Dance To The Beat Of Your Own Drum

• Laura Edmunds, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2011

“Dance my son. Dance and happiness will come.”
He walks forward, the sun scouring his already blackened skin. “Obey” they tell him, “Obey and be honoured.” Still he walks.
Bare feet blister on the sunburnt ground, “The pain you feel is the start of honour,” they tell him. Onwards he goes.
Still they walk, though cautiously now. ‘To be home again’ he thinks. To be home with a man who gave him the world.
He rose in the light of the early morn. Looking, searching for a family left long ago. Every new day, he looks and every new day, they never come.
His parents left when he was a child of five. His father had been teaching him the dance. He was good but not as good as his son. Every step the older man threw his way, the child did just as well and sometimes better. His passion was dancing and he passed this trait down to his son.
The day he left, a young boy remained, wounded and distressed. Staring longingly with chocolate eyes, he waited for his father to come home and take him with the group that had left his village. He never came.
Though the child was discouraged by the absence of his father, he remembered the steps to their dance. He practised every morning at the rise of the sun and every afternoon at the set of the sun. He never gave up and often returned to his village cut, bruised and tired. Nights like these, he sat in silence, staring unseeingly into the night.
The day came when he turned 16, old enough now to work on the fields. The rough savannah desert scarred his feet and the searing sun scored burns in his back. Still he worked. Even though he was exhausted by the setting of the sun, he still practised the dance his father had taught him eleven years before.
The day soon came that the young boy became a young man. Working on the fields as a leader now was one of his main priorities. Training the younger males of the tribes was a full time profession, boasting both failures and advances.
It was one of these days on the fields that they came. The same amount as when his father left. The younger children scattered and mothers grabbed babies and fled. The men were the only ones standing.
Suddenly, a crack split the air. Every man stood alert, watching intently as the force approached.
Ropes were thrown around the villagers necks and they were tied together, sweating in the Arabian sun.
They march endlessly, backs slouched and energy fading. As they march, the phrase his father repeated long ago enters his mind. “Dance my son. Dance and happiness will come.” He straightens his back and his gait becomes stronger. His gaze stays straight ahead and he marches, marches like the rest but with happiness in his heart. He knows that no matter where he is going that there will be happiness as long as he continues to dance.
He walks forward, the sun scoring his already blackened skin. “Obey” they tell him, “Obey and be honoured.” Still he walks.
Bare feet blister on the sunburnt ground, “The pain you feel is the start of honour,” they tell him. Onwards he goes.
And still now, he walks. Walks to a place of desolation and fear but now, he knows, that no matter where he is, he will always dance.