Sizzling Color

Meara hits a button on the stereo.

She sits on the floor, crossed legged, head bowed, and waits.
            The music starts soft, and begins to build, an ocean wave in reverse. Meara breathes in time with the whisper of strings, the careful staccato of drums, the slow waltz of piano keys. Her head tilts upward so slowly it’s like it’s not happening at all, like a flower making the unhurried trek toward the sun. Her chest expands upward too, following the arch of her neck, the line of her throat, the point of her chin. She is a flower opening, a bird extending her feathered wings, a flag unfurling in a gentle breeze. Movement eases into movement, fluid and unbroken. The music seems to twine around her, lifting her gently.

The music abruptly shifts to a faster pace, or perhaps it is just the graceful unfurling of Meara’s limbs in one dramatic burst, shattering the achingly beautiful illusion of stillness, that makes it seems abrupt. Now she is on her feet, with her toes mapping a course on the polished hardwood floor. Where her toes lead, the rest of her follows. Limbs twist, legs extend, a back bends in a way that seems inhuman.

            Meara is climbing an invisible set of stairs, each movement of her body, each movement of the music, drawing her up, closer and closer to her idea of heaven. The strings soar, and she leaps like she has wings. The percussion is the rhythm she finds in her veins, in her feet, in her chest as she floats across the floor. She pirouettes as the piano pounds out a dizzying concerto.

   

         The instruments stack upon each other in a fevered frenzy—building, building—musical brick after musical brick constructing a tower leading higher and higher, to a midnight sky waiting for fireworks to paint it with sparkling and sizzling colors. And Meara explodes—she is the firework, the sparkling paint. They are one, she and the music. They are swirling and spinning and bursting apart in one final movement. She sheds herself in pieces on the hardwood floor, losing everything but the essential. The very heart of her, and the soul, is all she has left. All she needs. She is a glowing fire, a roaring inferno. She is ALIVE.

When the music softens once more, so does Meara. As it tapers away to silence she ends where she began—on the floor, her body curled, her head pillowed on her arm. She looks peaceful, at rest. But she only waits.

She waits for the next movement, the next swell of sweet sound.

She waits for another chance to feel alive.