Dancing With Lady Freya

"Well I was walking down the street just having a think When a snake of a guy gave me an evil wink He shook me up, he took me by surprise He had a pickup truck and the devil's eyes He stared at me and I felt a change Time meant nothing, never would again"

“’Dance, dance, wherever you may be
For I am the Lord of the Dance cried he
And I'll live in you if you live in me
And I'll lead you all in the dance’
Cried he”

 

Many are surprised when they find themselves dancing in the great hall of the Demons' Court. For as long as a man can dream he'll believe he is far from hell, far from his vision of fiery suffocation within a dark void.

 

The truth makes the reality more interesting.

 

I have been in this hall since my first night's dreaming, and up until recently I danced without feeling. After all, when you're unaware that the music is even playing, how can you do any more than dance like a puppet on strings? Until a year ago I was living in this nightmarish state, virtually lobotomized in a black and white world. 

 

When I came here as a child, I entered the gates willingly. I knew no one, but I wanted to see the cosmic sights. In a Bohemian Rhapsody I spread my fiery wings and took flight from the curving mountain highways and higher above the trees, into the clouds and stars, and spiraled further into the void as the first eternal flame of my world. From afar I saw the illusive silhouette of a dragon, and as I flew by him I saw that his scales were as luminescent and vibrant as shell, but hidden beneath very dark scales. I flew toward him and he flew toward me, until we passed through each other. I felt his essence fill my soul with fire and water, earth and air, light and dark, and every force of fulfilling prophecy.

 

As the music player by my bed filled me I closed my eyes and drifted first to a cave hidden by a waterfall. A grey bonfire danced within, its reflection glittering the ceiling as the flames kept me warm. Within the dream I dreamed of glittering stars as I looked up from the mossy floor. While I gazed into the flames I began to see color, and suddenly felt inspired to dance around them. After a while my wild movements led me to dance further away. I sprinted and leaped straight through the flames entirely, and as my feet met the cold surface of rock and water, I saw the waterfall's current streaming down with a rushing, bubbling brew. Though the slippery surface was dangerous, I didn't slow down. I held my breath as I, with the force of an allegro, performed my first salchow. I fully turned more than once as I pierced the water with my movements. From the first moment my body touched flame until this moment the flames had burned around my body, but under the first rush of cool water they burned into my blood, and steam rose from my body in their places.

 

Moments later the water engulfed me in the depths below, as I had fallen into a lake with a splash. I continued to fall and twirl until the water's mass slowed me to a halt, and I swam to the surface. For the first time I saw trees and blades of grass, I heard a music that was so foreign and full of life that it overwhelmed me with joy. I kicked my body to shore, cupping my hands as I coordinated my arm strokes with my legs. For a while I looked around in the clearing of a large forest. I saw many large trees and noticed the clearing stretched further to my left. I ran forward toward a massive tree house, and met a woman who would later become one of my best friends. I watched as she met her match in this dream world long before meeting him. As I left I knew that somewhere there must've been a man for me, so I whistled, and a white stallion galloped to my side. Together we rode further into the clearing until his mane and tail were dyed a silky auburn. I leaped off of him, and with a whinny he seemed to nod his head in Namaste and trotted off.

 

I wandered for a while, and as the dream faded and the nightmare began, I glimpsed an outline of him: he had long hair and a white blouse and black cotton pants tucked loosely into his brown leather boots, the cuff folding over, though whether split in the front or the back I cannot remember. His silhouette faded as the dream ended, and I would not remember this paradise until nine years later...

 

A woman reeking of ash and cinnamon led me to a man whose essence hinted of cherry blossoms and incense. He broke my heart and tore me to shreds as I danced the meaningless dance. I awoke once more to a summer's night in the forest. Dragons slithered around the trees and a knight had touched my soul as I reached for him. Our energies lit up the blackened night into a brilliant white, and as I was engulfed in light I saw colors once more. The wind kissed my face as I clapped my hands and skipped and twirled, in this world and the next. I sang the song of Galadriel and eclipsed the moon, sending meteors flying from my body in beads of sweat toward the dreams of the sleeping.

