The Dancer's Fingers

It's like a mournful wail, one that echoes through the hallways and screams to the ceilings, but there's something different about this one. It's almost completely silent.

The Dancer’s Fingers

 

            He glanced around him nervously. The dingy hallways were sporadically lit with electric flashes from the lights above his head, and the low hum of murmured conversations made his ears tingle. Grimacing, he tried to focus on the words of the guard talking to him.

           

            “-not permitted to sneak money or anything to the prisoner. The visiting period is thirty minutes, and I’ll signal to you when there are five minutes remaining.” The guard’s monotonous voice reverberated dully to his toes. He had the feeling that he should be caring more, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to. “Here’s your identification back.”

 

            He reached out the gingerly grasp the small plastic card the guard was handing back. Flipping it over, he gazed at the man staring back at him. Dark brown hair lay cropped closely to his scalp, and there was a bored look in the dazed coffee eyes. Thick eyebrows were scrunched together, and his shoulders seemed extremely tense. It was strange, he thought, that everyone’s identification pictures came out so badly.

 

            “I’ll guide you down the hallway and stand next to you while you’re talking to the prisoner,” the guard continued, idly reaching over to stroke his baton. “Please remember that you will be viewing the prisoner in their cell by your own request and the prisoner’s agreement. Otherwise, I hope that you can find some kind of peace from this visit.” The last sentence seemed rehearsed, yet strangely sincere. The guard’s green eyes were earnest.

 

            He nodded dumbly. Tilting his head, the guard turned sharply on his heel and began to lead the way down the foreboding hallway, shoes making harsh taps against the cement floor. The man trailed behind miserably, occasionally casting suspicious glances over his shoulder, though there was really no need to worry.

           

            They reached the cell quickly. The man thought that it was a lie that time seemed to stretch on while you were nervous. Each second ticked by faster until an entire minute had passed. Now, five minutes had passed, and he stood, staring into the bare cell in front of him. The guard had already stepped back, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.  

           

            The figure hunched over in the center of the room was playing absently with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair, humming absently to herself. One foot tapped out an irregular rhythm that made the man feel strangely uncomfortable. Then, without turning, she spoke.

           

            “You’re here.”

 

            The mutterings of the other prisoners seemed to fade into the dissolving background as well as the dull gray uniform of the silent guard. Though he had drunk an unhealthy amount of water before coming, the man felt his throat go dry.

 

            “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

 

            The dry voice of the woman snapped him back to reality. Fidgeting with his fingers, the man cast a sideways look at the cell she was trapped in. A relatively well-working light, a thin mattress spread over the iron bars of an empty bed, crumpled blankets shoved into a corner, and a little door leading to a bathroom. That was all.

 

            “You look well,” he managed to get out. It sounded pathetic even to his own ears, and all of a sudden, he found himself wishing he had never come. “Are they treating you well?”

 

            “Extremely,” the woman nodded. “It’s a pity the food isn’t better, but what can you expect? This is a prison after all. Can’t really expect five star food here.” Tossing her head back, the woman snorted derisively as strands of greasy hair landed in her face. “I wouldn’t mind a shower; in fact, I would kill for one.”

           

            He cringed.

 

            The woman glanced at him carelessly. “Whoops, bad choice of words? Sorry,” she said, not sounding particularly repentant at all.

 

            “Don’t say that,” he said forcefully. “It’s bad enough that you’re in here, but do you need to keep reminding me of it? It already hurts, so why are you rubbing salt into the wound?”

 

            “I’ve heard that salt is supposed to help the wound heal by keeping it dry and letting the body recover faster,” she said matter-of-factly. “Even if it does hurt more, it helps you in the end.”

 

            He had a sudden fleeting feeling that there was some metaphorical significance in that statement, but his brain was too tired and his heart too hurt to figure that out at the moment.

