Sun Dance
In the middle of the dizzying chaos of lunch hour at the Pub, there was one calm figure. He was seated alone in the corner, almost unnaturally still in the bustle of activity. He was pulled back, obscured in shadow by the balcony above him. His face was tilted down, further obscuring his features as he examined his phone. The black of his hair and his clothes created the appearance of a living shadow: still, quiet, and watching. His hooded eyes occasionally flickered up at the passing figures who babbled loudly by. The slow deliberation with which he picked at his food and scrolled through his phone seemed almost reverent, like he was in a place of worship, not a college cafeteria.
Leaning back in the red chair, he scrapped the sides of his yogurt cup with careful precision, each stroke calculated and controlled, until the last remnants had been extracted. Then, leaning forward, he set the plastic cup down carefully, and placed the spoon inside it, finished. His glance flickered up again, like the boisterous passers-by were mere shapes passing. He regarded them with no more care than one would a flock of birds traversing the sky. Maybe they were just birds to him, noisy figures without real content or meaning.
Settling back, he picked up his phone again, scrolling further. Calm and contented he settled into a statuesque stillness that seemed to defy human nature.
Suddenly, he stood up. It was without warning or visible outside stimulating. He jumped up, as an animal sensing danger moves without visible warning and freezes, waiting for confirmation. For three seconds, he stood erect and perfectly still, his head slightly cocked. It was as if he was listening for a specific signal in the cacophony of confusion around him. Then, just as suddenly, he wrapped his coat around his shoulders and bent, gathering his things. He seemed on the verge of flight, like a bird poised on the edge of a branch, ready to jump at the slightest stirring. Then he sat again, the danger seemingly passed.
A few more moments of suspension, then he relaxed into the chair again at the coming of another. There he was, a still shadow, she was a dancing beam of light. Her blond hair and golden scarf caught the low lights and drew illumination to her. She moved with grace and easiness, as though she didn’t even touch the ground.
She stood and laughed, then sat and listened. But the whole while she never seemed to stop. There was always and undulating grace that blew her about. Never quite settling. She stood again and departed, leaving him seeming darker and quieter, still. The brief light that she brought to him now revoked, he sank back into shadows, despondent.
She was unaware of the change which she had affected: the sudden illumination her presence had brought him, and the subsequent surrender to shadow that her absence affected. Like a beam of light playing over the shadows, she forces them to change and respond, but cannot fully settle and eventually leaves for brighter vistas.
