Life’s Dance
I always see an enormous castle in the distance on a large hill. It’s dark and mysterious, and yet illuminated by an unknown and unseen light. There’s a twisting path leading up to the castle. It’s terrible, and yet wonderful. I am drawn to it. I walk up the twenty giant steps and I don’t know how I do it. The horrible 12 foot tall double doors swing open inwards. I walk in and step on a wide and long scarlet carpet. It’s thick; my feet sink in deep. There’s an intoxicatingly wonderful smell of jasmine, cinnamon, and an unknown third. An unpredictable and surprising combination. White marble stairs enveloped in the scarlet carpeting wind their way upstairs. As if under a spell, I follow the stairs My hand clings to and yet glides along the smooth, cool banister. Only upon reaching the top of the stairs do I realize I am wearing a blue satin ball gown. My brown hair cascades in soft curls and I’m wearing silver sparkling ballerina slippers. As I walk down the long darkened hall, I now finally feel fear settling in my blood, heart, and throat. I feel it course through my veins and spread through my body. Still, I tread on, on the tips of my toes, as silently as I can.
At the end of the hall is an intimidating door, of solid mahogany. I tentatively push the heavy gold handle down and step into a room of immense proportions. The ceiling seems to touch heaven, and the marble floor is a shiny sea. To the right is a fireplace with a glowing fire, and a deep blue furry rug. Also there are two armchairs of black leather, and a matching sofa. To the left is a bed three times the size of a king’s bed, with deep blue covers and pillows. A deep blue rug the same shade of the bed-covers stretches out from under all sides of the bed. A little beyond the bed is another door. Presumably a bathroom. Apparently I had walked into the master bedroom. In front of me stood a majestic grand piano. Along the wall on the left I now saw a table with exotic fruits and many decanters of sparkling fluids. Along the right wall is a desk of gargantuan proportions and an equally intimidating chair. My eyes turn back to the piano. Slowly I walk toward it. My hand carefully caresses the ivory keys. I stop at the middle C and before I realize what I’m doing, I press it down.
The sound seems to echo louder than a thunderstorm. I draw my hand back as if it were a vicious snake. What was I? Insane? Suicidal?
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a dark and terribly beautiful voice asks and I whirl my head up to look at the figure in the doorway. He is undoubtedly the master of the castle. Towering over me, I feel like a toddler before her father. I had never before known that someone could be so terrible and so beautiful. His face was like a god’s. Chiseled to perfection and so smooth I was tempted to stroke his cheek to see if it was really skin or marble and satin. His eyes were devilish and yet an angel couldn’t have had such beautiful eyes. They were a deep green and reminded me of a cat. Elegant, but dangerous. His skin was the color of mocha coffee and his hair was a darker black than I had known possible. It cascaded against his ears, not in curls, but ever-so-softly wavy and twisted. A few strands rested against his forehead, teasing his eyes, and I felt a sudden urge to brush them aside. I immediately regretted it, for I felt that he could read my very thoughts.
In response to his question, I could only nod dumbly. He now crossed over to the piano and sat down. As his fingers glided over the keys, a wondrous melody came forth. I was lost in time and space. I forgot to breathe. It was intoxicating. The song was haunting me and flooding through my veins. My senses were drowning in the consuming melody. He stopped and remembered to breathe. Now he looks at me; he stands up. Lord of his castle, who has enslaved my very thoughts and movements, looks at me, and then asks me to dance. Invisible hands play the piano as majestically as he only moments before. Once again I am lost in time and space, only this time as it continues on, I threaten to collapse. I’m weakened by it. Any force or free-will I may have possessed in the past has all but vanished. His iron arms are all that hold me up as we glide across the marble floor. How long we danced, I cannot say. With the sound of the music, the smell of jasmine, cinnamon, and the unknown third, and the way his eyes held me captive, I was at his utter mercy. When the music stopped and we stood still on the floor, I looked into his eyes, and I knew him, just as he knew me, though no words had been exchanged. I knew that he liked his eggs fried sunny-side up, and his coffee black. I knew that his favourite color was blue.
Somehow he didn’t seem so horribly dangerous, and I could no longer resist the urge to reach up with my hand to brush the few strands of hair out of his forehead. I was only half-surprised that he didn’t slay me in that moment, but rather leaned forward and pressed his lips against my forehead. After what seemed like an eternity and yet still not long enough, he pulled away and then took my hand in his. As a puppy following her master, I let him lead me through the castle. “Come, I will show you our home,” he says. Our home. The thought that he doesn’t ask me or seem to care whether I want to stay doesn’t enter my mind. I feel that I am where I belong. I feel as if I have always been here but had forgotten. All that matters is he, and nothing else. I am utterly and completely spellbound.
~~~~~~
Well what happens next? Does the dream continue?”
