"Midnight Ramblings - Remembering to Dance" by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

Remembering to Dance

         It had been too long. That fact struck her as she opened the door and immediately began sneezing like crazy from the frantic swirls of dust her intrusion caused. Dusk had kissed the hills, but it was light yet.
         When at last her eyes cleared of tears and the fit of sneezes subsided, she was able to take in the little room before her. It was smaller than she rememberd -- much smaller by far. "It hasn't been that long, has it?" she exclaimed in dismay.
         The chamber was bare. It made her wonder if it was her imagination that painted it such a lovely countenance in her memory. The carpet was dingy and stained by wax and dirty shoes and glazed with a blanket of dust. The walls were in desperate need of a paint job, and the only light came from the sole window on the western wall. What illumination that provided was filtered by the dusky layer that covered the glass as well. The place loooked like a cell. A rather dismal one at that. "-This- is where you used to spend your time...? Didn't have much of a social life did you?" came the voice of her companion from the doorway behind her. Though the sarcasm was obvious in the words, somehow the room seemed to drain the biting edge out of them.
         "No...this is not how it was," she said. She almost whispered. There was something about the place...something that made it seem almost...sacred. Not the sacred holiness of gods and their ilk...but something that stemmed instead from memory and perhaps a reverence for what once was. She turned towards the doorway, having come halfway into the room. She could see her footprints clearly on the carpet. "Come in," she said. When he made no move, she held out a hand. He looked at it for a long moment, at the smooth hands that had never even scrubbed a dish, at the uncalloused palm, and the slim, tapered fingertips. Artist's hands, he called them often enough.
         It always made her shy away when he said that, and that made him laugh. "Stop it," she would say. "Don't call them that. You don't understand. It's not in these hands. It's in the air. You breathe it when you look at a tree and touch its grain, or when you see a piece of the sky in a rain puddle or --"
         "Why are you getting riled?" he would say with a laugh. Which would only make her even more agitated.
         And then all the flurry would seep from her, and she would say, "Because you make me think I actually have that kind of magic when you say things like that. Don't you know what kills any person is believing that they possess what is sacred? Because then there's nothing left for them to seek." And there would be something terrible, and something beautiful in her face when she said this. And he would wish she was looking at him instead of far off into the night. "Come in," she said now. "Please." And as she held those hands out to him, he saw that look in her eyes, as she looked at him. He took a tentative step forward. The light was so muted within the room. As was sound, muffled by the layer of dust. Time felt muted here. As if it was a place away from the cycle of the mundane.
         "What is it that you want to show me here?" he asked.
         "This is where I used to dance," she said. There was a sadness to her face. She hesitated. "I used to dance in this place," she said again.
         "Why did you stop?" he asked, reading her as accurately as always.
         "Stop dancing?" she repeated, like a child. Her hands twisted a ring on her finger unconsciously. "Because...because I forgot how to."
         "Forgot...? How can you just -forget-?" he laughed. "My dear, you have the most impeccable memory of anyone I know. How can you just forget how to dance?"
         She smiled wrily. "Even I can forget things." She was silent a moment. Her eyes swept the tiny chamber. "Do you know, this place was beautiful once. Well, it was never a real room. I think I remember it different because I always came here in the night. There was only candlelight."
         "Candlelight makes anything beautiful," he said.
         "Ah yes." She said. She stood there a moment, looking so strong, so frail, so...ageless.... She belonged in this timeless room, not because she was a relic of something long gone, but because she could possess the magic that hid in the dusty corners here, much as she would deny it. Or perhaps she had forgotten it. Even she could forget things. "Please," he said, "Will you dance for me?"
         She moved with reluctance. "I--"
         "Please."
         A silence folded over them both, and as twilight set its cloak to the ground, she began to move.