When the Dance is Over

She laughed low, rumbling tones which echoed into the drone of the drums.

She wanted me to join her. I didn’t want to have to go through what I did last night. I needed to get up in the morning to see Stu before I left. I needed to get home to Ellie. She began to float to my table. Her eyes got wider, and the flower began to pulsate against her black hair. The drums were slow, deep, and loud. She was moving fast, and the flower shook with her. I was frozen, I couldn’t feel anything. I don’t even think I was blinking.

Silhouettes of people began to appear--people frozen everywhere around me. Some were old, others young, lovers holding hands, children playing hand clapping games, women taking pictures, all frozen in an eternal pose. The drum’s roar was a constant, deafening scream. She was the only one moving. She wouldn’t take her eyes off me. All of a sudden she stopped the dance, and directly faced me. The flower in her hair opened, and began to secrete a dark fluid. I couldn’t tell what it was until it streamed down her face. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, I wanted to be far away from her. But I couldn’t. The thick fluid dripped over her eyebrows, into her eyes, across her lips, and into her mouth. She then finally opened her mouth, which did not have the smile I had seen before, but a set of pointed teeth, dripping with the blood of the flower.

She got closer and closer, I was horrified. I wasn’t able to take my eyes off of the beast until I saw a frozen woman.

She was holding a child in her arms, frozen with terror eternally posed on her face. Her back was half turned to the dancer, and her right arm was covering her child’s eyes.

I recognize the woman, and I’m sure Stu would too. I’ll tell him when the dance is over.