Dance Floor Demon

Anthia purchased a Ginger Ale at the service station, the fridge blasted her with cold air as she retrieved the chilled can, she opened it with urgency, her, thirst overtook her, she took three large gulps, it satisfied her dry mouth and replenished her constitution. She got back in the car, Gloria was in the driving seat, they would drive four hours away from Seattle. Anthia had wanted to go to Deep Cove in Vancouver, to see her cousin Betty, who had lived there for a little over 8 months. It was a strange wooded cottage, they had been renovating it. Betty was a dance teacher from LA. She had decided to move closer to her father’s family so that she could have children and also continue teaching dance locally.  She was 32, and had retired from performing. Gloria had welcomed a change in scenery, she asked Anthia if she had ever taken dance lessons. Anthia responded that she did not enjoy being a vision or spectacle to gaze upon, her cousin however was different, Betty had seen it as a way of striving for physical and mental perfection, Anthia was more athletic in ways sports that were typically male oriented.

In a nearby town, Burnaby, Vancouver, Glenn inhaled the foul night air, the corpses had been reduced to mouldy dust and water laden sacks of flesh, about to explode, falling apart upon touching, the bodies with his shovel, becoming part of the soil. He dug around the grave, the dirt had been absorbed into the remains, rich with micro-organism’s. The stretches laid there, they needed plastic to collect the decomposing flesh up and deliver them to the local morgue, they had not been there too long, possibly only six weeks and whilst they had changed, each needed an autopsy, they hadn’t all been women, they quite possibly had been a small family. When more evidence became available, the story mulled over in Glenn’s mind, the DNA and coronary report had been completed, in his office in the police station in Downtown Vancouver, he saw her, a picture of the dead adult woman and members of her small family had been identified, in the photo, she was a plain woman who worked at night. She was now a dead woman, poor family, all dead now, her family, brutally murdered by an intruder, they did not know the identification of the murderer. He asked a question about the victim’s sexual activity and someone yelled at Glenn and told him very sternly to have some respect, it was a woman detective in his office she sounded really offended, he knew his thinking was part of the problem, he had tried not to judge the victim on her sexuality. He knew it shouldn’t matter, she was dead. He thought to himself that he would try do his job better. When Glenn left his office, there was a commotion outside, the story released to the media, the culprit was unclear. She had been a dancer at night.

Anthia and Gloria had heard the news about the murders on the radio in the car, they found it unnerving and just so happened to be travelling in that direction. Gloria reflected on the tragedy she spoke about how you could never be sure how the world worked, even supposedly sane men of good standing in the world, could sometimes commit violence to groups of people and that crimes like these were sometimes impersonal and executed methodically, for political and religious reasons. She said “My father and his friends would meet in a quiet room, I wondered what they would talk about, they would drink and talk sometimes at the bowls club. It was some kind of discussion on war game and religion. The things he told me, he was disturbingly extreme, he would warn me against the “vanities of the world”, he was Roman Catholic and would often say that fame and the life of socialites were preoccupations were for piglets, “poor piglets” he would exclaim and that they just did what their hearts content, never thinking just indulging, creating mess wherever they went. He believed that hard work cured a lot of ailments in a person’s life and constitution, he also believed that the family was important as everyone outside this was dispensable, people were equal, but less protected without their families, immunity was an illusion, your personal integrity and a belief in god was the only thing that could save you. He was Catholic, Anthia said she was too, just in a different way. Her cousin Betty was different, she wasn’t allowed to see Betty growing up, because Betty’s father, was the strange brother of his dead wife he was morally liberal and possibly repugnant, Anthias father possessed a twinge of envy, that almost sobered Betty’s father at times. Gloria asked Anthia if she had felt trapped as a child, she exclaimed that she always had to some degree, and that she admire her cousin for dancing even though she was thoroughly unacceptable to my father, she can never win in my father’s eyes, to me she wins every day, because she has freedom, well she has to a certain extent.” Gloria, was yet to meet Betty, but she liked her a lot a lot from the sounds of her even though she might be considered as a bit of a controversy to Anthias father.

Gloria and Anthia arrived and enjoyed their time in Deep Cove, they stayed there with Betty and her husband for two days, it was August, the weather was mild and warm, they lived in amongst the forests of Douglas fir and Western Red Cedar, the dappled sunlight would shine through the branches of the trees and through to the clearing where their small home was located, their block was across the road from a lake. Betty had treated Anthia and Gloria as though they were home and mostly there was talk of self-sustainable living and maybe buying a sustainable farm, perhaps they could all buy a property, where all of them could live.

Back home and something unexpectedly tragic had happened, it was only four months later on a chilly October morning, when Gloria tells her husband, Alfred, a psychiatrist, that she feels sick, defiantly, she is aware her mental health has been declining since Anthia was unexpectedly struck by a car and died.

She finds it difficult process how quick this has been. Gloria woke up in the living room, after falling asleep to the television, she was feeling dazed, she went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror to find that she looked like a beast, her eyes looked strange and she looked like she had come straight from hell, she was not believing her eyes, how come this was happening and the mystery of it all was that she knew the same things had happened to Anthia, in fact Anthia had told Gloria before she died that she had a mild case of psychosis and that because of her religion, she saw herself and others as a beast sometimes, she has a problem with “worldliness” and “materialism”, she also told Gloria that she was upset about it because she was aware that extremism might breed an intention to kill her, or anyone else who could see they looked like beasts, she had been concerned about the story behind the murders they had heard on the radio, since then there had been a few more. I missed her, she was a bit of a free spirit besides her paranoia, it was only 2 months ago that she died, Anthia at 44 was still so young, she wondered whether her husband had come across such a psychosis before she was left with an awareness of an undercurrent to events that had not been there before. Gloria had become paranoid about murder and wasn’t sure she would recover, her world view had been tainted to the backdrop to the television and radio, telling about the causalities, random or not, she had been effected.  

