Dance in your blood. (950 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.83 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by SpikeGoddess (View user info) at 2005-01-07 19:43:35 EST
"Dance when you're broken open.
Dance if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you're perfectly free."
~Rumi
trans. Coleman Barks
December 31, 2004
10:15 PM
She looked more beautiful than ever. That was the consensus, a rare event at the Drake's annual New Year's Eve Bash which usually consisted of two parts booze to three parts banter. The whole family had squeezed into Uncle Bob's house and the attention of every auntie, uncle, cousin and friend had locked onto Elizabeth as if the next prize-winning question on "Who Wants to be a Millionare" would be "How many inches has Elizabeth Drake dropped since the last time you saw her?" The way her legs sliced through the air when she walked, the contour of her waist that was barely visible beneath her blood red sweater, her eyes...everything about her had become exquisite.
"Whatever Lizzie's doing----that's the diet I'm gonna sign up for!" Uncle Bob looked around expecting the rest of the room to join in with his robustious laughter. Nobody else was bold enough to broach the subject, but he pressed on,
"So, what is it Lizzie? How did you do it?"
Elizabeth took a silent gulp of air and chewed on the inside of her cheek. She almost wanted to tell him the truth...as punishment for asking. She bit down harder and then brandished a siren smile; her glossy mouth was inviting, potentially deadly.
"Oh, I don't know, Uncle Bob... the only big difference is that I'm happy now. Happiness is good for the hips, I suppose."
The rest of the room looked on uneasily until Great Aunt Olga's glass of wine tumbled onto the carpet. Amidst the commotion, Elizabeth slipped around the corner and climbed the stairs.
Her head had already begun to sing the soft humming song of wine and pills. She could feel the tingle of her fingers waking up to the alcohol as she switched on the CD player in her bathroom. She pulled out the little tampon box and dumped its contents unceremoniously onto the counter. A handfull of little cotton torpedos and four little pills poured out. Elizabeth picked up the pills and swallowed them down before popping the tampons back in the box. She touched her cheek, slowly tracing a shape over her cheekbone. Her hand looked like a little girl's pencil on tracing paper, trying tentatively to recreate an image a few layers deeper. She stood there, transfixed, breathing slowly, tracing the shape again and again.
December 31, 2004
11:07 PM
"LIZZIE!!!!" Mrs. Drake's voice bounced off the wine glasses and rang up through the stairwell. "LIIIZZZIEEEE!!!!"
Elizabeth smacked the counter and sucked in some air. Wobbling only slightly in her heels, she made her way down the steps. Her mother looked up at her. "Someone's here to see you, honey..."
He hadn't stepped into the house. He knew that would have been presuming too much. It had been a full six months since they'd last spoken, and he knew that this visit would do nothing to change her mind, to make her into the wife he dreamed she'd make for him. She appeared in his view, radiant, dressed in the red that made her mouth look like it was stained from biting into ripe strawberries. A quiet, "my God..." spilled from his lips.
"What are you doing here?" She glared at him. Her shoulders stiffened a little.
"I'm sorry, Elizabeth, I really am. I'm not trying to pull something. I just.... I heard about your...well, you know....and I wanted to come over and just tell you that I'm so---"
She looked at him for a moment, those same eyes like a sad old dog...She looked back at the party and heard Uncle Bob's laugh soaring above the commotion. The cold air felt good on her head. Pulling the door shut behind her, she stepped out into the last night of the year.
It was deadly quiet between them. Everything that had happened in their time together seemed to pack itself into the twelve inches between their chests. The evenings out at chain restaurants where she'd barely eat and he'd try to get her to laugh, the never-ending litany of his allergies that he'd explain to anybody who would listen, the night he'd saved her life outside of the library downtown, the ring he wanted to buy her, the way he'd stuck by her when she in the worst of moods, the way she couldn't stand it when he fucked her.
At last, she spoke. "Take me dancing."
He looked back at her, barely able to think of something to say. "Dancing? Liz, you've got a whole houseful of guests! I just wanted to tell you that Katherine told me about the cancer and I couldn't NOT come---"
"Take me dancing."
They got into his car. The streets were glowing with the lights of candles covered by white paper baggies--a "nondenominational neighborhood holiday activity." Each little light flashed past her eyes as she watched from the window and Elizabeth felt like crying, felt like she was breaking open. For the first time in her life, men honked their carhorns at her when she walked past, her ex-boyfriend's jaw dropped when he saw her, a whole party of people was captivated by her, and for the first time, she felt beautiful. She couldn't understand how a body that finally glowed with loveliness could also be crawling with cancer.
"Stop! Here, just pull over right here."
The car came to a gentle stop and he parked it right next to a line of glowing luminaria. She'd never liked the fact that he was so totally obeidient.
"Here, dance with me here."
He stood stiff and awkward as she began to move her hips, slippery smooth like there was warm butter in her joints. Her arms wrapped themselves around her body. She touched her breasts, the tops of her thighs.
"If you aren't going to dance, then leave me the fuck alone. I never asked for your pity."
He got back in the car. There were tears in his eyes as he drove away.
She danced through the New Year, through the warm wine flush and the fuzzy pill haze. She danced through her stomach aching, through her heart leaking little drops of guilt, through her anger and her alonenes.
She touched her cheek and writhed in the candlelight by the side of the road. Every car that passed hissed the question, "who is that beautiful girl?" as it whooshed by. She felt the warmth of the candlelight and the side of the road was her stage, she felt the ghost of a hand on her cheek and imagined that she was loved again. She forgot the cancer in her belly.
"Dance when you're broken open.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you're perfectly free."
User Reviews
Submitted by DanielH (user info) at 2005-01-08 16:20:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
+++++++++++++
This was an EXPLOSION of literary brilliance; this streaks glittering past anything I've read (lit-wise) on this site in a very long while. (Altho I've only been around four months.) +11
(And just into the first few paragraphs, I was working up a "Trim Spa, Baby" joke in the back of my thoughts.)
++++++++++++
P.S. (For guys to remember):
She'd never liked the fact that he was so totally obeidient.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-01-08 06:27:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very good.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-01-08 00:16:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
YOU???
AGAIN???
I love you.
Submitted by Ainkara (user info) at 2005-01-08 00:03:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by lojope (user info) at 2005-01-07 23:19:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
WONDERFUL to see you again!
Submitted by Socialist_Joe (user info) at 2005-01-07 22:15:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
i've never lost anything well maybe that bag but it realy wasnt at all inportant
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2005-01-07 21:59:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Judoka (user info) at 2005-01-07 20:35:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Istaros (user info) at 2005-01-07 20:27:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
not bad
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2005-01-07 20:26:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Welcome back
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2005-01-07 19:56:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Such good stuff.
Submitted by Stin (user info) at 2005-01-07 19:47:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck wow.