first published in Link
thousands upon thousands of bubbles float through the room, colliding,
popping on the heads of extravagantly decorated dancers, gusting gently
above them in the breeze but the men and women coiling around each other
in time to the rhythmic thump of the beat are too preoccupied to notice
some have their eyes shut others smile you take another glance around and
the mirrored walls only serve to magnify the decadence someone brushes
against your thigh, when you turn they are gone, you feel a breath on
your neck, now she is whispering into your ear words you can scarcely make
out wait did she say there is nitrous oxide in the air conditioning?
certainly the atmosphere is heavy, pregnant with expectation, pungent with
incense, devil weed, jasmine, other odours whose names hang insistently on
the tip of your tongue, just out of reach
suddenly in the corner of the room, there is a commotion animal yells of
pleasure or of pain, possibly both
peacock feathers are waving above the heads of the crowd and more bubbles
cascade down from the ceiling
you push towards where the noise is loudest sweaty bodies press against you
and light hands sweep across your back
the music is quicker now, the relentless drumming augmented with a tinkling
melody drilling its way into your brain
a brief silence, then the thump starts again, faster than ever
dancers catch themselves standing still, shake their heads with a glimmer of
a smile rotating their hips in outrageous gyrations, arms waving
up ahead is a mass of limbs, it's getting difficult to pass
reluctantly you can feel your inhibitions being shed you start to press
a little back against these lithe athletic bodies
on the left is a massive speaker, towering above you, twice your height,
pumping out the irresistibly funky beat out of the corner of your eye,
just for a second, you see it oozing the moo before your brain can begin
to process what that means, two elves have attached themselves to your
legs and begin to pump them up and down you want to fight but it seems so
much easier to give up, give in, then you think of the cardinal's warning
and with a wrench wipe the smile of your face.
the elves know they are beaten
for now
a trapeze artiste in a dazzling emerald jumpsuit swings down from nowhere and
whisks you off over the dancefloor the people below reach up and you trail
your fingers over their outstretched palms
free
you cannot help but smile, the music is inside you now orders seem from another
world one that is dead and forgotten here is life, energy, dance, movement
swinging across the room you notice the mood man standing over to one one side,
innocuous, wires coming out of his head his face is crinkled with concentration
sweat beads on his brow and glistens in the strobelight
a small frown and imperceptibly the music starts to change, its getting louder,
an addictive squiggle worming up from the mix, what's so wrong with a dance anyway?
a tribal tom tom beat thuds to your stomach you throb with the music
like a reflex
the crowd bobs rhythmically, a sea of heads connected by invisible nets
fishing for what?
