer jacket. It zeroed in on his waistband. There was a sound like a sail snapping, a yelp of pure surprise, and the cream trousers flew straight up into the air, did a perfect, flag-like pirouette, and then sailed over the wall, landing softly on Dario’s head.

He sat there, in the lee of the stone wall, the expensive fabric smelling of lavender detergent and shame, covering his face. He heard the blogger’s confused shouts, the frantic scrambling. Over the wall, Dario saw the man, jacket dangling to his knees, attempting to dignity-waddle back to his rented Fiat 500.

That’s when Dario heard the laughter.

It wasn’t human. It was woven into the rustle of the dry maquis, the whistle through a crack in the wall, the distant crash of waves. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated mirth, a cosmic giggle that vibrated in Dario’s fillings. It came from everywhere and nowhere.

“Okay,” Dario said to the empty olive grove, his voice flat. “Fun’s over.”

He drove not to the station, but up the serpentine road into the Biokovo foothills, to a village that seemed carved from the mountain’s gristle. He sought out stara Neda, who was not in any official directory but was listed in the mental rolodex of every local as “the person you see when things stop making sense.” She lived in a house that smelled of dried herbs, wood smoke, and cat.

“The bura is bored, Dario,” she said, not looking up from stringing dried figs. Her hands were like bird claws, swift and sure.

“The wind is bored,” he repeated, deadpan.

“Not the wind. The one who rides it. The one who was here before the Romans gave him a silly name. Before the Greeks called him Euros. He is the Grudge of the Gorge, the Sigh Between the Peaks. You people have paved his playgrounds, built your pretty little boxes on his favorite racing routes. You’ve silenced his songs with your double-glazed windows. All he has left is the off-season, when you’re fewer and weaker. And he has a sense of humor, always did. Used to blow the wool off the sheep, the hats off the Ottoman tax collectors. Trousers are just… modern.”

“A god,” Dario stated, pinching the bridge of his nose. “A horny, bitter wind god is stealing tourist pants.”

“Horny? No. Lonely. Bitter, yes. Hilarious, absolutely. He hasn’t had a good audience in centuries. Your shocked faces are the first real attention he’s gotten in ages.”

“How do I arrest him?”

Neda’s laughter was a dry rattle, not unlike the wind in the stones. “You don’t. You negotiate. You give him a better game.”

The idea, when it formed, felt absurd. But the file on his desk, the Mayor’s escalating threats, the feel of fine French cotton on his head—they were compelling arguments.

The next day, Dario went to the town’s struggling winter open-air market. He bought, with his own money, the most ridiculous pair of trousers he could find: fluorescent orange, waterproof, with loud plaid lining, designed for some apocalyptic hunting trip. He also bought the strongest, most industrial-grade suspenders from the hardware store.

He dressed in his uniform shirt, jacket, and boots, but donned the horrific orange trousers. He clipped the suspenders into place with the finality of a soldier preparing for battle. Then he walked, very deliberately, to the most exposed point on the promenade—the exact spot where the British couple had been de-trousered.

He stood there, a beacon of sartorial defiance against the grey sea and sky. He spread his arms.

“Alright, you windy bastard!” he shouted into the void. “Try me! Let’s see what you’ve got!”

For a long moment, nothing. Just the normal, bitter chill of the bura. Then, a change. The wind died. An eerie, total silence fell, the kind that makes ears pop. The sea seemed to freeze mid-ripple.

A voice, like stones tumbling down a dry riverbed, spoke. It didn’t come from outside, but from inside Dario’s skull. “Finally. A volunteer.”

The attack was not a single gust. It was a surgical, intelligent assault. A tiny, focused vortex attacked the button fly, trying to twist it open. Simultaneously, a sharp, needle-like stream of air probed the seam of the zipper. A broader, pushing force shoved at the waistband from the front, while another tugged at the belt loops from behind.

Dario staggered but held his ground. The suspenders dug into his shoulders. The orange fabric strained and flapped violently, sounding like a machine gun. He could feel the intelligence behind it, a probing, curious, and immensely powerful will. The wind god wasn’t just blowing; he was investigating, trying to solve the puzzle of the trousers.

“Sturdy,” the stone-rubble voice mused in his mind. “Apathetic lining. But these… these are interesting.”

The attack shifted to the suspenders. Invisible, impossibly strong fingers—fingers made of differential air pressure—tried to snap the plastic clips, to slide the leather grips off his shoulders. Dario was pushed, pulled, and pummeled. He fell to his knees, clinging to a bench, but the orange trousers remained resolutely hitched.