Mustafa and the Dancer

My name is Henrich, I am a Materials Scientist specialising in Art, Settlement and Cultural studies. I usually work for the “Museo Del Prado” in Madrid, Spain, Planet Earth. The world was very different during the spaces inception, the museum was designed in 1785 by architect Juan de Villanueva, It is now the year 3205. 

May 3. I have been sent out on an external contract by a small, select group of international delegates, to investigate the material properties on a far-off planet and migration policy, so I can report back to several universities and science institutions to inform policy there. I arrive at the London Portal on May 3 and board the ship named the Ascension, it is 1188 feet, with a capacity of 5000 people, we are bound for Planet Lyra, it is my first evening, I have put everything away in my Cabin, thank fully I have a whole room to myself. Planet Lyra, is approximately one-month journey away, population 5 billion, it is twice the size of earth, there are about 500 passengers in my quarter of the ship.  I am lucky I have been given the economical resources to travel great distances and continue to study for work Nothing is wrong at home, the intergalactic world is inhabited by peaceful beings, this has finally occurred after a period of great surveillance and experimentation.

May 15. It has been an enormous day today.  There are luminous chandeliers in the dining room, that date back to the 1920’s an era that we cannot forget, there is dancing, I sit there and I watch the commotion in front of me. All are invited to play after dinner trivia. Mustafa, a deck hand and engineer, has recognised me from the past three evenings, he introduces himself and asks me my name, he then introduces his familiar companion Mabel, I have seen her around, I couldn’t help but notice her. Mabel asks in a cautious but warm manner, if they can join me, I answer in the affirmative, she works as a dancer and activities officer, I tell her that I work for a Museum in Spain back home on Earth. She seems eager to have a conversation, I notice her dainty wrists and general grace, her long brown hair is out falling around her elbows, she is small and slightly built with a placid nature, she later interjects “My brother is an artist” she asks about the possibility of a renaissance in art, I tell her that it’s a bit like opening pandoras box, art can be dangerous. She says that her brother is interested in the ancient myths and modern technology and modernising these old understanding. Mustafa speaks about the myths as well. “Ah, yes the legends” “I must say if you have never sailed to a far distant planet, remember that seas and skies, of vast lands, ruled by moons, they are crazy. One night on this very ship, I met a friend in the kitchen making himself a late night brew, after an eerie presence in his cabin and bunk below, had disturbed him, nobody was sleeping there, so he tells me that he’s feeling a bit spooked, we go to the top deck together to look at the stars and planet through the glass wall, it can be very disorientating, as everything is fairly new and we believe a lot of different things these days, my friend was preoccupied with thoughts of ESP, anyhow he hears some song with a harp, he keeps on saying, can you hear that? he is believing that in his mind some female presence is singing with a harp, the song is telepathically transmitted into his brain, he thinks it is odd and wonders if he actually created the song, he believes that he is a tad delirious as well, so as we go down past the diner and ballroom the sound gets louder, we hear the music being played and he figures out it’s the new music program taking place in the great hall and diner. There is a lot of folklore about sailor folk and damsels, he thought he was in for a wild ride with a mermaid of the skies, he was mortified. It is funny how some of those old legends from home have translated to new present-day settings, bless him, we still have the same fears. Entertainment on ships is a growing fad, people want to travel interspace, they want to be entertained so we provide.” It’s all very radical” he explained. I start to worry where this conversation is headed.

May 20. It has struck me, I did see a woman’s beautiful face, we had spent hours together and admittedly Mabel may well be my siren. I am keeping busy, I have readings from this new settlement “Lyra”, there is mostly information about the construction of homes, plant and rock life, fertility and plant reproduction. I get distracted and think about the stories of mermaids and the sailors that have plunged to their death, my mind wanted to spend some more time on the Greek myths about star sailors, Mabel is beautiful, they might be as beautiful as Mabel. I try again to refocus, I visualise that I am marching through time toward the illumination of humanity, along with the rest of the universe. Mabel had merely told Mustafa that she respected and admired my work. I am teased, however there will be no drowning amongst the stars, objectively, there was a humanity that was observable, yet there was something sensual about it that nagged at me. I begin reading the historical accounts of migration, imperialism from Earth to contextualise all I am learning about the new planets, we have bred out meat eating and murder on planet earth, there is no death, intergalactically capital punishment and war had been outlawed in 2500, we do not reproduce through sexual intercourse, we reproduce through IVF. Men, women, intersex and all living things from all nations and worlds, have equality.

June 4. This is a strange place to be, I first boarded the ship a month ago, I have finally arrived in Lyra, I am escorted to several rooms, before I am permitted to leave the port I take a medical exam and am identified, there are no lingering thoughts of Mabel, this is the end, there is a bigger picture, I have my opportunity here in Lyra, a new planet, this new place will bring new understandings, it seems to be something that keeps me balanced. The doctors take my bloods and I dutifully report my passion for Mabel to the Doctor, I take the medicine and I am never to think of Mabel again in an amorous light, she will be informed and given a similar treatment if she report passions, Mustafa must be talked to about his conduct, people whom administer this treatment have learned to do this in the kindest possible way, with empathy, this is the protocol, for all that are affected. I meet with the delegates and the inhabitants of Lyra, there is peace again, there is love of our neighbor, for each one of them in equal measure. I understand, I smile with resignation, something within chokes up, this passion will dissipate, I feel a sense of discomfort and I cut myself off from the infection of emotion