Dancing On Paper

       School is great.  Newport Beach High School-  NBHS.
A pulsing heart of culture.  Too much maybe.  Culture
means drama, and drama means suicides, at least ten
per year.
       But me...  I am a dancer.  In my life, I will surely
appear behind Britney, Christina, Usher, and Beyonce.
Dancing is my livelihood.  My teachers speak of
homework, but I have no time.  I must spend every
extra minute I have dancing in front of the mirrored
walls in my room.  Scratch that.  In my studio.
       And then there was Chad.  He’s my coach.  Without
him, I would be nothing more than a boy who could
dance.  Chad transformed me into a dancer.  God bless
his soul.
       And today, I received word that I would play a
character in “You Got Served II,”  A dancer’s dream.
This time, it would surely win an Oscar.  I sat in
class now, in my small wooden desk, daydreaming about
my next great dance.
       I stared ahead, past Ms. Whatever, straight at the
wall.
       And suddenly, the walls were shaking.  Could this be
part of my daydream?  The walls must be sending me a
message.  They were urging me to shake.
       Without a moments hesitation, I leapt onto my desk,
and shook my butt like no one ever had.
       At the same instant, everyone else scurried to hide
under their desks.
       Funny, I thought.  Maybe  I’m shaking too hard for
them.
       I switched it up, busted out everything in my
repertoire.  I moon walked (a girl shrieked; that was
more like it), I break danced.  I even pliyayed (I am
trained in the art of a ballerino).
       More girls shrieked.  I was a god.
       The door burst open.  Chad!
       He pointed at me, we made eye contact.
       With all his might, he yelled, “Look at him, he is a
STAR!”  He drew one on the white board.  “The rest of
you cower under your desks, but he has no fear, none
at all.  The show must go on.”  He waved his spirit
fingers in my direction.  Beautiful.
       Then the ceiling beam fell.  Straight on my leg.
       Chad was crying.  He held me in his arms, rushed me
out the door.  “We must get you to the hospital!”
       My sister, age thirteen, pulled up in a Lincoln Limo.
 She was born yesterday, but that is another story.
       “To the hospital!” yelled Chad.
       But it was too late.  My leg fell off.
       When I found out it was an earthquake, and not a
message to dance, I burst into tears.  For the last
three hours, I sat crying in the middle of my
studio...  scratch that, my room, with “Moonlight
Sonata” on repeat in the background.  I am no longer a
dancer.
       Back to my sister, though.  She’s weird.  I hate to
say it, but she is.  She looks like any normal,
thirteen year old girl.  She talks like a normal
thirteen year old valley girl.  She even loves to shop
like a rich thirteen year old valley girl.  But she
was born yesterday.  She hasn’t experienced life...
But I’ll let her tell you about it, I have something
else to do.

       I woke up this morning for the first time in my life.
 Last night I went to sleep for the first time.
Totally opposite experiences.  When I went to sleep, I
was a newborn baby, eight pounds, three ounces.  Now
I’m about thirteen.
       I just brushed my teeth, then took a shower.  The
shower was cold until my brother showed me how to use
the hot water.  The cold water was like waking up in
the morning, the warm water was like going to sleep.
       I left the bathroom and walked down the hall.
       My brother was in his room, hanging from his ceiling
by a rope.  Suicide.  I walked into the kitchen.
       I picked up a plate and poured milk onto it.  It
dripped onto the floor.  I licked up as much as I
wanted, then left for school in the limo.  I hated the
limo, so I got out and walked down the street.  The
car behind me honked, so I smiled at them.  They
screeched around me.  A boy stuck his hand out the
window with his middle finger up.  A compliment.
       I complimented everyone I saw for the next three
blocks with my middle finger.
       Then I saw a cafe.  A man in a suit sat at a table
outside.  He was eating something.
       I sat down in the chair across from him.  He looked
up, then reached his hand out to me.
       “Good morning,”  he said.  “You must be Isabel.  I’m
your Alumni interviewer from Harvard.  My name is Al.”
       His hand was still out in front of me.  Weird.  I
decided to compliment him to.
       Then I grabbed what he was eating and went on my way.
       “You’ll never get in!”  He called out from behind me.
       But I did get in.  I got into the passenger seat of
the next car I saw.
       A befuddled teenage boy sat in the drivers seat.
“Dude?”  he said.
       “What’s your name?”  I replied.
       He stared blankly at me.  He must not have a name.
How was I to know that not everyone had a name, I only
knew like five people anyway.  “Where are you going?”
He must be going somewhere.  Right?
       “Um.  I, uh.  I’m driving to school.  Where are you
going?”
       “Well, I guess I’m going wherever you are, ‘cuz I’m
in your car.”
       He shook his head.  “I can only take you as far as my
friend Tom’s house.  We have a carpool and today it’s
my turn to drive.”
       “A carpool?”  I was in awe.  “But I forgot my bathing
suit!  Oh well, I guess I’ll get out at Tom’s house.
Have fun at the pool.”
       He just looked straight ahead.
       When we got to Tom’s house, I said goodbye with the
compliment that I had learned earlier, then I left.
By the time I left, I was a thirty year old.

