timothyx

startled awake by the chinking of a spoon onto the brim of a tea cup she rubs her eyes open, a mild panic washes over as her vision is so blurry she can just make out a shape of a person sitting across from her with fluctuating movement in the background. Muffled speech can be heard, a phrase repeated slowly, words start to form from the incoherent bass emanating from the human blur in front of her.

“welcome back, i’m very excited you decided to join me”
a smile can be made out on the face of the silhouette but nothing else, just a blurred cheeky grin on a darkened face. the moving background starts to comes into focus, thousands of people dancing in unison, stepping, moving and grinding together, like some sort of choreographed film clip without the music. someone snaps their fingers sharply and the dancers crouch down and place their hands on the floor, heads up they all stare at her with excited anticipation in their eyes.

“while nothing is ever truly clear, i know you will enjoy yourself here”
the dancers move wildly with his words rising with the peaks in his vocal tone, arms spread wide reaching for the heavens, as the echo of his voice fades they stand staring to the sky, arms accentuating the slight swinging of their hips. a dull beat makes its way into her ears, pulsing deeply it vibrates her heart with each slow bass hit, the dancers sway with the beat never taking their glances off the stars above.

“what am i doing here” she asks with a trembling voice.

“thats entirely up to you” he responds bluntly as the dancers twist sharply to the left and right with his words. “you were always going to arrive here, but you did take your time, did you get lost on the way?” he asks?

“i don’t remember how i got here, i just woke up here a moment ago”

“no one gets here by accident, you knew you were coming, drink your tea it may clear your head”

“i don’t like tea”

“you didn’t like tea” - the dancers all point with their hands together above their heads, bodies bent backwards, towards a huge shape behind them that reaches into the night sky so high she has to tilt her head to see the top, they pause for a moment as an odd buzzing noise echo’s out from the shapes direction. The dancers dramatically duck to the ground covering their eyes with their fingers and plugging their ears with their thumbs. The buzzing grows louder as thousands of small flickers of light emanate from behind the shape. With each flash a piece of the shape is illuminated, it looks like a giant photo, being back lit randomly by little lights.

With a thud so loud she jumps in her seat the thousands of flickering lights become a single solid light, illuminating a giant portrait of herself. Black and white, highly contrasted, her face is solemn, eyes red and irritated, eyeliner dripping down her cheeks from a small flow of tears, sorrow on her face and pain in her eyes, a photo of an intimate and vulnerable moment, lit up brightly for all to see. She knows this exact moment, she can remember clearly crying to herself, pain inside her churning her stomach and spiking into her heart, she was alone, locked away from the world. She starts to feel uneasy, the dancers pose depressingly, fists to their eyes mocking her tears. The lights have drowned out the man in front of her to the slightest of silhouettes.

“why cant i see your face” she asks.
“because you haven’t chosen too”

The dancers begin to move wildly swinging their arms in a circular motion above their head while swinging their hips in the reverse direction to their arms. Two run from the group headed straight for her, only meters away they separate into opposite sides and begin to run around circularly in opposing directions, one by one the dancers sprint towards her then run in alternating directions around her. A frenzy of movement all around her, bodies seem to blend in with each other into one big swirling mass. Suddenly a ground shaking thud echo’s out around her, the large portraits lights turn off all together and a single pin light is shone down onto the round table in front of her illuminating a single cup full to the brim.

“you better drink that” the man sitting across from her says with a sense of urgency in his voice. She reaches for the tea cup and brings it towards her mouth, the pin light follows and as she begins to drink from the cup the light widens to light her whole face, periodically blinding her from everything but the cup in front of her mouth, her eyes widen and her tongue dances in her mouth as a feeling of pure ecstasy flows down her throat, its the sweetest thing she has ever tasted. Her body shudders and she gazes to the sky, light still shining in her eyes, a feeling of power washes over her and she sits staring into the light not wanting to move for fear of loosing this feeling.

The light widens again to a few meters in diameter, at the edge of the light the dancers are still running circles, dark shapes swirling around her. She looks towards the man in front of her, she can now see his face is covered by a hood and only his darkened smile and jaw can be seen. There is a feeling of power emanating from him, his mouth is strong and chin is solid. He slowly raises his head, light works its way up his face slowly. His jaw is clean shaven, firm skin with slight dimples, his lips look soft yet firm, as the light moves to the base of his nose his mouth shapes a grin, white teeth begin to show from behind his lips. “thats enough” he mouths and the light fades before his eyes can be seen.

Sitting in complete darkness a cool breeze flows over her shoulders and down her body, goose bumps down the back of her neck. “come on, lets go” his voice seems to be getting distant, she turns her head in the direction of his fading voice, “where are we going” she asks slowly rising from her chair. “always forwards” he replies, voice now soft and distant, his words echo around her. With a series of electrical sounding thuds a row of lights beam down from the sky leading off into the distance, on the horizon she can see the silhouette of a man looking towards her. A snap of the fingers echo’s towards her and thousands of dancers run in from the darkness forming a line between her and the man in the distance, all facing away from her and towards the man. The man whispers something to the dancer standing in front of him, that dancer turns and whispers to the dancer behind him, and he turns to tell the next. The dull murmur can be heard heading towards her getting louder and louder but still incomprehensible, finally the dancer in front of her turns around face hidden by a hood draped over his head and whispers in her ear “you need to catch up” as soon as the words leave his lips he runs back into the darkness, one by one the others follow as the last dancer heads into the darkness she can just see the man on the horizon walking away into the distance.