Dread's Waltz

I couldn't handle this. I had no face. It wasn't just a metaphor. My first thought was that I might be a bad writer. For some reason that scared me far more than that I might just be a fictional character, so I ran out of the room screaming.

The Blog Without a Face, Part the Seventh

I found my way to O'Brien's bar, where I drowned my existential sorrows like a motherfucker. I remembered I had no actual mother, that she didn't exist either. So I drank more. I began noticing some odd details about the city that I'd never picked up on before.

For instance.

The bartender had no face either, nor did any of the patrons.

I was in a city of Slender men.

Everyone was a Slender man.

I was not the Slender man.

I was just a detective who couldn't even solve a simple murder case.

I drank until I was drunk enough to waltz out of there. My partner this time would be my dread. She led, I followed.

I imagined that I waltzed with a mirror twin, a Slender man not unlike me-- though this one was real. That is, I imagined he was real. Didn't make him really real. Not really. If anything, this Slender man was even less real than me. I could relate to that.

He slumped as he rose, his falls were catastrophic. His feet skidded along the floor step by step, he traced that imaginary box like it were all he was programmed to do... all he was written to do. When he led me into a twirl, he did so with the grace of a concept that had stood on the cliff of Being in the middle of a thunderstorm of words and origins, his unfeeling mind awake at the sensation that nothing prevented him from tumbling off the edge... and that nothing prevented him from walking away from that cliff unscathed. I saw in his faceless eyes that this Slender man in my head had the resolve only gained by those who stand at that cliff and trust their feet enough to dance.

I had invented the greatest waltz partner in existence. And he didn't even exist.

Did I truly exist? I had to have existed at least a little more than him. After all, I created him. What did he have that I didn't?

He'd learned to lead the waltz atop the cliff of existential anguish. He'd learned to lead the waltz of those who exist more than he does.

...

One, two, three.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
Four, five, six.
Four, five, six.
Four, five, six.
Step by step.
Step by step.
Step by step.
Left foot forward
Right traces the box
Left joins right
Right foot backward
Left traces the box
Right joins left. (Now add the rotation.)
Left foot forward (One)
Right traces the box (Two)
Left joins right (Three)
Right foot backward (Four)
Left traces the box (Five)
Right joins left (Six. Now rise and fall.)
Left foot forward (Fall, one)
Right traces the box (Rise, two)
Left joins right (Climax, three)
Right foot backward (Fall, four)
Left traces the box (Rise, five)
Right joins left (Climax, six.)
Left foot forward (Fall, lead your partner into the twirl, one)
Right traces the box (Rise, lead the twirl, two)
Left joins right (Climax, keep leading, three)
Right foot backward (Fall, nearly there, four)
Left traces the box (Rise, meet your partner after the twirl, five)
Right joins left (Climax, pose, six)
One, two, three.
Four, five, six.
Step by step.
Rise and fall.
One, two, three.
Four, five, six.
One, two, three.
Four, five, six.

That's how you do the waltz. That's how you live a life of ebb and flow-- you either lead or you twirl. Both are majestic. Both are nirvana. Both climax. You cannot have one without the other, even if you have to invent your partner.

Just keep tracing the box, one two three, four five six.

There is no real, there is no fictional.

When you step up to the edge of that cliff, you can finally be free to waltz.