The assault lasted a full five minutes. It was a tempest in a teacup, a hurricane focused solely on one man’s mid-section. Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

The normal bura returned with a sigh. Dario was panting, his uniform shirt sweat-soaked, his hair a disaster. But he was, definitively, still wearing the trousers.

He heard the laughter again, but it was different now. Not mocking, but appreciative. Rich, deep, and rolling, like distant summer thunder.

“A point to you, little keeper of order,” the voice echoed. “You have played. And you have not lost your pants. This is novel.”

Dario, still on his knees, gasped into the air. “We need to talk. You’re scaring the tourists.”

“They are so funny when they are scared. And pink.”

“If you keep this up, they’ll stop coming. Even in winter. Then you’ll have no one to play with at all. Just me. And I wear these trousers every day now.”

A contemplative gust whipped around him, smelling of ozone and crushed juniper. “A dilemma. You propose?”

Dario’s plan, hatched with stara Neda, was simple. “The old stone amphitheater up in Podgora. It’s empty. The acoustics are wild. Every Friday night. You get to blow… whatever you want. We’ll set up flags, wind chimes, streamers. You can make them dance. We’ll even get a theremin player. You can play through him. We’ll call it… an atmospheric art installation.”

The silence was profound. Dario could almost feel the ancient consciousness considering it, turning it over like a strange, new seashell.

“An audience? For my music? Not just my… pranks?”

“A willing audience. For your power. Your artistry. They’ll come to feel the real bura. To be amazed. Not to be… exposed.”

Another pause. “And the trousers?”

“The trouser game is over. You won. We concede. You are the undisputed champion of trouser removal. But champions evolve. They move to higher pursuits.”

A great, rushing exhalation seemed to pass through the entire coastline, from the mountaintops to the sea. It was a sigh of immense, centuries-old boredom finally lifting.

“The flimsy fabric of your modern world offers little challenge anyway,” the voice conceded, a hint of wounded pride in its timbre. Very well, little policeman. A trial. One Friday. I will… perform. But the streamers had better be silk. I despise polyester. It has no soul to sing.”

The connection severed. The wind became just wind again—cold, sharp, but no longer intelligent or malicious.

Dario Babić stood up on shaky legs. He looked down at the garish, victorious orange trousers. He became aware of a small crowd that had gathered at a safe distance—the baker, the bartender from the Konoba Marin, a few brave retirees. They had seen him shouting at the sky, kneeling, battling an invisible foe.

He gave them a stiff nod, turned, and began the walk of shame back to his car, the fluorescent orange a blazing beacon of his utterly bizarre victory. He was not looking forward to writing this report.

The following Friday, under a blanket of stars so sharp they looked cold, a curious crowd of about fifty people—locals, a few intrigued off-season tourists bundled in every layer they owned—gathered in the ancient, crumbling Podgora amphitheater. Silk streamers in every color were tied to the old Roman pillars. A hundred wind chimes of different tones hung from a frame. In the center, a theremin player waited, her eyes wide with nervous anticipation.

At precisely 8 PM, the normal wind died.

Then, it began. It was not an attack, but a symphony. The streamers didn’t just flap; they danced intricate, synchronized ballets, weaving stories of chasing nymphs and angry giants. The wind chimes didn’t just ring; they played a melancholy, beautiful tune that seemed to speak of lost ships and mountains older than time. The theremin player’s hands jumped and swayed, not of her own volition, and the instrument wailed a melody that was at once terrifying and gorgeous, a sonic map of the bura’s journey from Arctic depths to Adriatic shore.

The audience stood, mesmerized, battered by sound and air, feeling a profound, elemental awe. No one lost their trousers. A few lost their hats, but they were carried gently to the top of the amphitheater and placed like offerings on a stone ledge.

Standing at the back, in his normal uniform trousers, Dario Babić watched. He saw the Mayor, his mouth agape, clutching his own hat to his head. He saw stara Neda, nodding slowly, a smile on her wrinkled face.

And in the roar of the performance, he heard it again—that laughter. But it was transformed. It was no longer a snicker of mischief, but the full-throated, joyful roar of an artist finally seen, finally heard. It was the sound of a lonely, bitter god, for one night at least, feeling distinctly on-season.

Dario closed his eyes, let the divine, tuneful gale wash over him, and allowed himself a single, exhausted thought: Thank God. Now maybe I can close the damn file.