Pirouette [h.s.]

chapter 27

// We'll just sing a different melody

and dance a different rhythm. //

"So Will I" -Ben Platt

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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Dance is nothing but an endless series of 8. An infinity of counting to 8.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

My life is nothing but an endless series of 8. An infinity of counting to 8.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5-

My grandfather always used to tell me that sometimes we need a little bit of pain to remember that we're still alive; still human. He'd tell me that that's why sometimes you fall over for no reason. Or why sometimes a muscle would tighten up out of nowhere. It's the reason why we get sad over small, insignificant worries, or the reason sometimes the world feels too dark. All to remind us that we're here, living and breathing, on earth.

That was the reason why he'd sometimes groan in pain and press his hand against his upper abdomen.

He died of pancreatic cancer five months later.

"We need a little bit of pain to remember that we're still living, my Phee-Bee."

So, maybe pain isn't a reminder that we're living, but a reminder that we're dying. That our bodies can't sustain us. A warning. Sirens against the imminent downfall.

You fall over for no reason, not because it shows you that you're alive, but because your joints are weakening. Muscles tighten up out of nowhere because they're retaliating against movement. The world gets too dark because our minds can't keep working through the onslaught of emotions. You groan in pain and cover your abdomen because the cells inside your pancreas are mutating and multiplying and killing.

Pain isn't life, pain is death.

Deep, shadowy, lurking death. Roaming in hidden alleys and underneath bedposts, waiting to strike like a cobra at your weakest moment. Sneaking through the sand without a trace, roaming quietly through underbrush.

But, sometimes, the death isn't ultimate. It isn't all-consuming. There's no shadowed veil dropped over our eyes; no angelic fanfare and pretty, cloudy, expansive heaven. No freedom after pain. It's just...dirt. Skin and bones. Bodies resembling a sculpture of what once was; of who once was.

Alive on the outside, but dead on the inside.

Ashes in place of cells, murky blood sinking into empty pits where organs once resided, overflowing the spaces. Drowning inside yourself. Like trying to grip the pool ledge, but it's too slick, and your hands are too slippery, and everyone swimming around you is creating a whirlpool that drags you right back in. Spiraling and falling and treading water.

The pain envelops my every sense – all I can hear is pain, all I can see is pain. Touch, taste, feel – pain. As if I simply am pain. The human embodiment of pain.

I'm human, alright, grandpa. Sickeningly, heavily human.

I find Harry. Even through the blurry vision, I know it's Harry. He's on his feet, radiating green and green and green. But it doesn't feel like the mountains; it doesn't feel like home. It doesn't feel okay.

His eyes are supposed to make it all feel okay.

Why doesn't it all feel okay?

The spotlight shuts off, my sunshine stream nixed all in an instant. Without it, it's cold. The auditorium is cold, the stage floor is cold, my body is cold, Harry is cold. Winter on the mountains. Except I know I'm not in the mountains, because I don't feel home. I'm stranded in the Antarctic, the air numbing my fingertips and turning my nose so red it looks purple. Cold, deep down to my core. Submerged in freezing water, trying to break through the layer of ice to the surface. Hypothermia, gnawing at my limbs.