Kinetic Storm

• Sarah Friedrich, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2008

How did she do it? Her audience hypnotized in an instant. Was it her strength as she stamped her anger into the earth? The constant thundering stampede of her heels sounded as though it were a thousand drums leading the audience to their doom. Certainly it felt like a looming apocalypse, but the entranced onlookers would follow her willingly.
Or was it the way the folds of her skirt whirled around as though it was made of the lightest silk in the fiercest storm…yet there was no wind, no rumbling gales to play with the heavy skirt. The skirt, heavy as linen now light as silk, was made of never ending folds of material, material that was redder than blood and the only thing that matched its brilliance was the ruby fullness of her lips.
Perhaps it was the steady curving and swaying of her body, her imperfect waist bent and twisted like a willow tree tossed and grabbed in the thundering storm of her skirt. Her intricate fingers clicked a steady beat, castañetas that in their delicacy differed and contrasted from the anger of her feet.
Last of all her eyes; The audience was mesmerized by the unbreakable daring in her stare that shattered men’s egos and made women lower theirs in shame; They were hooded in thick lashes that enticed any onlooker. The desire of the men was measured only by the envy of every woman watching.