. . .

I dance today

Today, in the light of the new moon, I dance. I tell myself that it matters not what happens on the morrow as long as I dance today, and, for a few minutes, at the very peak, when I whirl like the very dervish princes themselves, it is true. I am part of the dance, as has so often been said, and the dance is part of me.

It fades, of course. No matter what else passes, I will inevitably recall my laughter.

I was cruel. I can admit that, if only to myself. While turning the toad down was right and proper, laughing at him was cruel. He could not help being a toad. He had been raised to it by parents as toadlike as himself, and they by their toad parents, and so on back to the dawn of toad-time.

I did not want to wed him, to raise more toadkin, to slowly lose my dancer's strength as the futility of escape from the marital shackles eroded my will to dance. There were many that I would be glad to wed. Sharam had never been one of them.

He drew up his great girth slowly, with a certain dignity, if not grace. "I knew that would be your response," he informed me, "so I prepared a counterargument." A slow grin spread over his face. "Guards."

His bodyguards approached. "Mistress Lilla, here, has declined my offer. Go into her house and kill everyone there you find."

Without a word of protest, the guard marched toward the building. Tomma was inside, my cheerful sister. My parents were gone for the day, but there was Tomma to think of.

"Wait!" I cried.

"You reconsider?"

"Is there anything else I can offer you instead of my hand?"

He paused to consider. "Well..."

"Anything else. Anything at all."

"If you don't want to marry me, I will not take you by force. I am no ogre, after all." I snorted. "For your laughter, however, I am minded to take something you value away. Your sister, perhaps."

"My hand you will not have, and I will not give you in trade anything I do not own, and I surely do not own any other people."

"Well, then... your dance."

"What?"

"If you come before the truthsayer with me, and swear before the gods themselves that you will never dance again, then I will leave you in peace from that day onward."

My senses reeled. Surely, he could not be asking this of me.

"I can, and I do," he said, as if reading my mind. "That and your family are all you truly care about, and if I cannot have you, and you forbid me from taking your family, that leaves one thing. Swear before the truthsayer!"

"I..." I had to. "I will, Sharam. Tomorrow, when the sun is at its peak, I will so swear before the truthsayer, and the gods will strike me down if I ever break my oath."

Without a word, he beckoned to his guards and left.

Today is my dance, my final dance, then. Today, I dance the truth of life, bring it out, thrust it into the world, that all might see. You who watch my dance, know now the essence of existance in its purest form:

Life just sucks.