Bolero

Once, in a time that is not our own, there was a place not known to anyone today. In this place the streets were as a patchwork of cobbles and stone, and tall sloping buildings lined the roads like a huge grey picket fence around a narrow rocky garden. Here, there were markets every week, where men with yellow teeth, wearing dirty aprons would sell black and white fish, and women with wiry hair would weave baskets in many different sizes, some with stiff looping handles, and others with loose, ample plaits.
It was a very cold place; Summer came with chilly showers that soaked the crops, and Winter would dress the streets in sheets of watery snow, nipping people’s feet and turning their toes a pale blue. There were no parks for the children to play in, and there were no musicians busking in the boulevards. Everyone spoke in hushed voices made quiet from the cold, and did not like long conversation but rather kept to themselves, standing like ghosts in their houses. They were slow when they walked through the streets, like they were wading through thick glue. They tired from the effort easily and so did not move very much, which meant the streets were often empty and the town would appear to be hiding under a blanket of sleep. Travellers would pass on by, perceiving it to be bare and without life. And, in a way, the travellers may have been right. The people of this town were not dead, yet it was difficult to believe they were alive. There was no colour besides that of rain or snow, no tunes or music to sing or dance to, there was no ink or paint to write with, nor was there any paper to write on. They did not have parties to celebrate the birthday of a child, nor did they gather to commemorate the passing of a grandmother. There were no sweets or cream to delight from, nor were there skipping ropes to play with. The people were neither merry nor sad simply because there was nothing in their little town to give them joy, just as there was nothing to cause them to grieve. They merely didn’t know how to feel.
Now, in this town there was a little church that stood like a tired shadow in the middle of the sleeping crowd of houses. Every morning light from the chilly sun would trickle white through the dusty windows, painting a hazy portrait on the slabs inside. The window was one of stained glass, a whisper of weary greens and greying pinks, washed thin by the slow pull of years come and gone. It was to this lonely church that one particular boy would walk everyday before and after school. Wrapped in a brown coat, he would tread the path winding like a tiny ribbon through the graveyard, pull the heavy door open and step inside the musty room. And as the evening came, the little boy would watch the shadows pour through the glass window and dance across the floor with the changing of the light, swaying on the stones.
Then, one day, the boy began to sway with them, spinning in slow lazy circles, and, as time went by, the spinning turned to skipping, and skipping turned to prancing, and he would move in time to the light beating of his feet on the floor, changing the rhythm when the shadows deepened or began to fade. And then the strangest sensation began to tickle his senses; he felt light like a breath on the morning breeze, warm inside himself despite the chill in the air, and the corners of his lips curled and reached upwards in what became a glowing smile. And thus was born the boy’s love of dance.
For days beyond number the boy would hop to the tiny church and there he composed routine after routine, weaving different sounds into his movements; drumming the pews, clapping his hands, and raising his voice in many luscious melodies. The little church, on account of the boy’s daily visits, began to shimmer with a brilliance previously unknown to it, the light shining brighter through the windows and the sound ringing clearer in the isles when the child was there.
Then, not a week later, the boy returned to his beloved church with the setting of the sun and came across a small snow-globe, sitting alone in the middle of the isle. The boy, having never seen such a trinket, was immediately drawn to its charming loveliness, to the miniature kingdom of soft sparkling gold and rich ambers, glittering like an ever-lasting sunset within its glass sphere. Upon lifting the globe, the boy found a tiny dial, which he turned curiously. In an instant the globe began to sing, chiming like a hundred tiny bells in the most beautiful song the he had ever heard. A mad longing touched the boys heart as he watched the tiny kingdom twinkle and shine – like the music was breathing life into the citadels little walls – and all at once he found himself dancing about the place, leaping up onto the pews with a grace he didn’t know he possessed, twirling and twisting until everything around him became as golden as the palace in the glass orb. The chime’s song shrouded him like a radiant aura, making his skin as flawless as white pearl and his hair dazzle as brightly as a summer sunrise, and it found its way onto his lips where it rang out as a glorious hymn. And when the sun finally dipped below the horizon, night found the church silent as a ghost, and neither the boy nor the snow-globe was to be seen.
Now, some believe it was this splendid stirring in the boy that called the snow-globe to appear, others believe it was the boy’s own unknowing creation. And to this day no one can be sure where the boy disappeared to, though it is said, in lullabies and fairytales, that he followed the song beyond the boarders of this realm to a world where the sunset is ever-lasting, and there he will dance forevermore.