Nicholas Antonio DelVescovo Roukes

24 August 2015

The Dance

Heavy breathing, that's all one could hear in the auditorium, the silence signifying the end of our dance, and we found ourselves unable to tear myself away from each other.

We met earlier that week at a coffee shop on the corner of Lemon St. and Lime St. She was sitting in a corner, taking sips of her coffee as she typed something out on a computer. I felt a strange attraction to this woman, so I decided to head over to her.

I saw movement in the corner of my eye, and looked up to see a man walking over to me. I got nervous as, all my life thus far, I tried to go unnoticed.

I reached her table, sat down across from her, and started a conversation. It went a bit slowly at first, but, over time, she opened up. We found out that we both had an affinity for dancing, and decided to meet up every day to practice with each other for the upcoming dance tournament.

I was nervous, at first, with meeting up with this man i just met, but he seemed like a very nice person. I realized that this was the first time I had fully opened up to someone other than my brother, which only made me want to meet him more, to have someone I can express myself to and have them understand me. He wasn't the most graceful dancer, but his every movement was powerful, dignified, and pronounced, and It painted the picture of a strong man, but the story it wrote told the tale of what was underneath that strong outer front, a boy forced to don a mask of expectations, a mask which grew into a cloak, almost completely hiding the boy's true self. I wanted to get closer to this man, to find out who he truly is.

I finished up my dance and sat down to watch hers, the way she looked at me as we switched places showed her feelings of intrigue, but I was pulled out of my thoughts as she started dancing. She was an amazing dancer, no, amazing doesn't even come close to illustrate how her form and grace perfectly complemented her natural beauty and made a gorgeous picture, gorgeous, but at the same time saddening in the story it told, a sad story, which only those with an eye for dance could discern, of a girl who had never known the closeness of friendship. As she finished I rushed up to her and embraced her, sending us spiraling into another dance, a duet, a conversation. We didn't talk, or rather we didn't need to, in the same way two skilled fighters can have a deep conversation through an exchange of blows, we, two skilled dancers, exchanged our thoughts and feelings about the other through our dance. We danced together for what seemed like hours, although time can be a rather fickle in perceptions, but, like all things, our dance eventually came to an end.

I laid down next to him on the floor, both of us breathing heavily after our intense dance. After a while, I turned over on my side and found myself facing him. He suddenly came closer and embraced me like he had at the beginning of our duet. I hugged him back, and we stayed like that for a couple minutes, just enjoying each other's company. I wouldn't have minded staying with him a bit longer, but I had other engagements planned, so I had to leave, but not before talking with him for a bit. We decided to enter the duet section of the tournament, and to definitely meet for more practice. We met over the next five days, practicing, and becoming closer as we learned more and more about each other.

The days passed by in a blur, and suddenly the Saturday of the tournament was upon us. I arrived at the giant auditorium first, completed checking in, and then waited around for her. She arrived not too long after. We exchanged greetings, and I led her to the check-in station. After she checked in, we were escorted backstage to our room where we would wait to be called upon for our first performance. We waited in an awkward silence, both of us too nervous to make any idle chat. After an excruciatingly long wait, made more so by the silence and nervous anticipation, we were called up to perform.

The audience seemed to really like our first dance, and we ended up passing on to the next block. We upped our dance after each win, and eventually we made it to the finals. Both parties were granted several hours of rest before the finale. We didn't need to talk to each other about what to do for our final performance. We both knew what we were going to do. The other party went first, and their dance, although amazing to a normal eye, to us, it had to feeling or emotion behind it. Then it was our turn. We walked onstage, entering from opposite sides, we slowly walked closer to each other. As soon as we got within arm's reach, our selected music started up, quieting the crowd.

As soon as we touched each other, everything faded of leaving only me, him, and the music. We started our dance slow, moving around the stage in graceful, yet strong movements. then, the music began to escalate, and with it, our dance. The music reached its peak, and we began our true performance, drawing some soft gasps from the crowd, but they seemed far away, so engrossed in our dance we were. We danced with an unearthly fervor, with a passion that transcended the boundaries of mortals, and into the realm of divine. We became one as we continued our mesmerizing dance, our consciousnesses melding into one entity, a being of dance. This performance lasted for a long time, until the song started winding down. We slowed down our dance with the song, but then it suddenly regained its intensity for the grand finale, our dancing becoming equally vigorous, and then, after a minute, the song ended, along with our dance, our consciousnesses separating, we stood in our ending position.

Heavy breathing, that's all one could hear in the auditorium, the silence signifying the end of our dance, and we found ourselves unable to tear ourselves away from each other. We heard the people in the crowd start applauding, but it seemed so distant, as we were focusing on only one thing.

Him.

Her.

I want to be with Him.

I want to be with Her.

"I want to be with you," we both said in unison, then, after hearing those words, acting on pure instinct, we leaned into each other and lovingly kissed. The crowd's applause became a sudden crescendo of claps and whistles. We separated after a while, bowed, never letting go of each other, and went back to our room to sleep.

The next day we found out that we won the tournament, but we had gotten something even better than the prize, we found each other.