       “Dude, who the fuck was that?”  Tom said as he got
into my car.
       “I have no idea, fool.  I swear, I must be dreaming.
Can you pinch me?”  I was still in shock.  When she
first got into my car, I thought she was going to car
jack me or something.  Tom pinched me.  “OWW!”  It was
the most painful pinch I had ever received.
       “Did you feel it?”  asked Tom with a grin.
       “Yeah, I guess I must be awake.”  I took my eyes off
the road and looked down at the place where Tom’s
fingernails had attacked my skin.  There was a bump
there the size of a tennis ball.  “Holy shit!”
       Tom looked too.  “Oh my god.  My bad, dude.”
       The bump was growing.  I had no idea what was going
on.  It had started as a tennis ball, then proceeded
to a grapefruit, and then a volleyball.  I turned left
at the intersection.
       “Uh, school is the other way.”  Tom said.
       “I’m going to the hospital.”
       “You can’t!  If I’m late or absent one more time, I
won’t be able to go to prom!”
       Good point, I thought to myself.  I “flipped a bitch”
at the first opportunity.  By now my abnormal arm was
making the front seat crowded.  Tom unbuckled his seat
belt and hopped into the back.
       I instantly heard a siren behind me.
       “Fuck!  Tom, they must have seen your maneuver.”
       Tom didn’t answer.  I saw his stern face in the
rearview.  Behind him, a high powered spotlight burned
into my eyes.
       The officer outside the car was at least eight feet
tall.  “Do you know how many laws you are breaking
right now?” he asked.
       “No.”  I looked passed my grossly swollen arm at my
car’s clock.  “Tom, you’re gonna be late.  You better
just leave.”  Tom opened the door and began to run
down the street towards school.
       The cop was not only eight feet tall, but he was an
amazing shot.  I blinked at the frightening explosion
next to my left ear.  When I opened my eyes, Tom was
flying through the air in slow motion.  I watched for
about twenty seconds, then glanced up at the cop.  He
was staring right at me.  My eyes darted back to Tom.
In about twelve more seconds, his lifeless body
sprawled on the ground.  No prom.
       “Where was I?” asked the cop.
       “Laws I was breaking.”
       “Oh, yes.  Well, the answer is you are breaking one
law.”  He held up one finger, then pointed it at my
engorged arm.  “That passenger is not wearing a seat
belt.”
       “Officer, that’s my arm.  It’s swollen.”
       He looked inquisitively past me at my arm.  “I see...
 Well, then.  You can go.”  He walked back to his car
and drove away.
       Tom was still on the ground ahead of me.  Several
squirrels were picking at his body.  I had to get to
the hospital.


       I love the feeling I get after I shoot my gun.  This
was the first time I had ever killed someone, though.
And the kid was innocent too.  I guess he was
resisting arrest, but that’s about it.  And by itself,
I don’t even know if that’s a crime.  I was in my car
again, just trying to get away from what I had done.
       The road in front of me began to rise up and down.
Strange.  I felt like I was a boy again, riding the
waves off the beach of Newport.  This must be another
earthquake, like the one yesterday that damaged NBHS.
       A voice blared over my radio.  ****  P-77, do you
copy.****
       **** P-77 here.  I hear ya loud and clear****
       **** Very good.  We have a body at 2435 State Street.
 We need you to go check it out****
       **** Copy that.  P-77 over and out****
       I made my way towards State Street.  The road still
fluctuated wildly, but I had a job to do.  I passed at
least seven horrific car accidents on my way, but the
body couldn’t wait.  I eventually pulled into the
driveway of 2435.
       A crying woman opened the door.  I looked down on
her, disgusted by this open showing of emotion.  At
police academy, I had become hard as a rock.
       “Come in, officer.”  She barely got the words out
past her sobbing.
       “Where is the body?”  She led me to a room in the
back of the house.
       “I found my son ten minutes ago.”  She pointed.  A
boy hung from the ceiling.  The walls of the strange
room were mirrored, and the effect was infinite
duplicates.  Thousands of hanging corpses surrounded
me.
       The room shook again.  Another quake.  The mirrors
began to break.  An old woman walked into the room.
       “What's up, guys?” she said.  Then she flipped me
off.
       “Oh, don’t mind her officer.  She was born
yesterday.”  I think that her sons death had rattled
the mother, for this woman was surely 83 years old,
maybe 84.  The scene was becoming more and more
unconventional.  Earthquakes, broken glass, crazy
women, “Moonlight Sonata.”  And I can’t forget about
the corpse.

       My little girl sure is growing up fast.  One minute,
she’s just a little baby, and the next she’s a grown
woman, literally.  I think she must be older than me
by now.  It’s far too late for her to have a child,
and with my only other child gone, my bloodline shall
cease to exist.  C’est la vie.
       I first looked at my daughter, then turned to stare
at my little dancer.  No more.

       From my spot on the desk, I watched my pet hang
helplessly from the ceiling while the others gawked at
his lifeless form.  The glass of my vivarium might
have been thick, but even with the distortion it
caused, I could still make out the monstrosity of the
police officer.  At least eight feet tall, if I had to
make a guess.  What a beast.
       I lumbered over to my water bowl and took a long sip.
 A dead cricket floated on the surface, but I was
thirsty enough to pay him no mind.  Besides, my heart
was filled with sadness over another death.
       I was good at moving on, I did after all shed my skin
once a month.  But this was different.  Never again
would I find a more entertaining pet to watch.  He
could dance.  God damn, he could dance!
       Back at the pet store, I had high hopes for this guy
when I purchased him.  And he far exceeded my greatest
expectations.  My new pet spent all his time in my
room, dancing for me, joining with his own reflection
to put on many a spectacular performance.
       What could have driven him to take his own life?
I’ve heard of pets being hit by cars, sure, but this.
This came as such a  shock to me.
       A few minutes later, I made my choice.  I would go
with him.  I again made my way to my water, inspired
by the drowning/escape act performed by my would be
food.  I buried my head in the water like an ostrich
would bury his head in the sand, to hide from my
grief.