 

In this state I met a man from another world. He introduced me to a world of traveling vampires in a black van, singing their bloody songs with ghosts and soul-suckers, angst-filled teens and the like. I drew myself into the black-haired man, who unknowingly loved his father as a lover until the moment of murder. In the last moments I took my father's black leather jacket with violet lining before taking the stage forever.

 

At the same time he also told me to meet a man with a silver, long beard and a monk of tragedy. He longed to rescue his sister, who had been imprisoned for witchcraft. I walked in his shadow as he raced toward his tower of promise, only to realize that all his efforts were in vain. I left him sobbing, wishing that I could have helped him, but knowing that his plane was too far for me to touch anymore. His tower had filled my heart with pain, and I ran for a tower of my own.

 

I found it in a land of bloody skies and wailing despair. The battlements surrounding me, the dizzying heights of the establishment were built with the mortar of blood and bones and skulls. Vines and dead roses choked the tower, and as I entered I was greeted by two hooded figures in bloody crimson. A man in a valentino suit led me to the highest room with costly trinkets, trappings and tapestries so rich it was suffocating and tacky. After seeing the masquerade of hooded wraiths in the chapel below I wandered to the roof, where the man in the valentino beckoned me to jump. But the woman from the tree house insisted that a dance would be a suitable barter for my freedom. She danced, but he had twisted me to my fall.

 

The darkness consumed me into a two-year void. I could hear Israfel, my Angel of Music, screaming and writhing in pain as his love; the great Gabriel was turned and transformed into the demon lord Bael. In this state Bael severed Israfel's six great wings from her body with one swift movement of his bare hands, and continued her torment with pouring a daily pail of salt on her wounds and down her throat. She lay there, dying within me, doomed to an eternity of insanity, blood flowing swiftly from between her shoulder blades. In her last breaths she sang to the hidden light, and as it filled her once more she touched Bael's arm. In that moment Bael felt the angelic light, and took her body from hell and into the world once more, feeling foreign to man, demon and angel alike.

 

For two years I remained sleeping, dancing the dance without knowing. I awoke to the sounds of a voice singing softly, "Bella Lugosi is dead." Then the pain of everyday life had me daydreaming of smoky rooms and drunken bliss... but it never was blissful. When the cellos beckoned me back with fiery vengeance, they mimicked the melody of an electric guitar, and the drums and feminine voices stirred awakening, preparing me for the repetitive slamming of piano keys and murderous, screeching voices. In my moment of desperation I escaped to a world full of electric guitars, drums, cymbals and high-pitched, fast-paced masculine voices. I sang along as I knew the words: "Should I talk slower like you're a retard...Get it? Get it?! GET IT? YOU JUST DON'T GET IT!" In comparison to the places I had been this light-hearted accusation of the world drifted and came down with the sickness of a violent world filled with drugs, blood and murder. I knew the Canoga Bloods as an outcast from the start, and to keep me sane I dreamed of a man gazing at the sunset of a valley filled with trees and a lake overflowing with the waters of life.

 

I shifted into a room of incense and cards, where the spicy moke filled my lungs and music intertwined with my soul. I became a cosmic scribe, drawing symbols I had never seen. Infinity was embraced by a woman in a valley of chalices and pentacles, swords and wands, stars and various others. Suddenly I was twirling in a passion, tapping and pointing my feet, clapping my hands and bowing with one arm behind my back, one hand raised sideways to meet another of the same stance. The raised hand reached outward and my arms' positions switched, my back straight as my feet sidestepped in a yin-yang outline.

 

I began to kick and jump in merriment until a fast and steady rhythm quickened my pace. I met two fools and heard one's voice louder, but in my shock of joy I stood still in my tracks. I wanted to give my passion to this magical man, show him the fiery light that burned deep within in its entire splendor, but I fell apart.

 

He tore me to shreds until I found a sleeping man. I was surprised that a man could sleep and seem to not dream in comparison to a man living alert and aware in a constant cosmic flame. As I learned more of him, I discovered he could dream but denied himself true life.

