We skittered across the floor, dancing to the music as it echoed up through the floorboards to the third story and back down again around each of the rooms and stairwells. It was a strange music but seemed to fit the hour and our feet.
Tired and happy, I rested in a pool of light near the middle of the room. Outside I could hear thunder and the rain pounding down onto the sills forgetfully left open. There was a scent, a lightly flavored scent of wet concrete mixed with grass and jasmine. We rested, eyes closed taking in the sweet smell and listening as the music continued. It’s blue and then it’s pale lavender. Sometimes a spike comes out, screaming bright red or gold.
The music is from the first floor, the place with the wooden box of sound. The box doesn’t always release it’s music. It is quiet until the man comes. he comes late at night and sits in front of it.
We used to watch from tiny crevices and from under the chairs. He would come, sit, close his eyes and touch the black and white parts, gently at first. The sound would start and it would build and swirl and twirl and go up and down and soft and quiet and the swirls more and more until you felt like you were no longer in your body.
Then it began. The dancing began. At first it was cautiously in small paths near the chair or sofa. Then we became brave and moved all around the room and on the ceilings and walls. The sounds we made with our dance fit into the music and made it more than it was. We could tell that he heard us. He liked it. When a bird, or passing car or any other noises entered, he would make it part of the music. We became part of the music.
It would go on for hours. Some of us would rest and some would not. Up at the top of the house, up in the very top, the sound of feet would echo down the front stairs and then down the back and all around the water outside and the thunder and the scents of wetness. They were all part of some grand and wonderful world that we were lucky enough to live in.
Tonight, I fell to the floor in exhaustion as the music melted all of the physical world away. The crash of thunder, bright flashes of lightening and scents of wetness all became one with me and the music.
