Ballet Outside of Time

The boy told the girl he would be hiding in the forest and that she should come find him. Light draped the woods ending the cul-de-sac. Prisms beamed between trees, holding flies, dancing. Uninterrupted grass grew. Clouds pirouette across the sky. In her chest a rustling held her in place as if leashed by a string. Only a few hours until sunset. The boy needed to be found. She’d find him. Lifting her eyes to the late brightness, she called out, “I’m here.”

The boy wasn’t her friend. He only walked by Mimi’s School of Dance where she studied ballet. One day he looked into the window, past other moving bodies, and found her. Never before had she held such large, yearning eyes.

The second time she saw the boy’s eyes, he stood in the center of the window until she twirled to face him. No one else noticed him, nor that the girl had stopped dancing. They were frozen; gazing outside of their immediate present, into another sort of present. The pink legs of the other dancers flurried flimsy around her. A monarch butterfly fluttered between the boy and the window, followed by another. Then another. He lifted an eyebrow as if to ask,

“You see that?”

She raised hers back,

“How?”

The girl’s life was like this. She went to school having done all her homework the night before. She raised her hand to speak in class. She ate her peanut butter sandwich for lunch. She walked to Mimi’s School of Dance with Bob Marley wailing in her ears. She arrived early to start her homework in the lobby. She changed into pink tights, her hair knotted at the base of her neck. Dancing made the girl think of fairies, and how some people deep clean their kitchen instead of sitting in the living room with their family. She revered the innocence of the younger dancers, their arms lifted, turning round and round like fresh-cut tulip buds, as if untouched by time. She imagined herself as a fairy, trapped in the body of a runaway child, who had to learn to dance to find her way home.

The day the boy first appeared in the window, the girl spent the rest of class dancing with the idea of him. She’d never seen him before, and felt certain, without proof, he didn’t go to her school, though there’s only one school in town. He didn’t seem young, but he was, and he didn’t seem like a person who lived in her town, though he’d walked by the studio twice now. She wondered where he was when he wasn’t in the window. If he liked his life outside of their meetings. His eyes stayed with her long after he left.

The third time the boy came to see her, he arrived early, and hid behind a large oak to watch the girl secretly. She sat in the empty studio, drinking water from a glass bottle. He ran his fingers gently over tree bark, inhaling its sharp scent. Some fly buzzed in his ear. Students trickled into the studio. She hurried to her spot at the barre nearest the window. He appreciated the natural wood features of the studio, and their pale pink costume. Many dancers floated around the room now. He shifted his weight, inhaled, exhaled, in measure. She carefully weaved through aspiring ballerinas for her water before returning to the window. One arm stretched overhead as her body pulled further and further from itself with her eyes slitted. Once opened, they jumped all over. She remained in fourth position and he, still hidden. He saw her face glaze, thinking maybe she didn’t see what she had hoped to. Yet he waited. He wanted her to want to see him. Autumn blew, skittering leaves across the sidewalk, and this wind nudged him out into the open.

The girl’s eyes latched onto the boy who seemed to appear from thin air. She met his gaze, and in their contact echoed lovers laughing, silverware clinking, tires turning, a lighter flicking, stems snapping, flame eating a candle. He also heard these sounds. It fed him to glean so much from so little. Craving closeness, his body stretched to mirror her arched position. His mimicry startled her, so she returned to first position. He pulled himself up too. She was motionless, considering. She entered fifth position cautiously, as if presenting a gift. He lifted his chin and raised his arms into the same offering. She softened. His eyes gave thanks. She raised her right leg and placed her pointed toes above her knee so she now resembled a tree. He picked up his left leg, becoming the same tree as her. Her tree a q, his tree a p. Like before, no one noticed them. The boy and girl danced outside of time. Together they cycled positions. His right hand blindly felt in his pocket, breaking their mirror to reveal a folded paper. He held this paper up, before crouching to place it under a rock at the base of the oak. He bowed into a forward cambré, staying bent long enough to give rise to a feeling. Then, he ran.

The girl turned away to tend to her other side. Returning to herself, she became conscious of the note beneath the stone. Thinking of it made real joy bubble up in her stomach. Her eyes stayed fixed on the tree the rest of class. Once dismissed, she rushed to gather her belongings, trading slippers for sneakers, before running across the street.