 

Again I danced with drone-like movements, until my soul longed to return to the world of incense and cards. Upon my arrival I was attracted to the magic flame once more, and ever since he's killed me and raised me, killed me and raised me with each transcending death to new vibrant, beautiful, soaring cosmic heights. I began to question his methods, and I challenged him, battled him, confronted him each chance I could with a smile on my face. The closer I seemed to get the further he pushed me to my fall, and each one seemed to make my descent harder to fly from. But I always recovered swiftly because my wings were getting stronger, and I always came back for more. I loved him and hated him, I wanted to kill him and kiss him, I wanted to laugh with him and at him as he teased and vexed me.

 

Two nights ago I questioned my allegiance to this apparent monster of a man. "What is his reason for pushing me away? Why does he teach me and why do I try so hard to learn his lessons?"

 

The questions led me to believe that his words were more in the literal sense than I had until this moment understood, and still could not fully comprehend. He seemed more and more a living sketch of Batman's Ledger Joker, and in the process of discovery I painted my questioning self into the role of Carey's Riddler. I wrote in my leather-bound, metal-studded, spiral-locked magic journal of him:

 

"I'm two steps ahead, but he's seven steps faster... the three of him play jokes on me; why is he a prankster: Is he the same infinite age as Veikko or older? Is he more than his devilish claims or is he just smarter... But rather than let me continue to guess, give me a riddle that tells the rest: Why so serious? If the Riddler was a woman and the Joker won her over, what character would the Joker face now?"

 

I drew figures, masks and question marks, suits and hats, knives, cards and pencils, until suddenly I saw the answer. I reached into a rich plane of merriment and masquerades, feathers and sequins, variety and color. Every black and white sketch seemed filled with color, and the first thing that came to mind was the notion of sending an asylum a present with a big, curly bow and a tag saying, "To Pandora: Open Me." I imagined the essence of insanity exploding behind me as I skip-danced and sang in my own harlequin garb. In that moment I decided that I ought not to be so hell-bent on any given direction, for it would seem that every alternate route would get me to the same place anyway. My only concern became the dance as we all clapped, jumped, jived and jigged to the music of the ages. I wanted only to sing and dance, and I felt that it was the essence of living.

 

I met aging bloodlines when they refused to attempt a meeting with themselves, their excuses for dreaming seriously ridiculous. I was reunited with my blood's mother in a way I had only dreamed of. I was dancing and singing, and I knew that the Time Warp had nothing on my moves. I was orbiting higher into the plane of infinite infinity, and the further I flew, the easier it was to adjust. The concept of a spirit's magic was no longer a concept, for in merely moving my hand I could feel the unforeseen forces shifting between my fingers.

 

In the hall of the Demons' Court I have discovered that there are so many motions, so much music left to know that I want to know it all. I want it all, I want it all, I WANT IT ALL... But as I know the motions will come when it is time, I will enjoy each moment for its true worth and continue to dance the dance as I see fit.

 

As a new day approaches I prepare to leave, taking only my soul's imagery, my heart's collection of songs and winged shoes. I want a deck of cards to play with the magic man, a deck solely made of jesters, jokers, fools and harlequins. I'm asking for a fedora, and when it comes time to buy new glasses I'll wear frames of character and fun, glittered with rhinestones and colored with sporadic stripes and shift into sun shades. Until then I go to dance, with or without you. Dear friend, learn the dance and learn it well. Learn to compete with the world's violent steps. Learn to live with a smile and a laugh and a skip in your step. 

 

For maybe there is more to dreams than an unconscious pattern of thought. Maybe there’s more to life than reality. Maybe the ones who imagine and dream are truly awake, and maybe the practically conscious are the ones asleep.

 

Why so serious? There is no justice in "just is".

 

The Dance is truly magic, and when we move with its flow we are gods of men.

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

The font change is meant to distract you at first. Each section has its own feeling: traditional serif text, for instance, represents someone who isn't "awake", while the bold and italics or change of style are meant to describe the emotion my character was feeling at the moment of each section.