Travellers

Nighttime in a desert town. The night was cool with a small breeze, and as dry as the sands that stretched for many miles around. A few stars had started to twinkle in a cloudy sky, and the moon hung full, bathing the streets in a pale white light.

The roads were slowly emptying of people, though a few remained to wander aimlessly. Through the center of the town ran a major street that carried the busy traffic of merchants, beggars, and those on their way to work. Now only the beggars remained. At one point the streets widens, and in the center is a well, one of many through the town. Ladies were filling buckets with water, laughing at stories each one would tell. Down the street were the drink houses, full with the men recently finished with their work, laughing at their own stories. In one drink house a lone violin played exciting music, and a woman was dancing on a table-top, trying her best to be in time with the music, but the violinist, when seeing her get in time with the violin, would speed his playing up. On occasion he would slow down drastically and the woman would trip over her dress trying to adjust, much to the amusement of all. Even she would laugh, enjoying the challenge of the whims of a master violinist.

One man, after a few drinks and laughs with friends, walked slightly unsteadily outside and turned to face his home. His wife was at one of the wells, drawing water. He knew that even if he ran, she would still make it home long before he did, so he kicked a stone absent mindlessly and proceeded to casually stroll home. A horse-drawn carriage was coming towards him, and he hopped to the side, barely missing a beat in time with his pace. He glanced at the doors to the carriage, briefly seeing closed curtains before it rambled past him. It continued on until he could no longer hear the wheels turn, nor the clop of hooves.

He stepped into a rectangular glow of light coming from another drink house, the candles burning brighter in this one, and there were more of them. There was no dancer in this one, neither was their music. He spared a glance in and spied card games, chess, and a few other table games he didn’t know of.

There was a commotion from someone across the street. He looked over to see one man point down the street, telling nobody in particular but the four others near him, “look at her.” His voice was breathless, suggesting more of awe and rapture than a mocking tone. The rest looked, and stared.

Never slowing his pace he turned and walked backward, looking down the street to see who they were pointing at. The light from the drink house was shining bright in the corner of his eyes, but soon left as he continued past the house.

In the natural light of the moon and stars, he saw someone. It was a woman, dancing a good distance down the street. He listened but heard no music, the violinist having stopped shortly after he left the house, much to the dismay of those that remained. But this was not the same woman who was dancing in that house. The one in the house was fully yet simply clothed: a light shirt with a slightly frilly skirt. This woman dancing down the street was in full garments. He couldn’t see perfectly because of the distance, but could make out interwoven cloth, as if she was wearing two dresses that passed in and out of each other. This woman did not wear a skirt either, but wore pants that were tight at the ankles and shins, spread out at the knees up to the waistline that moved in their own way to the dance, and was bound by a belt. He could only assume the belt because of the other clothes that hung loose and moved as gracefully as she did.

And she was graceful. He had seen many dancers, some of them quite good, but many for whom dancing was a talent they were unable to master. They moved in time to the music, but only as if it was memorized steps and motions, instructions to each limb per beat instead of the sweet and graceful flow of a true dancer. And this woman in the street was the best he had ever seen. Her dance was slow, but she moved forward as she did so. He could see that she was slowly, ever so slowly, picking up speed with her dance. He tapped his foot and counted out a 4 measure, the most common number of beats per measure, at the speed he thought she was dancing in. And she was perfect, even without music. No, especially without any music. It is far easier to dance and keep a steady flow if there is even a whistle going on, but this night was only full with the noise of the drink houses and those in the streets. It was a cacophonic noise, chaotic, nothing that you could hear a steady tune in, but she was dancing as if the world was softly singing in her ear.

She had straight black hair, enough to cover half her face or more, and enough to reach her lower back. Even the flow of her hair was perfect to the dance. The dance itself was slow and easy, punctuated by a slight jump, or lunge to the side.

He realized that he had slowed his walk greatly. He stopped to watch the dance. Some others around him who were also staring were slowly walking toward to get a better view, while others also stayed fixed where they stood.

She was closer now that he could notice more things about her. In her hair were tied ribbons, two, no three of them. They were dark red, and were placed in a way to move in and out of her hair. He could see one of them tied on her hair close to her forehead but always hugging the hair flow. The other two strands were tied either in the middle or in her hair at the neckline. Wherever her body moved, she faced. The dance was speeding up, and the effect of her turning her head right before the direction that her body moved looked as if she could turn herself inside out.

And she had wings! Or rather long and wide pieces of cloth attached to her arms at a midpoint between wrist and elbow and a midpoint between elbow and shoulder.

He started to move closer as well. Not everybody was standing though. Many people were leaning back against walls, and even the women at the further off well had run up to the sides of the street, some of whom found their own men. But they all watched.

As the dancer got closer, he could see that the wings wasn’t a solid piece of cloth, but could have been hundreds of thin pieces winding in and out of each other, like a weave. But not like a weave. A weave was too coarse a word for this. This was much smoother. He would never have noticed it if it wasn’t for the slight separation between strands, allowing very slight glimpses behind them. It was a dizzying effect, as staccato bits of the reality beyond was flashed through the spaces in less the time it takes to blink an eye.