It took no time to reach the forest waiting patiently for her, despite the endless cycles of life passing through it. This boy and girl weren’t the first to seek understanding beneath its canopy. The wind whispered, using branches as its tongue, carrying the girl’s scent through the forest’s understory. The boy wandered within, certain she was following. He was right, she was close by, but just far enough for him to feel alone.

He was twelve when he decided to give his love to a girl who was the twin of his soul. He looked all the time for recognition in people’s eyes—man, woman, boy, girl. This was how he made friends. His criteria for connection was lofty. His friends were few and far between. So he learned to stand alone. A sapling.

He did not know in words why he chose the girl. He’d been walking, taking note of the birds in the sky when he was passing the dance studio, then he was no longer walking, because he was looking, looking at her who looked back and did not look away. Neither of them smiled, but felt the other was smiling, somewhere, invisibly inside.

The forest didn’t scare the girl. Its allure guided her as she stumbled across its floor where lower branches replaced barres and leaves choreographed her steps. Her body ached from dancing. But her head and chest buoyed with light. From the corner of her right eye appeared a tear, and when wiping it away, she witnessed a coyote running alone, too slow to be hunting. Sure enough, his mate ran not far behind, and chasing them, two small, yelping pups. “This is your home,” she thought. She bowed her head. Here in the forest, she felt protected, trusting the omens of nature. “I must be on a quest,” she clearly said to no one, excepting dirt, sky, coyotes, God.

The boy tripped on the root of a great redwood when he heard the coyote’s howl behind him. His stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten that day, and didn’t know when he would again. The pantry of his home held food for him to take but he didn’t allow himself to be so easily satiated. He pushed himself to his extremity in preparation for a battle he didn’t know would come. Spiritually, the boy felt strong; physically, he was but skin and sinew. Fifty push-ups a day.

Hundreds of bees buzzed above in the trees. Honey dripped from their highest branches. The sky appeared to be goldraining, trickling down his temple. His tongue sought out sweetness.

“Bold,” he thought, “This sort of beauty is bold.”

He hoped she was witnessing the honey rain too. He pushed deeper into the woods.

Not too high, perched an owl blankly staring down at the girl. Her mouth agape, she gave him a hello. He did not return a hoot, but he did offer a blink. Laughter jumped from her mouth. At six, she’d looked to owls as a symbol. He rustled his feathers but didn’t fly. She gazed a minute, just long enough to feel hope and change.

In front of the boy stretched a web, finely designed by the fat spider clung to its center. Her many legs plucked and preened. He halted his journey inches from destroying her work. The web was so beautiful and hard to see. He took a step back, followed by another, rewinding until he was not far from the girl, though he didn’t know this. A hot breeze tickled his ears and pressed his shirt to his back. He took a look around and turned left.

The light spilling from above was changing. Not darkening. Changing. The girl trundled along the path humming. Wild lavender lined the trail. In the trees hid hundreds of bee hives. Honey spilled down onto the crown of her head. Thickness ran down the sides of her face and curled around her ears. The path was purple, the sky was gold. The boy’s sneaker imprinted the moist dirt before her. Tears sprang to her eyes, not from emotion, but from the raw honey filling them. Weeping was her body cleansing itself of unexpected sweetness. She thought she saw a red ribbon fluttering on the branch of a blackberry bush, but didn’t stop to look because the thought of the ribbon was more pleasant than the proof.

The boy hoped. He hoped the girl sensed his change in route. He had no proof that she was there at all. Nothing to justify belief, which was belief. He could only feel for her. When he reached out with his eyes closed, he sensed her nearby. The sky was committing to change. The bugs in the dirt crawled forward, guided by instinct, propelled by will. The boy pitied the bugs. They were only bugs and had likely never seen the girl stretching in the window. But then he realized he should pity himself, to have seen such a person, and to be now wandering the forest.

“I could be alone right now,” he considered, “but then why don’t I feel I am?”

Such a long winding path, the lavender fell away. Feathered fox gloves took its place. The fluffy plant heads stroked the girl’s pinktighted calves. In her mouth she sucked on yellow wood sorrel. Lemon spread over her tongue. She chewed the plant as she met a fork in the road. To the right the trees hugged the path. Less flowered from the dirt, and she could tell eventually the way narrowed. Light fought through leaves. Shadows of leaves acknowledging above as below. To the left was a wider path, easier, showcasing the setting sun. There, grass filled mild hills and meadows. The possibility of more lavender further down that road. Her toes shifted to the right. A rabbit darted from the grass of the left’s meadow and sprinted toward the girl, who gasped and stepped out of the way. The rabbit did not falter in his leaping, and was soon gone, lost in the trees. She shifted her toes to the left. How she loved rabbits.