Always. Always continues, as real as you are to me now. We spend our days together in silence. Even at night we do not sleep but dance under the stars to a melody I could never describe, but shall never forget. He dresses me in blue. Another colour does not exist for him. No colour of importance anyway. He has never said why, but I know it is because of the purity blue can be associated with. Water, rain, oceans, skies. We don’t speak. We’re utterly happy together without exchanging words. And yet, and yet I feel a wall, an invisible and indescribable barrier. It’s like there’s a spell, and I want to break it. It’s consuming and real; so real I often wonder which world is truly real, and which is the dream. And each night it becomes longer and more intense. And with each night, I long all the more to speak. It is as if speaking would break the spell though, and an unknown force holds me back. Tonight it appears again. Tonight I return once more to him. I come up the large stairs with ever-vanishing fear. He is already waiting for me, holding out his hand for mine.
I wonder what we are going to do today. I soon find out as he leads me to the stables. Two horses, one black and the other white, are saddled and waiting. I have never seen a horse so white nor a stallion so black before. He lifts me with ease onto the white horse before he himself gracefully mounts the dark hose. The black horse leads, the white one follows. We break through the menacing forest—funny how less menacing it is when I am with him—to a clearing.
More than a clearing, it is a meadow of hills as soft as waves that roll in a soft breeze produced by the supernatural breathing of a higher being. The few lonely trees shade a sparkling clear lake. The beauty is overwhelming. For the first time in all our meetings, I take a hammer to the invisible wall. I urge my horse to move without waiting for the black stallion, and start racing down the hill, toward the water. The breeze picks up and teases my hair. Turning my head, I see him next to me. But he is not angry. He is smiling at me. And I am grinning back as I urge my horse to pick up the pace. He follows suit, matching my every move. We reach the lake at the same time and the horses gracefully slow to a stop.
He descends off his horse and then reaches out for me. Bracing my hands on his shoulders, I let him lift me off the horse. Setting me down on the ground however, he does not release me, but instead lets his hands continue to rest on my waist as he closes the distance between our heads.
As his lips touch mine, and I know that never before has such passion been felt by two people. My world is spinning and he is the only anchor. I’m going weak. My legs can’t support my weight in addition to the love felt now. But before I can sink to the ground, his left arm completely encircles my waist, pulling it closer to him, as his arm runs along my shoulders and neck, providing support for my head as he deepens the kiss in a way I hadn’t known as possible.
I’m completely at his mercy now, and yet I know I’m safe in his arms. I feel as though my body has morphed with his. He can do with it whatever he wills. I’m clay in his hands. Slowly he lowers me to the ground, sitting next to me. His right arm is around my waist and with his left hand he holds mine. He lifts my hand every so often to kiss it gently, softly.
We’re leaning against a giant tree; I rest my head on his shoulder. When he’s not kissing my hand, he’s gently stroking it, and as we sit there together, I know that everything before now was the dream and that this is the reality. And I don’t ever want to leave again. After a while I raise my head to look at his eyes. How had I ever been afraid of them? Looking into his eyes, I know we both feel the same about each other.
He brushes the hair out of my face and cups it in his hand. “I love you,” he says. I understand the weight of importance in this confession. He is accustomed to power, to being in control. And now he is taking his heart, and with those three words, he places it in my hands. It is his gift to me, and one that I know I want to reciprocate. “I love you too,” and we both know that I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
And with the exchange of those words, the wall is gone, and we both know that this time, the dream is not going to end. Everything we had before communicated through our eyes we now communicated verbally as well. He allowed me to be a carefree child. He let me run with the horses, roll downhill with the puppies, and I knew he didn’t think less of me for it. We spend our days together, enjoying the beauty in everything and each other. And at night, we dance.
It is at this point I am near ashamed to continue on with the story. I don’t know exactly how long I was there, but after some time, I began to long for home. I can’t explain what possessed me to long for it, but I did. I know that at home there was nothing but brokenness and the fake love that was offered was naught but twisted and corrupt. My life here was perfect and I lacked nothing. Companionship, mutual love, perfect love—carefree days, no worries or struggles. And yet I longed to go back.
I think he sensed it all along and he looked sad. In the end, I finally summoned the courage to tell him I wanted to return. He just looked at me with tear-filled eyes and nodded his head sadly. “I shall return,” I promised.
“Not on your own,” he murmured sadly, and so softly, I wasn’t sure I had heard it. I remember seeing his sorrow-filled eyes and waking up in my bed, crying. I looked around me, startled. So it had been a dream after all. A glorious dream. Ah well, tomorrow is another night.
At first, home seemed glorious. I went out with friends everywhere we pleased, doing whatever we wanted. And yet, everything seemed to hollow. The lying, cheating, stealing, ill-gotten gain and mutual disrespect, even for our own self. Ladies were man-handled into whores and gentlemen roughened into coarse tramps. Sweet desires trained to grotesque lusts, and precious naivety scoffed into stupid gullibility. Even as I tried to enjoy myself, I felt something tug at me, whispering I could have it better than this.
I remember vaguely the pang of disappointment of going to bed and not dreaming of him anymore. I remember feeling guilty at the faint relief I felt as well, glad that I wouldn’t have to face him with the things I had done. Maybe that is what he had meant when he said I would not return. He wouldn’t want me back after all I had done. Very well, who needed him? And yet, something told me it wasn’t him who had abandoned me, but I who had abandoned him.
