A Dance Across The Universe

• Anthony Crew, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2017

Theatre lights dim, stage lights flicker on. Two figures stand on stage, heads bowed, there’s an emptiness about the scene. There seems to be an invisible force pulling them closer, like a string tied around them both is tightening, but they don’t move. The audience sees now that one figure is male, the other female. She’s not wearing the frilly dress that most would expect, but one of elegance, and grace, white as innocence. He wears the same old black tuxedo that everyone expects. They lift their heads, stare blankly beyond each other. They each raise an arm and take the other’s hand. The first note of music resounds. But there’s no movement. Two more land, but still nothing. The fourth comes and so does the beginning of dance. He steps forward and she back. He, back, and she, forward. They turn completely and she pivots on one foot, the other stretched out behind her. They move like insects on a pond, skating elegantly across the stage, majestic without intensity. The scene behind them appears to change, and manifests a new stage for them. They dance under a flickering street light in a country town. Along the tracks near an empty train station. On top of the tallest building. The scene melts and another forms. They are dancing on a beach with the sun filling the sky with pink as it sets. On an ocean, the moon at their back, the stars glistening above them, smile. Now on the bottom of the ocean. They solemnly dance in the great deep. Now they are rising, higher and higher, from the water. They dance on the Earth. Spin each other around the sun. They dance in Jupiter’s storm, around Saturn’s rings. They dance on the Milky Way, across the universe. A black void is the back drop, as he lifts her into the air. She seems to rise until she becomes a constellation. All the scenes flash once more and they appear back on the stage. She lands back on the ground and they bow, hands held. The stage lights turn off as they walk off, to opposite corners. Now, in his dressing room he finds the single red rose. He waits outside her’s, still dressed in his stage clothes. To him, waiting but five minutes is an eternity to lose himself in. Finally, he hears the knob turn and the door open. She walks out, now dressed casually, with her hand in another’s. He awkwardly offers his congratulations on the performance, hiding the single red rose behind his back. She smiles and offers the same to him, with a “thank you”. She and the other walk down the hall with hands held. Leaving the dancer on his own, with nothing but a single red rose, she walks away. The string that seemed to pull them together snaps. The dancer reaches out to catch it. He ties it around his finger, to remember their dance, as a tear forms in his eye.