The boy’s legs complained. For the last hour, he’d walked with his eyes squinted near shut. He read once that blind people who regain sight often grow to hate seeing, and actually prefer blindness. He imagined what it might be like to think you are missing something essential your entire life only to discover what is essential for everyone else is not essential for you. Squinting reduced the forest into color and light, a mere implication of leaves and dirt. Squinting emphasized light’s presence, a way forward. Rays grew arms, which reached for him. A woodpecker’s hollow knock bounced throughout the glade. He wanted to see what color the light really was. He opened wide his eyes. The sun turned the sky soft pink, falling upon fields of swaying green grass. Overcome by this vision, he sat beneath a weeping willow. The breeze brought him a bready scent of jasmine rice tea.

Pink light made the girl feel like a moviestar. She looked for fairies in the grass. Every now and then a fast flitting something. There could have been bell peals. A smell like burning rice, or cinnamon, wafting in the air. She looked right in front of her, just above her, to the side of her, but never down. In the distance stood a weeping willow tree. She shivered with small doubts. Her feet carried her. She wished for an apple.

The boy saw the girl before she saw him. His life was like this. She traveled the path looking up, mouth moving. He took large gulping strides to reach her. Upon seeing him, she stopped walking. He stayed a stone’s throw away. Body heat wavered between them, sweat moistened their skin, and blood rouged in the right places. His eyes struck her again as bulbous and sad. “Those eyes need protecting,” she felt. She wanted to say just that but wisely stopped herself. Her lips stuck together when she parted them, which made her aware how parched she was. She licked her lips.

And when her small red tongue emerged from inside her mouth, the boy allowed his eyes to fall and follow. He was truly starved. Sensorial perception, and desire, to eat, to not be alone, to be alone with her, moved him so that he fell onto his side, right there, on the floor that was dirt.

The girl towered over him, framed by fading blue, and then she too fell on her side. His eyes tied to her. They watched one another surrender to this decision of dirt, of not knowing why, or who the other person really was. She reached a dusty hand to close his eyes and trace over his lids. Her fingertips roved his eyebrows, pressed down, pushed the skin of his forehead this way and that as if, yes, he were made of clay. She worked with intention for as long as she needed, and when the tension was gone, she withdrew.

At this loss, he looked. His no less dusty hand crossed the space between them. He nudged his head, indicating she close her eyes too, and proceeded to mirror the movements she made upon him. He felt her pulse beneath his fingertips. In a burst of inspiration, he traced her nose.

The girl was a plum he bit into.

She rose and took four steps towards him. He stepped back to make room. Tilting her head, she lifted only her eyes, and, looking bizarre, she fell forward. He caught her dead weight an inch from the ground. He held her just above the possibility of impact before placing her back on her feet. What laughter. Emboldened by her trust, he crouched and wrapped his arms round her legs, picking her up, holding her high, spinning her in a circle.

From this new height she saw how trees are only large if you are small. She whipped her hands around like a windmill, unable and unwanting to contain her joy. He put her down and straightened. She spun and ran towards the far side of the meadow, towards the now tall trees. He followed without hesitation. Her shrieks and yelps bounced off his ears. He whooped. He hollered. It’d been some time since he played like this.

They stood chests heaving at one another in the middle of a new section of wood with little light and plenty of good feeling. The girl raised a hand to stroke his cheek. Her hand slapped him. Laughter erupted from his throat. Pleased with his reaction, she grabbed for his hand and held it to her own cheek. Though he knew what she wanted, he would not slap her. She rolled her eyes but understood.

Inch by inch, the boy bowed. She saw the white hair downing the back of his tender neck. Love panged from her center. She surrendered to it, and bowed over to him. He shuffled closer until his chest and head were alongside hers. Bent over, looking at the dirt, they placed their weight against one another. They had to lean equally on each other, and were liable to topple over if any adjustment not mutually agreed upon were made.

Miraculously, the boy and girl found balance resting between standing and falling.

They stayed like that for some time.

Crickets sang under fallen leaves.

And when a night that was not dark fell,
only their bodies left the meadow.

____
Riley Quinn Scott lives in Los Angeles.