Dance

It's an unscripted thing, something you've never seen before, and you want to possess it... to take it into your body, your mind, to bring it into your soul and get drunk on the rhythms therein. You're already body-drunk on the over-effects of the livingness of it, of the wild actions and the breathless spaces of perfect calm-- for no longer than a beat at a time. It almost hurts, the perfection.

You've been searching your whole life for something like it; you've climbed mountains and watched the rocks go tumbling past you, to a doom for any man. You've gone diving, seen the depths and the shallows alike, and all the wonders that play there, and you've seen the herons bowing over ponds, and the cranes in their rituals, and you've seen the eagles dive together, interlocked.

You've searched your whole life, and been everywhere, it seems. You've met, you've-- heard. It all makes sense, everything is made clear, and you are-- transcended.

It's over, just like that. And the man sitting next to you, lounging with one arm thrown carelessly over the desk, nods indifferently. He glances at his clipboard, the checklist, and makes a bit of a face.

"Yeah... I just don't think it's what we're looking for. Thanks anyway-- next!"

And just like that. Just like that, the lights go back on in your head, and the next dancer heads on up to the stage, tossing her hair coquettishly. You don't see where her predecessor went, in the darkness out of the spotlight, and the brief sound of her footsteps is lost almost immediately to the opening piano chords. The dance is trite, simple, but it's got a hypnotic sort of effect. The director nods approvingly, tapping his pen against the clipboard.

The dream is over, and the morning that life bestows you has stolen the last shreds from your mind, like a bead of dew, there and gone before the sun has risen from the haze in the East. The dream is over, and you return without a thought of reluctance or relish to the waking life.