 

            The sudden desire to lash out at something coursed through his veins, and he had to tighten his hand into a fist quickly. “Why did you do it?” he asked, watching the knuckles on his hand turn white.

 

            “If I answered that, would it make a difference?”

 

            “It might,” he said desperately. “It might help me… understand what you were thinking when you did it.”

 

            Soulless blue eyes stared at him, their depths an endless abyss he could and would sink into if he wasn’t careful. “No, it wouldn’t help you understand.”

 

            “How can you say that?” he shouted. The desperation and volume of his voice made the guard stiffen, but the man didn’t notice. “How can you act this nonchalant? Like you’ll be going to teach the kids tomorrow in your practice room with all the mirrors, and like this all never happened! Like you’ll just be dancing away instead of sitting in this cell! How can you do this to me?”

 

            The former dancer sighed and stretched her legs out. Sitting straight up, she bent forwards and latched onto her toes, staying in that position for a long time. Her fingers were clasped around the dirty toes, and the broken fingernails made small red indents on the calloused skin. Years of twirling on hardwood floor had made them this way, and years of bending and jumping had made her legs strong.

 

            “I didn’t want to do it,” she said quietly. “I don’t know if anyone expected this to happen. Especially not me.” Twisting her head, lifeless blue eyes flickered for a moment before shifting back into their dull stage. “I didn’t want to do this to you either.”

 

            The man just glared, unable to say a word as his fist clenched and unclenched at his side.

 

            “How are the kids?” she asked abruptly. “Doing well?”

 

            “I don’t see them anymore,” he said slowly. “They stopped coming after they heard the news. At first, some stopped by to ask where you were, but their parents stopped that pretty quickly.” The sarcasm and anger in his voice almost made the woman flinch.

 

            A hush settled over the two of them. The man with dark brown hair and coffee eyes stared at the back of the woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. For some reason, the man felt terribly lonely when he looked at that back. Extremely lonely.

 

            A low cough made his turn slowly. The guard, with a sympathetic look in those green eyes, held up a hand with all five fingers extended.

 

            Five minutes left.

 

            The man dipped his head to show that he understood. Shifting back to his original position, he closed his eyes for a long moment.

 

            “Will you turn to look at me?” he whispered, barely audible.

 

            The back stiffened. Slowly, ever so slowly, the muscles beneath the course shirt rippled, and the sound of rough fabric rasping against the skin was magnified a thousand times by the growing emptiness in that cell. For not the first time, blue eyes turned to meet coffee, and they seemed to reflect the cell’s condition.

 

            The silence between the two was tangible. They simply looked, watched, and stared at one another. Seconds ticked by. Minutes.

 

            Just as the guard was about to usher the male away, he shifted suddenly. He stepped closer to the iron bars and stretched his hand out. It was like a mournful wail, one that echoed through the hallways and screamed to the ceilings, but this one was different. It was almost completely silent.

 

            The blonde woman stared at the fingers for a moment. Staggering to her feet, she stumbled unsteadily to the bars, only to collapse in front of them. Raising her head, strands of hair fell into her glazed blue eyes, but those blue eyes reflected the look in the rich brown ones above her.

 

            Understanding.

 

            Never before had the dancer’s arm felt so heavy. Reaching for those fingers seemed to take the same amount of effort to push a pickup truck, and when they finally reached their destination, they lingered unsurely in the air before brushing lightly against the thicker digits of her male counterpart. The dancer’s fingers pressed themselves against the pads of the man’s, and there they stayed, suspended.

 

            Not even breathing could be heard.

 

            The man spoke. “I used to love you.”

 

            The answer was calm. “I know.”

 

           

 

           

Author's Note

Please give me all the feedback that you can. I want to know any comments at all, anything that could help me improve. Thank you for reading this story!

Reviews

[felioness]

Good dialog and setting. There are grammar and sentence structure issue but nothing good editing couldn't rectify . I was definitely pulled into the story and left wanting more. Awesome!