As the days went by, I drowned my conscience so often, he gave up before I killed him completely. And every day, I attempted things more horrible than the day before, thinking it would rid me of my empty feeling.
But it only got worse, as I found each day that nothing could cure the emptiness. Still, I went further and further into the bloody mire until I reached the deepest point, and began to sink as my desires and ambitions turned on me and began to close in for the kill. I had convinced myself that I was the one in control of the filth I surrounded myself with, and that if I chose to say no they would comply, and if I desired their loyalty and compassion rather than just their bodies, I would receive it.
But on the day I reached my lowest point, the day I was defiled against my will, I realized just how wrong I had been. They did nothing to help me but rather began closing in like a pack of blood-thirsty wolves at the first sign of my desire to escape. I was backing into a corner and knocked a candle against the curtains. The flimsy material alit immediately like a tortured creature before her tormentors.
I was caught between two equally undesirable choices. Back into the fire or try to bolt out of the midst of the menacing pack. I made a run for it, but didn’t get far before they ran me down, tearing me to the ground. Prepared to die, I remembered what had led to this, and for the first time in a long time, I remembered him again. I began crying not fro the pain of my assailants, but at the memory of what I had done to him and myself. If only I could go back. O, forgive me, save me!
I suddenly felt the weight on me lessen. Something had distracted my tormenters. Amidst the burning flames I saw a terrible and beautiful light.
“Get away!” a fearsome and familiar voice commanded. Majestic, slow, and clear, it demanded respect and immediate obedience.
“She is ours. There is a price to be paid!” came the ugly reply.
“Then I will pay it,” he stated.
My eyes widened. What? Pay it? What was I to him now? Did he not see what I looked like? What had happened to me? I looked up into his eyes, trembling. Surely he was only trying to teach me a lesson. But he was looking at me and his eyes were filled with love and compassion, yes, even forgiveness. Could this be? Was I imagining it? No, it was real, and he was serious.
“She tried to get away after selling her soul. The price is death,” they continued, the sickening creatures.
“I said I will pay it.” Surely he didn’t mean that! Oh, but he did! But not for me, how could he? I flung myself at his feet, crying the tears of words that I wanted to say but could not. He kneeled down and put his hands on my shoulders. I looked into those love-filled eyes and could have crumpled together in shame.
“My love is unconditional,” he says, kissing my forehead. He is abruptly pulled away amongst crude laughter as I am shoved into a corner to watch. He says not a word and utters not a sound as they strip him and beat him. I cannot watch and wish I could drown the sounds out as easily as I can the sight. They derive a revolting, monstrous pleasure out of torturing him and prolonging his death. And as the fire eats away at the house, devouring it ravenously, so they beat away at him, consuming his life savagely.
Abruptly, the noise stops. The ensuing silence is more horrid than the noise before it. It is a deathly silence. Suddenly solemn and strangely sober, the demonic tyrants leave quietly. Left to be eaten by the flames, he lays lifeless on the ground, blood pouring out of his body and spilling into a horrendous pool around him.
I stumble over to him and throw my arms around his neck, collapsing over his dead body. Thunder roars and lightening splits the sky. Water first delicately patters, then pelts, and finally pounds with as much force as if the skies themselves were about to follow. The flames around us were soon extinguished, but no amount of water would extinguish the fire of guilt that raged in my heart. I cried all that long night in sorrow, pain, despair, and regret. I was soaked in his blood and the ever-pouring rain, but paid it no heed. All night remained there, crying until strength failed me and I dropped off to sleep in bitter exhaustion.
When the sun shone brightly the next morning I could have cursed it. Had it no respect? But as I looked down where his body had been the night before, I found nothing. Had they come and run off with the body as I slept? Did they have to be so cruel? I gazed upon the brokenness around me and the tears that I had thought had been spent began to flow once more. Everything was broken and ugly, and the only beauty my life had ever had was dead and gone. I lived because of him, but for what? To what purpose? He was the only purpose I had ever had, and now that too was gone. It should have been me. I should have perished and it would have been the least of what I deserved, after all I had done. But I lived while he lay somewhere dead and it wasn’t fair!
But even as I sat there crying, I felt a light more glorious than the sun could ever hope to be. I looked up to see a majestic figure before me. And even as I looked into his eyes, the rest of the world around me faded and we became surrounded by the room of our first dance. My dress was of white and blue satin and the mysterious music began to play once more.
And we danced.
Turning the time back to the day we first met, he wiped my horrid past clean, proving the seriousness of his willingness to pay my price for me. It was paid and forgotten.
I once asked him why me? Why had he chosen to love me, even after all the ways I had defiled myself and been defiled. Why had he paid the price for me and sacrificed himself? He said it was because he loved me. When I asked him why, he said, “because I wanted to. My love is mine to give to whom I please, and I gave it to you. And I knew that if I loved you, you would love me too. It just took you a while to realize it.”
And so you were the voice of encouragement in the darkness?
“Yes. Even when you could not see me, I was there, loving you as I always have and always will.”
And we spend everyday in the beauty of everything around us and in the love for each other. And every night, we dance.
D. Cawthorne
Whiskey
The Treatise 