When I was younger the Elders preached about the tango of death and life, a tango we all end up failing. Bodies crumble away and the dance cannot be continued. Our souls fall and emerge into the afterlife. They say you can still dance after. They say you can go up, jump and twirl, swing and slide to the heavens. They say you can go down, fall and crash, clumsily tripping into the underworld. You can see this dance around you: the leaves falling in the autumn light, the grass after a long winter season. You can see the flowers blooming in the spring, and the hardy evergreen trees standing in solidarity for the friends they will see once the snow melts.
I questioned and nitpicked about the dance only to receive scoldings for my troubles. They saw it in two dimensions which isn't how our world works! Our world is filled with depth, meaning, light and wonder. I believed in the dance of life and death, but it couldn't be like that. The dance is fluid, so why wouldn’t the afterlife be too? Why can't you dance your way up and plummet down with a dive, astounding everyone who witnesses? Who says comets can’t be lucky souls given one last chance to fly down from above, to impress everyone with their beautiful colours and lights.
I say the whole world is an afterlife and a new beginning. Souls flow to and fro, dancing and sprinkling the world with showers of light and glimmers of hope. I say souls live around us.
And so eternity continues on like the winds stealing us away into the clutches of time. Souls dance in the fall as the dazzling leaves twirl around our feet. They plunge within the earth to the deepest caverns and find ancient souls and their old friends spinning thousands of years of yarn to each other. Spirits spiral into the crisp winter air down where the snow doesn't set but the colds rage. Tombs are banquets for families reuniting. The last of a generation finally gets to join their kin and see the beauty in the world once more.
This is how beautiful the world could be, but it's rejected by all besides the people who will tolerate my ramblings. Slowly, the wonder of the dance begins to grow stale. The Elders expire like rotten apples turning brown in the dirt, and belief fades. The dance is echoed solely by me as the weight of age tires my aching bones…
…..
..I suppose it's time to see how well I can dance.