The bareness of those bones, the strands of hair that clung to the skull, or something else made them seem alive. The life in that beautiful exposed framework kept me watching long after the doors had closed behind the last patron. We were alone, the bones and I, with no audience. Everyone who had attended the show was left wondering how the puppeteer always managed to do it and why it was that no one ever appeared on stage to explain how it was done. No one could remember how they knew to arrive at the right time to watch the performance. They had not been encouraged to attend by advertisements. Outside the room there were no hawkers trying to draw in a crowd. The room contained no dusty, fascinating cabinet of curiosities to lure seekers of the unfamiliar. Nevertheless, everyone had known to show up timely and to seat themselves in an orderly fashion. I believed that I was like everyone else, unable to recall what had led me there. Except on this day, I alone decided to remain after the show ended. No one had been there to usher me out. It seemed there was no one in charge of making sure the place was emptied. Best of all, no one was there to keep me from finding out the truth behind these marvelous bones.
I locked the door. I felt compelled to do so. It was a door that opened by swinging inside the room. It had an old hasp with a padlock on the inside to keep the world out. The key had been left in the lock with a small chain dangling from it. After obeying my need to close and lock the door, I placed the key on a neat table that stood to the right of the room's only exit. The table was made of red oak and had an ancient groove worn in its top where the key had been dragged across the surface every evening. There was something satisfying to me about the texture of that groove as I explored it with my fingernail to make a scratching sound. Next, I turned out the dim stage lights. But, when I looked behind me in the darkness, I could still see those exquisite bones, phosphorescent as they were. The bones made no sound, no clicking or scraping. I watched them. They moved slowly as if in a dream and in such a natural, fluid way. Soon, I realized that I was moving with the bones. Or were they moving with me? We were either moving together or standing perfectly still facing one another. We reenacted the old broken mirror routine. I was Lucille Ball and the bones were Harpo Marx. We were flawless. We leapt, pirouetted, bowed, and frolicked. There was a hint of music around us. I found myself wishing everyone would come back to watch our Danse Macabre, to witness our graceful and painful flowing movements. We continued our ballet for what seemed to me to be several hours during which there were times when I forgot about the bones and lost myself in the joy of movement in the darkness. But whenever I remembered the bones and glanced over to watch them, they were there mimicking me with precision.
Once exhausted, I collapsed and seated myself on the floor with my legs splayed out in front of me. And so did the bones. "Enough," I barked with a short chuckle. The gleaming mandible open and closed in perfect unison with my speech. Growing annoyed, I waved my hand in a dismissive gesture. So did the bones. I lay down. So did the bones. As I remained there staring at the blackness of the ceiling above me, I thought about the bones and wondered if they were thinking of me. In the periphery, their soft luminescence persisted. I thought of those glow sticks people used at raves and on Hallowe'en. Before drifting off to sleep, I imagined the constellations that made their slow progress across the sky. Draco, Lyra, Cygnus, Pegasus were all drifting overhead without me.
I startled awake. I had been dreaming of wandering the stairs of a large house until faced with a filthy mirror where there was someone who looked like me but wasn't me--or was me but a me I didn't recognize. It's always disconcerting to look in a mirror in your dreams. I sat up. So did the bones. I began to wonder where I was. Why was no one else around? Where was the puppeteer for those cursed bones? The skull with its empty eye sockets seemed to be looking at me as I was looking at it. Angry, I decided I could run directly at those bones. I stood up. We stood up, I should say. We shook fists at one another. We jumped up and down in unison. We faced each other in a runner's stance as if at the starting line of a race. I thought to myself, "The advantage is mine," because the bones couldn't know when I would start. I could make a false start and throw off their equilibrium. They would be afraid and veer away from me. Yet, I hesitated. I don't know why. But maybe I didn't want it to end. Maybe I needed to believe in a sort of magic. This was a place where a set of bones assembled into a complete human skeleton could move and have a life of their own.
The room was warm. There was a throbbing sensation in the atmosphere all around us. A bead of sweat made a leisurely path down the center my back. I made an involuntary movement, a hypnagogic jerk. So did the bones. Enraged, I ran at full speed, crossing the expanse of the room more quickly than anticipated. And then it was over. We must have collided. I remember a sharp impact, the sound of broken glass, the flash of starlight, a deep moaning that seemed to come from everywhere at once and from within me.
We are still here in the same room. Together. Only, we seem to be on the other side of the mirror. The audience shows up every evening at the appointed time to watch us dance, to watch me dance. We--I--we dance and glow in the glimmering twilight while the crowd sits in awe. It was foolish of me to think it had ever been any other way.
*A found title from a review written by author Tiffany Midge about a book of poems by Sy Hoahwah called "Ancestral Demon of a Grieving Bride."