Eyes Wide Shut: 3

The rest of the day was uneventful. I couldn’t lose myself in the movements like I normally do. The exercises lacked the energy, and the fun they normally had. My mind was elsewhere. After a few minutes of spinning and jumping, I returned to the wall I had left my dancer’s corpse at. I stooped down to pick up the doll’s broken body, and stood with it still in my hand.

The remaining limbs rattled as I turned the figure over in my hands, feeling the cracks and damage inflicted upon it. I thought about how his arm flung out when I bore my thumb into his face, and how the black gunk oozed out of the hole. I also thought about how he shivered, lying in a pool of his own life fluid.

I walked to the exit vent, and lifted up the door, with the corpse in my other hand. I gingerly placed the body inside the vent, and slid the covering back down.

Out of sight, out of mind.

My enthusiasm for dancing having been extinguished completely, I did not wake the dancers. Nor did I attempt to dance again. Instead, I climbed up the wall my failures were sleeping on, and drifted off to sleep with the bag of bodies next to me. I napped.

I was at Circus Baby’s again. This time I was sitting in the audience, in a chair that fit just right. There was nobody else but me in the audience. There was no lighting, and there was no music. Only the squeaks and clicks of my dancers, who were performing on a stage that was too big for them alone.

There were five of them. Two girls, and three boys. One of the girls was lagging behind a little, though. The others stepped and spun just fine, but not her. She moved with an awkward, jerky gait that only intensified as the performance went on. Concerned, I stood up out of my chair, and walked toward the stage.

There was blood on her face. The mark was small, just barely noticeable. But I knew how to pick apart such things from a distance. It was their blood- dark and viscous. I yelled at them to stop dancing. But they didn’t. I slammed my hands on the stage, trying to get their attention. They all ignored me, and kept dancing. The injured girl kept dancing, and kept stumbling more and more.

After a few seconds, she collapsed. Only then did the remaining four stop dancing, as they gathered around her crumpled form. I reached out a hand, and pulled the girl toward me as the remaining four gathered around, solemnly. There was a hairline crack on the mask, where the blood came from. It was on the right side of the temple, from which darkness leaked out with a steady stream.

I rubbed some of the blood away, and pressed my finger against the crack, hoping to stem the flow. But it didn’t. Her mask was too soft, and when I pulled my finger away it had left an inky imprint on the mask. The imprint receded further into the head, and turned darker and darker until her face was a yawning chasm. Blood was draining into it, like a sinkhole. I plumbed the hole with my finger, but I couldn’t find a stopping point. When I tried to pull my finger away, it wouldn’t move. I could feel a tugging sensation as whatever was on the other side of that mask began pulling at the rest of me. Pulling me inward. I could feel something eating away at my finger.

The sharp pain woke me up. It felt like it was noon. Pulling myself from the wall, I crawled down toward the vent. I pushed myself forward on my hands, until I reached the actual covering. My hand moved under the covering, but then I stopped. What’s the point of playing with that dreadful thing again? I can move it later. Besides, I have lost time to make up on.

 I stood up, and moved toward my dancers’ pods. The pods were small and egg-shaped, about half a foot from top to bottom. The dancers were curled up inside the pods, kept in a state of inactivity by the webbing. The pod system is simple, yet effective at keeping them stored away.

I decided to make a more ambitious session out of today. I would open twenty pods- large enough audience to teach, yet small enough to ensure that the floor isn’t crowded. The twenty dancers would all be new, as they have the most to learn.

I dug into each pod one at a time, and scooped out their inhabitants, starting with the four from yesterday. They were always lethargic after immediate removal, so I rocked each dancer back and forth for about ten seconds before I placed them on the ground. It warmed up their muscles, enabling me to skip stretching exercises.

“Formation,” I said. They scuttled amongst each other to form a line, their feet squeaking on the floor.
“Stay still.” I checked the distance between each dancer with my fingers, moving them apart if they were too close to each other. When I was finished, I stood some feet away from them.
“Watch,” I commanded.

I bent my knees, and jumped. When I returned to the ground, my legs were crossed.

“That was an ‘assemble’. Do you see how my legs are crossed? Did you see how they came together in the air? ”
Of course, there would be no answer. No nays or yeas. Only silence. They had no real voice. Still, I enjoyed talking to them. I liked the company. They were better for conversation than Baby or Freddy ever were.

I jumped again, and crossed my legs once more.
“Watch closely.”
I did the assemble again.

“Now you try it,” I said to the line.

I heard the squeaks and scratches on the floor, as well as the pitiful stumbles as they fell over themselves. The clatter echoed throughout the room.

“Stop. Watch.”
I jumped, crossed my legs, and landed with them still crossed.

“Try it.”
The cacophony repeated again. Without announcement, I repeated the assemble.
“Try it again,” I said.
Yet again, they stumbled over each other, falling to the ground in a disorganized, chaotic mess. I felt something swell up inside me. It was such a simple movement. How could they be so incompetent? There was a sense of audacity in their failure. It was practically rebellious. They were acting like unruly children.

I approached the first dancer in the line, and moved down to the ground. I reached out, and grabbed it at the waist As I felt the quivering thing, my desire to twist it in half receded as swiftly as it had arrived. They were really just children. My clench eased, and I turned over my hand palm side up before unclasping the grip. The quivering gradually ceased, as its limbs became more relaxed. His. It was a he. He had a tanktop.

“Stay limp. I want you to make this movement,” I said while slowly crossing his right leg over his left. “Or you can do it this way, it doesn’t really matter”. I crossed his left over the right. “Just make one of those in the air.”

“Now you try it. Stand up, and jump.” He stood on where my palm would be if I had one. I bent my fingers at a 90 degree angle to keep him from falling off.

“Do it.”
He jumped, and landed with his legs crossed.
“Good. Again.”

The second time was still successful.

“Now show it to them,” I said. He crawled down my arm, and onto the ground. I followed suit, laying on the ground in front of the lineup, to assure myself he would succeed. “Pay attention,” I told the line.

He jumped for a few minutes, after which point I interrupted. I tested each of the remaining 19 dancers for the rest of the session, correcting their movements and ensuring that the steps were burned into their memory. They all succeeded. Connecting these movements with other techniques would be for a later day.
I told them to return to their pods, and thought about how much I enjoyed teaching. There was something about the sense of progress, and bettering these dancers. It was a saintly feeling.

Still, I longed to watch them perform myself. There’s always the parts room. I could check it there. I thought about sight as I returned to the vent, and toyed with the cavern-faced doll. My thumbnail fit into the hole, but only the thumbnail. I slid the dead thing back inside, and climbed to the ceiling for some sleep. I can always check it later.

After all, tomorrow is but another day.