And the colors! Even in the moon and starlight he could see them vividly. Over-all blue and purple, with patches of red, even on the wings. The patches of red at first glance would look random, but when looked at long enough could be seen purposeful lines and angles, curves that could only have been put on with precision. There was gold trim on her chest material, and ruby red woven with the deepest blue that went straight from her waist and curved in to a point between the breast. She had silver rings on her fingers, and he saw some on her toes. She was dancing barefoot in the sandy street. There was stone underneath that sand, worn smooth from many years of carriages and footwork, but still rough enough on any strong man’s foot to be winced at occasionally. Yet she danced on it as if in the most comfortable of slippers on smooth hard wood floor.

She was faster now, and she spun and twirled, leapt forward and back, side to side, but always with the most grace that could ever have been. She was so smooth, and so beautiful.

He could see her face better, which held no expression. There was no trace of enjoyment, nor sadness. Her eyes stayed straight with wherever her head moved. Some would argue that she appeared to not even being aware of the dance herself. But her face, her cheeks, her lines, her eyes, her nose… they matched everything else. Elegance and beauty.

She paused in her dance, her own internal beat hit a measure of rest. In a four second span, he saw her eyes. They did not look at the street, nor the people, nor the buildings. Those eyes did not look at the sky, or even the horizon. She stared at the universe, and the universe was staring back.

And she was off in a flurry of movement, near impossible to keep track of. Her arms spun out and above her head. Her feet danced traces in the sand so fast, but the trails left behind barely intersected each other. There were gasps from nearly everybody in the audience at this movement. It was certainly impossible to watch, and many thought most certainly unable to be re-created. It wasn’t just the sheer speed she moved at, it was the perfection that was evidenced when it could have been evidenced. This was a perfect dance, and no stray strand of hair was out of place.

She tucked her arms in close to her side, and the wings spun out level with the ground. She twirled faster than anybody had ever seen before and would see again, slowly letter her arms out. For a moment she appeared to lift off the ground, and the illusion was only reinforced as she spun, moving from side to side of the street.

She was even with him when the spinning stopped, and the previous dance resumed completely unaffected by any possible dizzying effects she may have held. An applause was ripped from the audience before people even knew they were clapping and cheering.

And then another four beet pause, and she became a blur of movement, faster even than before. She kicked up and out in a spin, her feet only touching ground when they were pointing directly straight down the street. Her arms tilted the opposite directions, appearing as if she was a teetering circle of blades. Then she moved differently, kicking up sand around her, creating a little cloud of dust that only she occupied, but only for the briefest of moments before she was moving forward again.

All everybody saw was the dance. They no longer saw her, they were no longer even aware of each other, or even of themselves. They were rooted where they stood, watching a dance that could never be seen again. Even those inside the houses were at the windows and doorways, straining to see it better.

The dance took her from one side of the street back to the other side, then finally up the middle before she stopped suddenly. She was facing down the street, looking at nothing. One foot was flat on the ground, while the other rested flat against her calf. Both arms were outstretched, even the fingers matched each other perfectly, the thumb point out away from the hands, each ring finger bent downward at the second knuckle, and the other fingers pointing straight out. Her hair and clothes moved as if in slow motion. They gently swayed in the direction of the spin, but only as much as if it had been a slight turn-around. Her hair settled over her face gently, a couple strands fell over her right eye. Those close to the end of the dance saw a faint smile on her lips. Her eyes, and that smile. Her head was tilted down slightly, and her eyes were angled up to look straight out. She looked as if she had a secret and was enjoying it slightly, and the joke was on the rest of the world.

Not once did her smile flicker. There was no movements in her arms or legs. She didn’t even sway on the one foot. She was perfectly still, stone still.

Everybody became aware that they were holding their breath. Was the dance over, or was this a longer pause. After a near minute, they started to murmur. The dance was over, why was she standing there? How was she standing there? Others were still in awe of the performance and were talking excitedly about it.

He walked closer to her with a few others, and they were the first ones to notice a change. The colors on her clothes were fading. They were becoming more uniform, becoming gray. Even her hair was changing. In fact, everything about her was graying out.

He walked in front of her and looked at her face. The expression never changed. She gave no indication that she was aware he stood there, or even that anything was there. And then he noticed that it was for good reason she never noticed. Her face was still smooth, but there was something almost granular about her entire aspect.

Everything about her was solid gray now, and he ventured a touch. She was cool. But more than that, she was hard.

“My…” was all he could stutter. Others were crowding around, and soon the cry went up, “She’s turned to stone!”

Everybody was getting closer to her now, everybody except three people who were still sitting on the ground, their backs to the wall of a drink house, their heads hung low. Nobody noticed that they had been dead for a time now, shortly after the dance began. Nobody noticed their cut throats, the blood pouring into their shirts and pooling where they sat. But most of all, during the dance nobody noticed a slight change in the dancer’s clothes, especially in the wings. The wings, splattered with red.